Our God, all-powerful, wise and loving, desiring the good of your creatures—behold beneath my egoism and sinfulness, a flickering desire to love You with all my being, and to serve You in others to the highest degree that You can achieve through me.
I plead for the reality of Your love in me. My knowledge of love is not love. Emotion is not love nor are some supposed manifestations of it, although they may be expressions of love. Love is You and comes from You, and only aspects of its effects are discernible.
Even where my limitations dim my ability to love, please give the actuality of Your love to others through me.
Pity the hurt that I have caused anyone from my earliest years, even where I am unaware of it. Pity the times that I fail to see You in another and where through indifference, fear or ignorance, I withhold gifts You wished for others.
Pity the times that I simply tolerate anyone, and the times I do not treasure another’s thought, feeling, gift or time. Pity where my interpretations thwart Your will and result in harm or loss to others.
Pity the times I act according to my interests without reference to another’s true needs. Heal my blindness to the unique loveliness and value of each person however difficult or unfriendly they seem.
Pity the good I leave undone. Pity that, where I do not shine with Your love, others do not see God illumined in the particular way I am fashioned to allow. In sorrow for my omission and offence towards others, I humbly ask forgiveness. For everyone who has suffered because of me, and for all who have hurt me, I ask great healing, blessing and recompense beyond all human reckoning, out of the infinite riches of Your love.
