Nothing here?
Plea for mercy
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.
Forgive the hurt that I have caused anyone from my earliest years, even where I am unaware of it.
Forgive the times that I fail to see You in another and where through indifference, fear or ignorance, I withhold gifts You wished for others.
Forgive the times that I simply tolerate anyone, and the times I do not treasure another’s thought, feeling, gift or time.
Forgive and heal where my interpretations thwart Your will and result in harm or loss to others.
Forgive the times I act according to my interests without reference to another’s true needs.
Forgive my blindness to the unique loveliness and value of each person however difficult or unfriendly they seem.
Forgive the good I leave undone. Forgive 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.
Except for Your compassion, my prayers for others and myself remain just words and hopes…my inspired intentions, just passing thoughts…my will to serve, just empty dreams…my responsibilities to others, simply debts I cannot pay. Without Your merciful bounty, I have not faith and selflessness enough to allow You to flood through me to others. My failures bring me humbly and trustingly to You. Behold and pity my self-reproach and humiliation, yet conversely, my pride. Behold the grief of my offences, the ashes of my pleasures, the disquiet of my mind, the impatience of my imagination, the hunger and thirst of my spirit and the bondage of my heart.
Have pity on my foolish struggles when I should seek Your guidance and on my laboured evaluations where I should trust Your inspiration. Have pity when I fail to listen in silence to Your patient voice or to heed You in my conscience’s insistent whisper. Pity my betrayal of You and others with activity instead of peace and prayer, or with passivity where You require loving action.
Pity what suffering I store for myself by not doing justice to Your gifts through me. Pity that these, and my knowledge of Your teachings and salvation, deepen my spiritual peril if I do not love and serve as You intend.
Pity my fear of dying to self—this shrinking from hardship and duty, from humiliation and rejection accorded those who follow You. Such reluctance only brings the moans of my heart—for my spirit desires to give all, to do Your will, to draw many souls to You.
Have compassion that my mind cannot encompass more than a faint shadow of our God, of His truth, of His love, of eternal joy—that all is mystery! Sustain my faith in this darkness of my understanding. Have mercy that I cannot stay awake to comfort, in His anguish, Him who died for us. Have mercy that I fail to love with my whole being Him whose sacrifice is the only source of redemption and forgiveness. By this failure, I may have neglected other souls who require my love and support, penance and prayer for their healing, conversion or redemption.
Forgive that my sin and alienation required crucifixion of Him who became for me ‘a living wound’. Have pity that even now I only dimly understand what he has done for each person and me. Have pity, or His sacrifice is lost to me and I die, along perhaps with others whom You would draw to Yourself through me. Allow me to wipe away His sweat, blood, and tears, and bear His cross, bringing joy to Him with my gratitude and love. Let my hand in His be song in His heart!
God, have mercy on Your Son who continues to suffer through His people. His wounds are healed, and His blood no longer flows when all persons are united with Him. Let me learn of Him and obey in all things. Seize my out-stretched arms, drawing me through Jesus to You. Transform me irrevocably with Your love and flooding grace, into Your channel to others.
God, I entreat You, please speak Yourself in me, mean Your meaning in me; love Your love in me—of others and Yourself. Fulfil Your promises and commands in my life. Exemplify Your beatitudes in me. Bear Your fruits of service and worship in me. Serve Your kingdom and flood Your life through me even in my unworthiness. Please, eternally, delight Yourself in me!
