week 52: Clare of Assisi

Now, go calmly in peace, for you have a good escort. He who created you has sent the Holy Spirit who guards you as a mother does tenderly love her child. Amen.

week 51: Blaise Pascal

O Lord, let me not henceforth desire health or life except to spend them for thee and with thee. Thou alone knowest what is good for me; do therefore what seemeth thee best. Give to me or take from me; conform my will to thine; and grant that, with humble and perfect submission, and in holy confidence, I may receive the orders of thine eternal providence; and may equally adore all that comes to me from thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

week 50: Saint Jerome

O Lord, you have given us your word for a light to shine upon our path; grant us so to meditate on that word, and follow its teaching, that we may find in it the light that shines more and more until the perfect day.

week 49: Jean-Pierre de Caussade

Lord, may your kingdom come into my heart
to sanctify me, nourish me and purify me.
How insignificant is the passing moment to the eye without faith!
But how important each moment is to the eye enlightened by faith!
How can we deem insignificant anything which has been caused by you?
Every moment and every event is guided by you, and so contains your infinite greatness.

So, Lord, I glorify you in everything that happens to me.
In whatever manner you make me live and die, I am content.
Events please me for their own sake, regardless of their consequences,
because your action lies behind them.
Everything is heaven to me, because all my moments manifest your love.

week 48: Christina Rossetti

O God the Holy Ghost

   who art light unto thine elect,

Evermore enlighten us.

Thou who art fire of love,

Evermore enkindle us

Thou who art Lord and giver of life,

Evermore live in us.

Thou who bestowest sevenfold grace,

Evermore replenish us.

As the wind is thy symbol,

So forward our goings.

As the dov,e

So launch us heavenwards.

As water,

So purify our spirits.

As a cloud,

So abate our temptations.

As dew,

So revive our languor.

As fire,

So purge out our dross.

week 47: John Donne

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heaven to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity; in the habitations of thy glory and dominion, world without end.

week 46: William Law

O God, in whom nothing can live but as it lives in love, grant us the spirit of love which does not want to be rewarded, honoured or esteemed, but only to become the blessing and happiness of everything that wants it; love which is the very joy of life, and thine own goodness and truth within the soul; who thyself art Love, and by love our Redeemer, from eternity to eternity.

week 45: C.S. Lewis

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on thy behalf,
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.
Thoughts are but coins.  Let me not trust, instead
Of thee, their thin-worn image of thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of thee,
O thou fair silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle's eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

week 44: Mechthild of Magdeburg

Greetings to you, living God.
You are mine before all things.
I am endlessly glad
That I can speak to you without guile.
When my enemies pursue me,
I flee to your arms
Where I can complain about my suffering
While you incline yourself to me.
You well know how you can pluck
The strings of my soul.
Ah, begin at once
That you may be ever blessed.
I am a low-born bride;
And yet you are my lawful husband.
I shall ever rejoice about this.
Remember how well you can caress
The pure soul on your lap
And do it, Lord, to me now,
Even though I am not worthy of you.
Ah, Lord, draw me up to you.
Then I shall be pure and radiant.
If you abandon me to myself,
I shall remain dark and sluggish.

week 43: Meister Eckhart

Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.

week 42: Frank Laubach

Christ Jesus, we thank You that at last the nations begin to see that every unfortunate one is a neighbor. We see it, Lord; help us to do it. Save us from self-firstness–and begin in me. We pray in Your name. Amen.

week 41: Evelyn Underhill

Prayer is our soul's response to God's immense attraction, and this response begins in the activity of the will.  Will and desire are the heart of the mental life turned to God.  This is not mere pious reverie.  As Saint Teresa says, at the beginning of our prayer life, we have to draw the living water out of the well.  It is hard work.  We can't leave it to chance.  God requires our communion with Him to be an act, an effort, and to cost something.  Think of the trouble we give ourselves to get time to be with those whom we love.  Is it not ever so much more important to make a way to commune with God?

week 40: Therese of Lisieux

My life is an instant
an hour which passes by;
My life is a moment
which I have no power to stay.
You know, O my God,
That to love you here on earth,
I have only today.

week 39: Gerard Manley Hopkins

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

week 38: John Chrysostom

Prayer is the light of the soul, giving us true knowledge of God. It is a link mediating between God and man. By prayer the soul is borne up to heaven and in a marvelous way embraces the Lord. This meeting is like that of an infant crying on its mother, and seeking the best of milk. The soul longs for its own needs and what it receives is better than anything to be seen in the world.

week 37: John Wesley

O Thou, who dwells in the light which no human being can approach, in whose 
presence there is no night, in the light of whose face is perpetual day: I your 
sinful servant, whom you have cared for this night and who will live today by 
your strength; I bless and glorify you for the protection of your almighty 
providence!  I pray humbly that this day and all my days may be completely 
devoted to your service. 

week 36: Bernard of Clairvaux

Oh, how good and pleasant a thing it is to dwell in the heart of Jesus!  
Who is there that does not love a heart so wounded?  
Who can refuse a return of love to a heart so loving?

week 35: Basil of Caesarea

Steer the ship of my life, Lord, to your quiet harbor, where I can be safe from 
the storms of sin and conflict. Show me the course I should take. Renew in me 
the gift of discernment, so that I can see the right direction in which I should 
go. And give me the strength and the courage to choose the right course, even 
when the sea is rough and the waves are high, knowing that through enduring 
hardship and danger in your name we shall find comfort and peace.

week 34: Edith Stein

Who are You, sweet Light, that fills me
And illumines the darkness of my heart?
You lead me like a mother's hand,
And should You let go of me,
I would not know how to take another step.
You are the space
That embraces my being and buries it in Yourself.
Away from You it sinks into the abyss
Of nothingness, from which You raised it to the light.
You, nearer to me than I to myself
And more interior than my most interior
And still impalpable and intangible
And beyond any name:
Holy Spirit eternal love!

week 33: Brother Lawrence

For my part I keep myself retired with Him in the depth of center of my soul as much as I can; and while I am so with Him I fear nothing;