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Prayer for Constancy
Lord our God, give your children ready perseverance in loving you. You know all too well what we are like: moved by your goodness when it comes to us unexpectedly, dismayed by your severity when it reveals itself to us with its demands. When we live through happy or hard days, we think of you, seeing what comes from you; but in the monotony of every day we grow lukewarm, we forget you, we keep you far from our thoughts and from our action, as if we needed you only on the eventful days, as if we wanted to have you at our disposal. We beg you, change this, let us turn back while there is time, act decisively, tear out our tepidity, replace it with fire or cold or with both at once, only, allow your Spirit to blow in us. Destroy everything that is not yours, and let us think no thought whose center is not you, so that by this destruction we are compelled to a livelier love. We do not demand of this love that it be painful or delightful, only that it be yours, forevermore. Lord, give us the grace to offer you again and again what you have given us. Only in this way will we unprofitable servants not remain fruitless. Bless your love in us, so that it may yield the fruits that you desire. Amen.
With St. Ignatius of Loyola we pray:
(The Suscipe Prayer)
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.
You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be.
Father, we ask that through the intercession of Adrienne von Speyr those called to live Christian discipleship might do so with ever-greater fidelity. Grant that, day-by-day, your love might burn and your Spirit might blow more intensely within us. In the presence of the Mother of your Son, your angels and saints, and the whole heavenly court, we beg this grace in the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.