Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:23 — 3.7MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Android | Email | RSS
Prayer for Renewal of Spirit
Dear Lord, you see how we get used to everything.
It was with joy that we once took up your service, firmly resolved to be totally dedicated to you.
But because every day brings nearly the same thing over and over again, it seems that our prayer has contracted.
We limit it to ourselves and to what we deem necessary for the task we have to perform right now, so that in the end our prayer has been reduced to the dimensions of this small chore.
We beseech you now, do not permit us to become so narrow.
Give us new breadth, give us once more something of the elastic vigor of Mary’s Yes, which is ready for the entire divine will, which always remains as wide as it was when it was first pronounced, and which is ratified anew every day.
Whether Mary rejoiced or was afraid or hoped, whether she was tired from her daily round of duties or was being led to the Cross:
she always stood before you as if for the first time, was always obedient to whatever you said, always hoped to be allowed to do all that you wished, always saw behind every one of your wishes, even the most insignificant, the great, unlimited will of the Father, which you, her Son, were fulfilling.
Grant that we may contemplate and affirm you and your Church, and carry out the requirements of our mission in an ever new spirit, the spirit of the Mother’s Yes.
Grant also that we may pray for this spirit.
We know that wherever you send your Spirit, you yourself are present.
The Spirit brought you to your Mother, the Spirit enabled her to carry you, to give birth to you, to surround you with care.
And because you recognized your own Spirit in her, you formed your Church from her.
And since you have called us into this Church: make of every one of us a place where the Spirit of your Church blows, where, together with you and with the help of the Holy Spirit, the will of your Father, of our Father, is done, so that we may dare to pray in earnest:
“You, our Father, who art in heaven…” 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.
