ORATIO XI. AD DEUM.
A Cry for Mercy
The sinner appeals to God for mercy and pardon, echoing the tax collector's prayer.
Lord God, almighty Father, and good God Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner, and grant me pardon for my sins.✦
Guard Against Temptation
The petitioner asks for protection from every snare, temptation, and harmful delight, and for the strength to obey and love God perfectly.
Grant me to be on guard against and to conquer every snare of my enemies, and every temptation and harmful delight, so that I may perfectly avoid in mind and action what you forbid me to do, and so that I may serve you and love you as much as you know and wish, and live according to your will.
Gifts of the Interior Life
The prayer asks for compunction, humility, abstinence, mortification, and a right interior posture toward God in prayer, meditation, and praise.
Grant me, Lord, compunction of heart, the exercise of piety, the virtue of humility, discreet abstinence, mortification of the flesh, a right approach to you in prayer and love, in meditation and praise, for every action according to you, a perfect thought, sober and truthful, and a vigorous and effective mind.1
Love and Perseverance in Obedience
The petitioner requests knowledge of and delight in God's commandments, ease in keeping them, and unceasing progress in humility.
Grant me, Lord, knowledge of your commandments and love and delight in them, ease and effectiveness in keeping them, and unceasing perseverance toward better things, so that I may advance with humility and never fall away.
Surrender to God's Disposition
The prayer entrusts itself entirely to God's own disposition, renouncing reliance on human merit or any other ground.
Do not abandon me, Lord, not to human weakness or ignorance, nor to my own merits, nor to anything else at all, except to your own disposition.
Your Will Be Done
The petitioner asks that God mercifully arrange all thoughts and deeds according to the divine will, echoing the Lord's Prayer.
You, Lord, mercifully arrange me and all my thoughts and deeds according to your good pleasure, so that your will alone may always be done by me, and in me, and concerning me.✦
Deliverance and Joy in God
The prayer asks for deliverance from evil and the gift of God himself as the source of eternal joy.
Deliver me, Lord, from every evil, and grant me every good — that is, you yourself — so that my joy may be in you, who are eternal life.✦
Amen
The prayer concludes with a simple and solemn 'Amen.'
Amen.
Read the original Latin
Domine Deus, omnipotens Pater, et bone Deus Jesu, miserere mihi peccatori, et da mihi veniam peccatorum meorum. Da mihi cavere et vincere omnes insidias inimicorum meorum, et tentationes et delectationes noxias, perfecte mente et actu vitare quae prohibes facere, servire tibi et amare te quantum scis et vis, et vivere secundum tuam voluntatem. Da mihi, Domine, compunctionem cordis, exercitium pietatis, virtutem humilitatis, discretam abstinentiam, carnis mortificationem, rectum introitum ad te orandum et amandum, meditandum et laudandum ad omnem secundum te actum, cogitationem perfectam, sobriam et veracem, et mentem strenuam et efficacem. Da mihi, Domine, mandatorum tuorum notitiam et dilectionem et delectationem, facilitatem et effectum in custodiendis illis, et jugem perseverantiam ad meliora, cum humilitate proficere et nunquam deficere. Ne derelinquas me, Domine, nec humanae infirmitati vel ignorantiae, nec meritis meis, nec ulli alii rei, nisi tuae dispositioni. Tu, Domine, clementer dispone me, et omnes cogitatus et actus meos in beneplacito tuo, ut fiat a me, et in me et de me tua solum semper voluntas. Libera me, Domine, ab omni malo, et da mihi omne bonum, id est te ipsum, ut gaudium meum sit in te, qui es vita aeterna. Amen.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Luke.18.13 — But the tax collector, standing far off, was not even willing to lift his eyes to heaven, but kept beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner.'
- ↩Matt.6.10 — Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
- ↩John.17.15 — I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.
Notes
- 1 ↩compunctionem cordis: 'compunction of heart' retained as a technical devotional term per lexeme policy; denotes sorrow for sin pierced by grace, not mere guilt.
Orationes sive Meditationes — Collection for Princess Adeliza of Normandy companion
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