ORATIO IX. AD DEUM.
A Cry for Mercy
The sinner addresses God directly, pleading for mercy.
Almighty God, merciful Father, and good Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.
The Petition for Grace and Holiness
A comprehensive request for forgiveness, spiritual virtues, and perseverance in obedience to God's will.
Grant me forgiveness of my sins, and the grace to beware of and overcome every snare, temptation, and harmful delight — to avoid perfectly, in mind and in deed, what you forbid, and to do and keep what you command: to believe, to hope, to love, to will what and how much you yourself know and will. Give me compunction born of humility and piety, discreet abstinence and mortification of the flesh, a mind pure, sober, and devout toward loving you, praying to you, praising you, and meditating on you — a mind directed, in every deed and thought that concerns you, toward true and effective knowledge of your commandments, love of them, readiness to fulfill them, and the power to carry them out. Always, Lord, let me press on to better things with humility, and never fall away.12
Surrender to God's Disposal
The pray-er asks not to be given over to self-will or human weakness, but to be governed entirely by God's merciful will.
Do not hand me over, Lord, to my own will, or to human ignorance or weakness, or to my own merits, or to anyone else at all — only to your merciful disposal.3 But you yourself, deal mercifully with me and with all my thoughts and deeds, in accordance with your good pleasure, so that your will alone may always be done by me, in me, and concerning me.4
Deliverance and Doxology
A final plea for deliverance from evil and entrance into eternal life, sealed with 'Amen.'
Free me from all evil, and lead me into eternal life. Amen.
Read the original Latin
Omnipotens Deus, et misericors Pater, et bone Domine, miserere mihi peccatori. Da mihi veniam peccatorum meorum, cavere et vincere omnes insidias, et tentationes et delectationes noxias, perfecte mente et actu vitare quae prohibes, facere et servare quae jubes, credere, sperare, amare, velle quod et quantum et tu scis et vis, compunctionem humilitatis et pietatis, discretam abstinentiam et carnis mortificationem, ad te amandum, orandum, laudandum, meditandum, ad omnem secundum te actum et cogitatum, puram, sobriam, devotam mentem, veracem et efficacem mandatorum tuorum notitiam, dilectionem, facilitatem et effectum, semper, Domine, ad meliora cum humilitate proficere et nunquam deficere. Ne committas me, Domine, voluntati meae, nec humanae ignorantiae, aut infirmitati, neque meis meritis, nec ulli alii quam tuae piae dispositioni. Sed tu ipse clementer dispone me et omnes cogitatus et actus meos in beneplacito tuo, ut fiat a me, et in me et de me, tua semper sola voluntas. Libera me ab omni malo, et perduc me in vitam aeternam. Amen.
Notes
- 1 ↩compunctionem rendered as 'compunction born of' to preserve the devotional sense of grace-pierced sorrow for sin, per lexeme policy.
- 2 ↩facilitatem rendered as 'readiness' to capture ease of obedience without reducing it to mere convenience.
- 3 ↩tuae piae dispositioni rendered as 'your merciful disposal' to capture the sense of God's providential ordering; 'disposal' here means sovereign arrangement, not dismissal.
- 4 ↩beneplacito rendered as 'good pleasure' to preserve the theological sense of God's sovereign will and pleasure.
Orationes sive Meditationes — Collection for Princess Adeliza of Normandy companion
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