My Dear Lord,
I depend upon you completely,
please help me stop depending on other things.
You are my all, and you overrule all
and delight in me.
You are the foundation of goodness,
how can I distrust you?
how can I be anxious about what happens to me?
In comparison to your preciousness
the world and all its enjoyments are
infinitely poor:
I value the approval of people no more than pebbles.
In the midst of the good things I receive from you
may I never begin to feel that I deserve them.
May I love you, the Giver, in all of your gifts,
not forgetting that my greatest danger
arises from my advantages.
Produce in me a despairing of self that will
make Jesus precious to me,
delightful in all his roles
pleasurable in all his ways,
and may I love his commands
as well as his promises.
Help me to discern between true and false love,
the one consisting of supreme love to you,
the other not,
the former uniting your glory and man's happiness
that they may become one and the same,
the latter dividing and separating them both,
seeking my happiness while ignoring your glory.
Teach me that genuine love is different
from what comes from reason alone
or from the motive of self-interest,
that such love is a pleasing passion giving
joy to the mind that possesses it.
So, please help me to see the difference
between the genuine and the false
and to rest in you who are all love.
