Prayer During a Time of Suffering

by Saint Thomas More

Good Lord, give me the grace, in all my fear and agony, to have recourse to that great fear and wonderful agony that Thou, my sweet Savior, hadst at the Mount of Olivet before Thy most bitter passion, and in the meditation thereof, to conceive ghostly comfort and consolation profitable for my soul. Almighty God, take from me all vainglorious minds, all appetites of mine own praise, all envy, covetise, gluttony, sloth, and lechery, all wrathful affections, all appetite of revenging, all desire or delight of other folks’ harm, all pleasure in provoking any person to wrath and anger, all delight of exprobation or insultation against any persons in their affliction and calamity. And give me, good Lord, a humble, lowly, quiet, peaceable, patient, charitable, kind, tender, and pitiful mind, with all my works, and all my words, and all my thoughts, to have a taste of Thy Holy, Blessed Spirit. Give me, good Lord, a full faith, a firm hope, and a fervent charity, a love to the good Lord incomparable above the love to myself; and that I love nothing to Thy displeasure, but everything in an order to Thee. Take from me, good Lord, this lukewarm fashion, or rather keycold manner of meditation, and this dullness in praying unto Thee. And give me warmth, delight and quickness in thinking upon Thee. And give me Thy grace to long for Thy holy sacraments, and especially to rejoice in the presence of Thy very blessed body, sweet Savior Christ, in the holy sacrament of the altar, and duly to thank Thee for Thy gracious visitation therewith, and at that high memorial, with tender compassion, to remember and consider Thy most bitter passion. Amen.