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Best-Loved Prayers and Words of Wisdom
Abandonment to God
Charles de Foucauld was born into an aristocratic family in France and lost his faith at a young age. In his twenties he had a powerful religious experience and from then on he dedicated his life to God. He lived among the people of the Sahara, and died at the hand of an assassin during an uprising against the French. His words echo those of Jesus at his crucifixion, as recorded in Luke 24:46.
Father, I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will. Whatever you do I thank you. I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, as in all your creatures, I ask no more than this, my Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you, O Lord, with all the love of my heart, for I love you, my God, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands, without reserve and with total confidence, for you are my Father.
Charles de Foucauld (1858–1916)
Accept our sacrifice
Thomas Cranmer came to prominence at the time when Henry VIII was seeking the annulment of his first marriage, to Catherine of Aragon, to enable him to marry Anne Boleyn. Thomas was later appointed Archbishop of Canterbury and Henry both respected and protected him. He was the main compiler of the first Book of Common Prayer (1549 and 1552), from which this prayer below is taken. Cranmer was involved in church reform under Edward VI but under the Catholic Mary Tudor he was burnt at the stake. This was ordered despite the fact that, under extreme pressure, he had signed a document recanting his Protestantism. He was expected to do this again publicly at his execution but instead he reaffirmed his Protestant convictions and at the stake he held his right hand (with which he had signed the recantation) in the flames. His martyr’s death, following those of Latimer and Ridley, did much to win people to Protestantism.
O Lord and heavenly Father, we thy humble servants
entirely desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; most humbly beseeching thee to grant, that by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we and all thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion. And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee, that all we, who are partakers of this holy Communion, may be fulfilled with thy grace and heavenly benediction. And although we be unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service; not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord; by whom, and with whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end. Amen.
Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556)
All manner of thing shall be well
Julian of Norwich was one of the great English mystics. Little is known about her life except her writings. She is called Julian of Norwich simply because she lived in a cell adjoining the Benedictine church of St Julian in Conisford, Norwich. Having narrowly survived death from illness at the age of 30 (purportedly through prayer) she fell seriously ill once more in 1373 and experienced a series of 16 revelatory visions, mostly concerning the passion of Christ. After her recovery she meditated on these visions and went on to record her thoughts.
And thus, in my folly, afore this time often I wondered why,
by the great foreseeing wisdom of God, the beginning of sin was not stopped; for then, I, all should have been well. ... But Jesus, who in this Vision informed me of all that is needful to me, answered by this word and said, Sin is unavoidable, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
For if we never fell, we should not know how feeble and how
wretched we are of our self, and also we should not fully know that marvellous love of our Maker.
The fullness of Joy is to behold God in everything.
God is all that is good, in my sight, and the goodness that
everything has is his.
If there be anywhere on earth where a lover of God is always
kept safe from falling, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in the same precious love.
Between God and the soul there is no between.
He did not say, You will never have a rough passage, you will
never be over-strained, you will never feel uncomfortable, but he did say You will never be overcome.
Julian of Norwich (c. 1342–c. 1416) Revelations of Divine Love
All other love
The love of Christ surpasses all earthly love, and only love that originates with God has any permanence – this is the message of an anonymous fourteenth-century poet.
All other love is like the moon
That waxeth or waneth as flower in plain As flower that blooms and fadeth soon, As day that showereth and ends in rain.
All other love begins with bliss,
In weeping and woe makes its ending; No love there is that’s our whole bliss But that which rests on heaven’s king.
Anon. (c. 1350)
Alleluia
Born in present-day Algeria, Augustine was educated in North Africa and went on to become a bishop in the church there. His works, including the autobiographical Confessions, are still widely read. This particular saying has a timeless quality.
A Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot.
St Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
All-knowing God
In this psalm, the writer reflects on the fact that God has always known about him and is with him in every circumstance, having planned his life before it even began.
O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.
Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night’, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.
For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.