merciful, and ready to repent of the evil, and hast in thy best and wisest manner preordained all things to the most high and perfect good, impute it not to me for eternal punishment, and let me not be blotted out of the book of life; but offer for me, for my relief, the portion that falls to me, namely, of thy precious Passion, in return tor which it has been thy will to have man to be joint-heir with thee in the land of the living.
Let, then, O Lord, the consideration of human frailty stir and incline thee to mercy; for thou knowest what is man’s substance, and that thou hast not placed him for nought upon the earth; and preserve me, who am the work of thy love, lest thou shouldst have laboured for it in vain, and that the shedding of thy spotless blood may not be fruitless in my regard.
Thou who makest purification for sins, grant that I may be cleansed from the filth of my sins, and enlightened to know thee with the eye of my mind; and that I may ever confess thee, tend towards thee, and aspire to thee in the bent of my heart; that, finally, by a happy death, I may come to thee, O Jesus Christ, who, with Goa the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, livest and reign est world without end. Amen.
CHAPTER IV.
THE LORD’S PRAYER, VARIOUSLY ADAPTED TO THE USE OP PENITENTS.
A method of reciting the Lord's Prayer while the mind is reflecting on the parable of the Prodigal Son, for eliciting affections of compunction, by the following and similar expressions of grief.
From F. Christian Mayer, in the “Enchiridion Industriarum.”
Our Father.
O most loving Father, who art solicitous for the welfare of thy children, however unworthy, with greater affection and care than any father, nay, than ever was mother for the son of her womb; to what misery, alas! have I been reduced by my own fault and wilfulness in forsaking such a Father, and squandering the grace and blessings which he so bountifully bestowed upon
