heart, receive me, O good Jesus, the life and salvation of my soul! For not in my own justification, but in the multitude of thy mercies, I cast my prayers before thy face.
I, the lost sheep, return to thee, my Shepherd. I know thine, but not the stranger’s voice. Lead me, O Lord, I pray thee, back to thy fold. Can it be that thou wilt despise the voice of thy poor sheep that runs bleating to thee for refuge? Is it not thou who hast said, Come to me all, &c.; and again, He shall cry to me, and I will hear him; I am with him in tribulation.
Behold, O Lord, I cry with my heart more than with my lips. Behold, tribulation is close at hand, and there is none to help me; not one is there, O good Jesus, to deliver and save me but thou!
Not that I dare aspire to the mansions of those blessed spirits who gaze upon the beauty of the most holy Trinity. I am but a little mite of thy creation, that craves some crumbs of thy most sweet table. Oh, that I might merit to be thought an abject in the house of the Lord, rather than to dwell in the tents of sinners!
PRAYER OF S. JEROME.
To be said by dying persons in their agony, or read in their presence.
O loving Jesus,my strength, my refuge, my upholder, my deliverer, in whom I have hoped, whom I have believed, whom I have loved! My sovereign sweetness, my tower of strength, and my hope from my youth! Call me, O Captain of my life, and I will answer thee. Stretch forth the right hand of thy mercy to the work of thy hands, which thou, the Creator of all things, hast formed of the slime of the earth, which thou hast framed with bones and sinews, and on which, by dying, thou hast bestowed life!
It is time that dust be turned again to dust, and the spirit return to thee the Saviour, who hast sent it hither. Open to it, O Lord, the gate of life; for it is for me that thou hast hung like a thief upon the Wood of the Cross; receive me, O merciful God, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. When thou wert dying on the Cross thou receivedst the thief who fled to thee. I am sick, my strength is weakened through poverty,[1] and therefore I fly to thee, O Lord, my Physician!
Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; I trust in thee, therefore I shall not be put to shame. In thee, O Lord, have I hoped; oh, let me not be confounded for ever?
- ↑ Ps. xxx. 12.
