grace, never to offend thee hereafter. I therefore earnestly beseech thee to confirm all the good resolutions I have now made. Increase my fervour in thy service, and render it efficacious, that my change of life may be visible to all, and that in future my conduct may be as exemplary as it has been heretofore disedifying. Amen.
O Blessed Virgin Mary! my holy patrons, and all ye saints and angels, praise and extol our Lord for his boundless goodness towards me, a most miserable sinner. Beseech him to accept of this my humble confession, and to supply, through his infinite mercies, all its deficiencies. Beg him to ratify in the book of heaven, the sentence of absolution which his minister, the priest, has pronounced in my favour at the tribunal of confession. Amen.
THE MISERERE.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy.
O MY God, measure not thy mercies towards thy guilty child by the standard of thy justice, which would condemn me to eternal banishment from thy sight, but according to thy great mercy, which delights in granting pardon, and which bestows upon the penitent soul, together with thy forgiveness, the choicest gifts of thy redeeming love.
And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my iniquity .
And according to the multitude of thy mercies, whose boundless, tender compassion seems to increase in proportion to our innumerable miseries, not only pardon my sins, but so blot them out, that they may never rise in judgment against me.
Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
