Prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas For Right Ordering: For After Receiving Communion "Generously Grant to me, O Lord my God, Intelligence in knowing you, Diligence in seeking you, Wisdom in finding you, Conduct pleasing to you, Perseverance in trustingly awaiting you, And Trust in finally embracing you." For Part One which deals with "Generously Grant to me O Lord my God" click here.
For Part Three which deals with "Conduct pleasing to You, Perseverance in trustingly awaiting You" click here. For Part Four which deals with "And Trust in finally embracing You" click here. Intelligence in knowing you Since I was a kid, I’ve been interested in reading books, and learning facts/trivia because I wanted to know more about the world around me. As I’ve grown in my faith, this desire to know has only deepened. Because I remember who orders my knowledge - Jesus - this knowledge is more life-giving than ever before. When I think about something interesting, I try to ask this question: ‘How might one who knows everything about this thing think about it? What might such a person find interesting about it? What about this thing might I have not yet discovered and delighted in?’ I want to have a more intelligent mind - a mind that knows more as the all-knowing God knows. That is an open invitation for all of us. When I receive the Eucharist, I ask for my mind to be conformed more to the mind of the one I receive - Jesus. Diligence in seeking you Determination, grit, ‘stick-too-it-iveness’; these are all good ways to describe diligence. If a good mind is intelligent, knowing more as God knows, a good heart is diligent, seeking more what God would have us seek. The world is full of people who are diligent in seeking four classic substitutes for God: wealth, pleasure, power and honor. And all of these things are good. But none of them are as good on their own as they are when ordered according to greater goods. These four pursuits are a good way to examine our own motives. Do I let my search for God order my pursuit of wealth, pleasure, honor and power? Do I let my search for God order my other pursuits as well? In approaching the Eucharist, I ask Jesus to help me desire Him more, and seek Him more diligently, so that my heart would love all other persons and things more as God would have me love them. Wisdom in finding you I’ve often heard of the need to build a bridge between the head and the heart. If intelligence pertains to the mind, and diligence to the heart, wisdom pertains to those two working together to build a more stable and more human interior life. For a wise person, the will and the reason work together and they work aright. The wise person builds a bridge between the head and the heart. If I know rightly, and seek rightly, I find truly. How can I ‘find’ wisdom more readily in my life? How can I make myself more ready to find such wisdom? An amazing thing about the Eucharist is that we know we can find Jesus there. And in the Catholic tradition, Jesus - The Word of God - is the root of all wisdom. Whenever I receive the Eucharist, I have a chance to appreciate having ‘found’ wisdom, and the root of all wisdom itself. And, even more amazingly, He desires to stay with me. Written by Br. James Pierce Cavanaugh, O.P. Simplified: Grant me O Lord, A mind to know You A heart to seek You Wisdom to find You Conduct pleasing to You Perseverence in searching for You, And a hope of finally embracing You. Poetic: Gen’rously Grant oh lord Jesu’: Intelligence in knowing you, And Diligence in seeking you, And Wisdom, too, in finding you. Grant I may do what pleases you, Persever’ in those doings too, Mind, heart and wisdom born anew. Grant steadfast waiting, trusting you. Grant trust itself of truest true: A trust that trusts completely you, And ‘waits your full embrace, Jesu’.
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Br. Franklin Kline OPA
10/23/2019 12:20:24 pm
An Anglican Prayer before receiving The Eucharist:
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Dominican Friars of St. Louis, MOThe Dominican Friars living at St. Dominic Priory in St. Louis, MO are members of both the Central U.S. Province and the Southern U.S. Province. Our student friars go through their formation together at the St. Louis Studium, otherwise known as the House of Studies. Archives
January 2020
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