Thursday, August 25, 2011

Dear Jesus

I came across this prayer the other day in my reading and wanted to share it. A portion of it became very dear to me at a particular time in my life. It is highlighted below. It was written by Cardinal Newman and used in slightly altered form as a daily community prayer by Mother Teresa and the Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity.

Dear Jesus,
help me to spread thy fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Thy spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly
that all my life may only be a radiance of thine.
Shine through me,
and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with
may feel thy presence in my soul.

Let them look up and see no longer me
but only Jesus!
Stay with me,
and then I shall begin to shine
as Thou shinest,
so to shine as to be a light to others;
the light, O Jesus, will be all from Thee;
none of it will be mine;
it will be Thou shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise Thee in the way Thou dost love best
by shining on those around me.
Let me preach Thee without preaching,
not by words but by my example,
by the catching force of the sympathetic influence
of what I do,
the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to Thee.
Amen

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