A prayer for spiritual battle

Andy and I receive The 101 Times in the mail. It is a Marian newsletter which often contains wonderful articles. The last newsletter contained a couple prayers to the Holy Spirit, one of which I felt very drawn to pray and feel has been a wonderful blessing over the last week, since I started praying it. I will quote the entire section of this article, since the spirit with which it is prayed is as important as the prayer itself:

"Cardinal Mercier said: 'I am going to reveal t you the secret of sanctity and happiness. Every day for five minutes control your imagination and close your eyes to the things of sense, and your ears to the noises of the world, in order to enter into yourself. Then, in the sanctity of your baptized soul (which is the temple of the Holy Spirit), speak to that Divine Spirit, saying to Him:

'Oh Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore You. Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me. Tell me what I should do. Give me Your orders. I promise to submit myself to all that You desire of me, and accept all that You permit to happen to me. Let me only know Your will.

'If you do this, your life will flow along happily, serenely, and full of consolation, even in the midst of trials. Grace will be proportioned to the trial, giving you strength to carry it, and you will arrive at the Gate of Paradise laden with merit. This submission to the Holy Spirit is the secret of sanctity and peace. Try it.'"

Besides likely the promptings of the Holy Spirit, you can see why I was drawn to this prayer. The second from last sentence of the prayer is difficult for me to say, but the Holy Spirit knows I will do my best to honor that promise, even if imperfectly at times.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lessons I've Learned: Part 7

I wrote a post last week about suffering being a gift and about choosing to fall on God's grace so that God may bring that gift to fulness as He desires it to be for us. I want to better spell a few things out in regards to this than I did last week. Suffering is a gift in a few ways. For us personally, it is a gift in that it gives us reason to come to God, asking for His help and His Grace. It is too easy, when everything is going well, to set prayer aside and to let our relationship with God remain or become stagnant. Suffering can either be a reminder that we do indeed need God, or, for some, it can be a first step in a journey toward faith. Suffering is a vehicle by which God draws us, His beloved, to Himself. Suffering is also a mode by which, after we ask for His help, God sends graces down upon us. Through suffering, He prepares our hearts, if we allow Him, to receive His graces: His love, peace, and joy and all that He desires to give us. It is through suffering that w...
Read more

Persistence and assertiveness

Andy (my hubbie), the two boys, and I were praying tonight before the boys' bedtime. Blaise (3 1/2 years) made it through all 5 prayers beautifully, to his credit, but showed his stubborn side... uh, his assertive side... during the "God bless"-es. We said "God bless Blaise, God bless Isaac, God bless Daddy, God bless Mommy," and as we were getting to "God bless Grandma and Grandpa W and ... A," Blaise interrupted and said, "No I want say Mommy Daddy again." So we started over with "God bless"-es. Then he did it again. The first 3 or 4 times were fine. After all, I can use all the prayers I can get. But by the 5th or 6th time, I knew I would need more prayers than he was going to give me if I let that continue on. So we gave him a warning that if he continued to whine.. uh, act so dramatically... he wouldn't get "Grandma's song." He continued to be assertive. So I finished the prayers and said goodnight. ...
Read more

Lessons Learned on My Journey through Anxiety and Depression: Part 4

It has been nearly two years now since the onset of my anxiety. As I think over these last two years and see how much I have learned and how much I have grown as well as how much I have suffered and continue, to a much smaller degree, to suffer, I’m at the same time grateful for this experience and filled with regret. I still am filled with questions of why? Why did I have to go through this, and why do I still need to experience anxiety to the level I still do? To some extent, I can answer these questions. My faith has grown exponentially, as has my strength, my character, and my tolerance of suffering. And I know there’s still growth that needs to happen. I am not there yet. And, really, I don’t know if I’ll ever be “there.” The primary thing I continue to suffer from, besides the increasingly rare incidence of actual anxiety and the on edge feeling I more often feel, are constant palpitations. I feel these palpitations most notably as a strong pulse in my hands and in my he...
Read more