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Prayer of Abandonment

Let God Love You the Way God Wants
I know that true joy comes from letting God love me the way God wants, whether it is through illness or health, failure or success, poverty or wealth, rejection or praise. It is hard for me to say, “I shall gratefully accept everything, Lord, that pleases you. Let your will be done.” But I know that when I truly believe my Father is pure love, it will become increasingly possible to say these words from the heart.

Charles de Foucauld once wrote a prayer of abandonment that expresses beautifully the spiritual attitude I wish I had.

Father, I abandon myself into your hands,
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you;
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.

I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.

It seems good to pray this prayer often. These are words of a holy man, and they show the way
I must go. I realize that I can never make this prayer come true by my own efforts. But the Spirit
of Jesus given to me can help me pray it and grow to its fulfillment. I know that my inner peace
depends on my willingness to make this prayer my own.

–Henri Nouwen

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Blessed Julian of Norwich

All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. . . . For there is a Force of love moving through the universe that holds us fast and will never let us go.

He did not say: You will not be assailed, You will not be belabored, You will not be disquieted, but He said ”You will not be overcome.

My, how busy we become when we lose sight of how God loves us.

As truly as God is our Father, so truly God is our Mother.

Prayer is the deliberate and persevering action of the soul. It is true and enduring, and full of grace. Prayer fastens the soul to God and makes it one with God’s will.

Pray, even if you feel nothing, see nothing. For when you are dry, empty, sick or weak, at such a time is your prayer most pleasing to God, even though you may find little joy in it. This is true of all believing prayer.

And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it.
And so have all things their beginning by the love of God. In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.

For we are so preciously loved by God that we cannot even comprehend it. No created being can ever know how much and how sweetly and tenderly God loves them. It is only with the help of his grace that we are able to persevere in spiritual contemplation with endless wonder at his high, surpassing, immeasurable love which our Lord in his goodness has for us.

The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.
God is the ground, the substance, the teaching, the teacher, the purpose, and the reward for which every soul labors.

Biography and her cell 4:09
Pope Benedict to 1:28
A Mystic for Today Part 1 Fr. William Meninger
1:14:26
Julian’s cell and church, 1:34
The Stunning Life and Theology of Julian of Norwich Veronica Mary Rolf  1:11:10
Revelations of Divine Love
The Showings of Julian of Norwich
Biography, visions, hazelnut 6:39
Body prayer with Julian of Norwich 3:53
Part 2 Fr. William Meninger 1:00:44
Julian of Norwich her secret scribes 28:25
Julian soul healing 4:24 to 17:46

What we can learn from Julian of Norwich 4:37

All Will Be Well
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St. Teresa of Benedictus (Edith Stein)

If anyone comes to me, I want to lead them to Him.


On the question of relating to our fellowman – our neighbor’s spiritual need transcends every commandment. Everything else we do is a means to an end. But love is an end already, since God is love.

Let go of your plans. The first hour of your morning belongs to God. Tackle the day’s work that He charges you with and He will give you the power to accomplish it.

And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and
leave it with Him.

The walls of our monasteries enclose a narrow space. To erect the structure of holiness in it, one must dig deep and build high, must descend into the depths of the dark night of one’s own nothingness in order to be raised up high into the sunlight of divine love and compassion.

Every true prayer is a prayer of the Church; by means of that prayer the Church prays, since it is the Holy Spirit living in the Church, Who in every single soul ‘prays in us with unspeakable groanings’.

On this day St. Edith Stein 3:24
Fr. Robert Barron in front of her window 4:04
Edith Stein and the Dark Night, by Cyril O’Regan 58:23
Biography 2:00
How Edith Stein found God by pursuing truth, Endow start to 2:41
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St. Maximillian Kolbe

Hatred is not a creative force: only love is creative. 

The most deadly poison of our time is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise him to the greatest extent of our powers.

I prayed very hard to Our Lady to tell me what would happen to me. She appeared, holding in her hands two crowns, one white, one red. She asked if I would like to have them—one was for purity, the other for martyrdom. I said, “I choose both.” She smiled and disappeared.

If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother.

Jesus honored her before all ages, and will honor her for all ages. No one comes to Him, nor even near Him, no one is saved or sanctified, if he too will not honor her. This is the lot of Angels and of men.

In order that obedience be supernatural it must not proceed from reason, but from faith.

Bio Real life Catholic 2:34
Song 4:05
Ministry, suffering, devotion to Mary
9:59
Saint of Auschwitz 4:43
Scott Hahn 7:41
Biography 8:17
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All Shall Be Well

In you, Father all-mighty, we have our preservation and our bliss.
In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving.
You are our mother, brother, and Savior.
In you, our Lord the Holy Spirit, is marvelous and plenteous grace.
You are our clothing; for love you wrap us and embrace us.
You are our maker, our lover, our keeper.
Teach us to believe that by your grace all shall be well, and all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well. Amen.

–Julian of Norwich

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Suscipe

Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess You have given me. I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more.

–Ignatius of Loyola

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The Merton Prayer

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

“The Merton Prayer” from Thoughts in Solitude Copyright © 1956, 1958 by The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani. Used by permission of Farrar Straus Giroux.