7 Favorite Prayers

Prayer by Thomas Merton

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 that 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.

Dear Jesus,

Help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.

Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.

Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly,

that my life may only be a radiance of Yours.

Shine through me, and be so in me

that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your 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 you shine,

so to shine as to be a light to others;

the light, O Jesus will be all from You;

none of it will be mine;

it will be you, shining on others through me.

Let me thus praise You the way You love best,

by shining on those around me.

Let me preach You 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 You.

Amen.