I Come to You for a Remedy

O, most sweet and loving Lord, whom I devoutly desire to receive, you know my weaknesses and my sufferings, my evil thoughts and actions. I am often weighed down, tempted, disturbed, and defiled. I come to you for a remedy. I beg you for comfort and support. I speak to you who knows all things, to whom all my secrets are open, and to whom alone is able perfectly to comfort and help me. You know what good things I need and how poor I am in righteousness. 

And so, I stand poor and naked before you, needing grace and praying for mercy. Whet my appetite for righteousness, kindle my coldness with the fire of your love, illuminate my blindness with the brightness of your presence. Turn all earthly things into bitterness for me, all sorrowful and opposing things into patience, all things worthless and created into contempt and nothingness. Lift up my heart to you in heaven, and don't allow me to aimlessly wander over the earth. Be my only satisfaction from this day forward forever, because you alone are my food and drink, my love and joy, my delight, and my whole good.

(from The Imitation of Christ: Classic Devotions in Today's Language, by Thomas à Kempis, compiled and edited by James N. Watkins; photo by TheVirtualDenise via pixabay.com)