Suscipe

Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. 

You have given all to me. To you, O lord, I return it. All is yours, dispose of it wholly according to your will. 

Give me only your love and your grace, this is enough for me.

--St. Ignatius of Loyola

I completed the Spiritual Exercises two years ago and one of the prayers I learned is the Suscipe prayer. However, I had a difficult time praying it authentically if I took the words seriously. Give up my memory, my intelligence, my gifts, my talents, my will? Hard thing to do, especially for a willful child.

At a moment when I was when I was tired, spent and at the end, that I realized that the prayer was written for just such moments of depletion that I recognized its impact.

Happy feast day, St. Ignatius of Loyola.

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