Prayers of Augustines

According to St. Augustine, we need not pray for what we need because God already knows what we need before we even ask. Instead, we ought to pray, he suggests, to increase our desire for God, and so that we might be able to receive what He is preparing to give us.

"The deeper our faith, the stronger our hope, the greater our desire, the larger will be our capacity to receive the gift, which is very great indeed. .... The more fervent the desire, the more worthy will be its fruits. When the Apostle tells us: Pray without ceasing (1 Thes 5:16), he means this: Desire unceasingly that life of happiness which is nothing if not eternal, and ask it of him alone who is able to give it."
(Letter 130)

The prayers below are widely attributed to Saint Augustine. Where verified, a citation is provided. The portrait of Augustine on this page was painted by German artist Willy Jakob, circa 1945 - 1949.

Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Breathe in me O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy.
Act in me O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy.
Draw my heart O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy.
Strengthen me O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy.
Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen.

Act of Petition

Give me yourself, O my God, give yourself to me. Behold I love you, and if my love is too weak a thing, grant me to love you more strongly. I cannot measure my love to know how much it falls short of being sufficient, but let my soul hasten to your embrace and never be turned away until it is hidden in the secret shelter of your presence. This only do I know, that it is not good for me when you are not with me, when you are only outside me. I want you in my very self. All the plenty in the world which is not my God is utter want. Amen.

Prayer for the Indwelling of the Spirit

Holy Spirit, powerful Consoler, sacred Bond of the Father and the Son, Hope of the afflicted, descend into my heart and establish in it your loving dominion. Enkindle in my tepid soul the fire of your Love so that I may be wholly subject to you. We believe that when you dwell in us, you also prepare a dwelling for the Father and the Son. Deign, therefore, to come to me, Consoler of abandoned souls, and Protector of the needy. Help the afflicted, strengthen the weak, and support the wavering. Come and purify me. Let no evil desire take possession of me. You love the humble and resist the proud. Come to me, glory of the living, and hope of the dying. Lead me by your grace that I may always be pleasing to you. Amen.

Prayer on Finding God after a Long Search

Too late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient, O Beauty so new. Too late have I loved you!  You were within me but I was outside myself, and there I sought you! In my weakness I ran after the beauty of the things you have made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The things you have made kept me from you - the things which would have no being unless they existed in you! You have called, you have cried, and you have pierced my deafness. You have radiated forth, you have shined out brightly, and you have dispelled my blindness. You have sent forth your fragrance, and I have breathed it in, and I long for you. I have tasted you, and I hunger and thirst for you. You have touched me, and I ardently desire your peace. 

Confessions, X, 27, 38

Prayer to Seek God Continually

O Lord my God, I believe in you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Insofar as I can, insofar as you have given me the power, I have sought you. I became weary and I labored.  O Lord my God, my sole hope, help me to believe and never to cease seeking you. Grant that I may always and ardently seek out your countenance. Give me the strength to seek you, for you help me to find you and you have more and more given me the hope of finding you.   Here I am before you with my firmness and my infirmity. Preserve the first and heal the second. Here I am before you with my strength and my ignorance. Where you have opened the door to me, welcome me at the entrance; where you have closed the door to me, open to my cry; enable me to remember you, to understand you, and to love you. Amen.

Prayer for Self Knowledge

Lord Jesus, let me know myself and know You, and desire nothing save only You.
Let me hate myself and love You.
Let me do everything for the sake of You.
Let me humble myself and exalt You.
Let me think of nothing except You.
Let me die to myself and live in You.
Let me accept whatever happens as from You.
Let me banish self and follow You, and ever desire to follow You.
Let me fly from myself and take refuge in You,
That I may deserve to be defended by You.
Let me fear for myself.
Let me fear You, and let me be among those who are chosen by You.
Let me distrust myself and put my trust in You.
Let me be willing to obey for the sake of You.
Let me cling to nothing save only to You,
And let me be poor because of You.
Look upon me, that I may love You.
Call me that I may see You, and for ever enjoy You. Amen.

Act of Hope

For your mercies' sake, O Lord my God, tell me what you are to me. Say to my soul: "I am your salvation." So speak that I may hear, O Lord; my heart is listening; open it that it may hear you, and say to my soul: "I am your salvation." After hearing this word, may I come in haste to take hold of you. Hide not your face from me. Let me see your face even if I die, lest I die with longing to see it. The house of my soul is too small to receive you; let it be enlarged by you. It is all in ruins; do you repair it. There are thing in it - I confess and I know - that must offend your sight. But who shall cleanse it? Or to what others besides you shall I cry out? From my secret sins cleanse me, O Lord, and from those of others spare your servant. Amen.

Prayer for the Sick

Watch, O Lord, with those who wake, or watch, or weep tonight, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend your sick ones, O Lord Christ. Rest your weary ones. Bless your dying ones. Soothe your suffering ones. Pity your afflicted ones. Shield your joyous ones. And for all your love's sake. Amen.

Prayer of Trust in God's Heavenly Promise

My God, let me know and love you, so that I may find my happiness in you. Since I cannot fully achieve this on earth, help me to improve daily until I may do so to the full. Enable me to know you ever more on earth, so that I may know you perfectly in heaven. Enable me to love you ever more on earth, so that I may love you perfectly in heaven. In that way my joy may be great on earth, and perfect with you in heaven. O God of truth, grant me the happiness of heaven so that my joy may be full in accord with your promise. In the meantime let my mind dwell on that happiness, my tongue speak of it, my heart pine for it, my mouth pronounce it, my soul hunger for it, my flesh thirst for it, and my entire being desire it until I enter through death in the joy of my Lord forever. Amen.

Source: Zenit

Women's Ordination

Published: July 16, 2010 The Vatican has labelled the ordination of women among the "most serious crimes" and a "crime against the faith". In an update to disciplinary rules released by the Vatican this week, cases of "attempted ordination of women" will now be handled by the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), a Vatican statement said on Thursday. The new rules put attempts at the ordination of women among the "most serious crimes", along with pedophilia, said an AFP report in the Sydney Morning Herald. But Vatican officials emphasized that simply because women's ordination was treated in the same document as priestly sex abuse did not mean the two acts were somehow equivalent in the eyes of the church, said a report by the Catholic News Service. "There are two types of 'delicta graviora': those concerning the celebration of the sacraments, and those concerning morals. The two types are essentially different and their gravity is on different levels," said Msgr Charles Scicluna, an official of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation. The AFP report cites US-based Women's Ordination Conference, an advocacy group, dismissed the decision as "medieval at best" and a "scare tactic". The Vatican is using this attempt to extinguish the widespread call for women's equality in the church."

Riders Prayer

Our Father, who is a Rider

Hallowed be thy Canadian game

Thy championship will come, the play will be run At home as it is away.

Give us this day our Sunday win

And forgive us our turnovers

Though we pounce on those who turnover against us And lead us not into 3rd

and long But deliver us the Grey Cup


And a different one:

Our quarterback,

Who art in Edmonton...

Darian be thy name...

Thy game be done,

Thy will be WON,

In Commonwealth

As it was in Mosaic...

Give us this game

The Grey Cup Game

And forget about Calgary's whiners...

As we forgive those

Who can't measure up to us.

Lead us not into interception,

But deliver us from Calvillo...

For thine are the Riders with Power and Glory.

Forever and ever,

The Grey Cup we WILL claim.


Amen

New twist on ASAP! Like it!!!!

Remember that ASAP means "Always Say A Prayer" Please do not break.
Just 27 words, "God, our Father, walk through my house and take away
all my worries and illnesses and please watch over and heal my family
in Jesus name, Amen."

Priesthooh a Vocation

Archbishop: Priesthood a Vocation, Not a JobSays World Needs Testimony of Men Configured to Christ

ROME, MARCH 31, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The priest is not an employee, but rather a consecrated person chosen by God to serve mankind, says the secretary for the Congregation for Clergy.Archbishop Mauro Piacenza described the priesthood in this way in L'Osservatore Romano earlier this month.

"The priest cannot be plentifully fulfilled if the Eucharist is not truly the center and the root of his life," the prelate said, affirming that the priest's daily efforts must be an "irradiation of the Eucharistic celebration."As the Gospel account of Christ's washing of the feet testifies, the priest's task is found in unconditional surrender, Archbishop Piacenza said. "The priest does not belong to himself. He is at the service of the people of God without limits of schedules or calendars."

"The people are not for the priest, but the priest is for the people, in its totality, without ever restricting his service to a small group," the prelate added."The priest cannot choose the post he likes, the work methods he considers easiest, the people he considers most likable, the schedule that is most comfortable, the diversions -- even legitimate ones -- when they take away time and energy from his own specific pastoral mission."Moreover, even acting in the world, the priest is nevertheless not "assimilated in the world [] ceasing to be transforming leaven," Archbishop Piacenza continued. "Faced with a world anemic from the lack of prayer and adoration, of truth and justice, the priest is above all a man of prayer, of adoration, of worship, of the celebrations of the holy mysteries, 'before man in the name of Christ.'

" A testimony The Vatican official said the priest's commitment is "testimony, understood in its etymological sense as martyr [] in the renewed consciousness that Christ, ordinarily, comes to us only 'in the' Church and 'from the' Church, which prolongs his presence in time." The Church, he said, is "transcendent and mysterious" and "only if it does not deny its own supernatural identity [] can it authentically evangelize the 'natural' realities.

[]The Church has the 'negative' task of freeing the world of atheism and the 'positive' [task] of satisfying the indelible need that man, consciously or unconsciously, has of fulfilling himself, that is to say, of holiness."For this, the priest should "respond to the burning thirst of a humanity always seeking," and to sow a restlessness that is "the holy fear of God."

At the same time, Archbishop Piacenza added, the current vocational crisis can be served by opening the "vast horizons of the whole picture of following Christ," while attempts to reduce the identity of the priest and pastoral ministry brings "everything to languish along the path of a progressive drying out.

"It is the light of the configuration of the priest with Jesus Christ that helps to understand the promises of obedience and chastity lived in celibacy, in the commitment to a path of detachment from things, situations and from themselves, he said.At the altar The archbishop highlighted that "chastity guarantees the spousal dimension and the great paternity" and recalled that "in all of this there are not 'no's' but a great, liberating 'yes.'" "The priest never goes into identity crisis, nor loneliness, nor cultural frustration if, resisting the temptation of losing himself in the anonymous multitude, he never descends -- regarding intention, moral uprightness and style -- from the platform of the altar of the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ," the archbishop contended.Nevertheless, he acknowledged, faced with "an ever more notable disintegration of the links between persons, in every social environment [] we cannot think that the figure of the celibate priest will not suffer the backlash of these countless solitudes."For this, the archbishop concluded, there is a "need of priests who know how to show the fruitfulness for communion and for the community of their virginal 'solitude.'"

Wake Up Call

Why didn't you save the school children at ?
Northern Illinois University
Virginia Tech
Amish Country, PA
Columbine High School
Moses Lake, Washington 2/2/96
Bethel , Alaska 2/19/97!
Pearl , Mississippi 10/1/97
West Paducah , Kentucky 12/1/97
Stam P, Arkansas 12/15/97
Jonesboro , Arkansas 3/24/98
Edinboro , Pennsylvania 4/24/98
Fayetteville , Tennessee 5/19/98
Springfield , Oregon 5/21/98
Richmond , Virginia 6/15/98
Littleton , Colorado 4/20/99
Taber , Alberta, Canada 5/28/99
Conyers , Georgia5/20/99
Deming , New Mexico 11/19/99
Fort Gibson , Oklahoma 12/6/99
Santee , California 3/ 5/01 and
El Cajon , California 3/22/01?
Sincerely,
Concerned Student

Reply:
Dear Concerned Student:I am not allowed in schools..
Sincerely,God

How did this get started?....
Let's see,I think it started when Madeline Murray O'Hare complainedShe didn't want any prayer in our schools.
And we said, OK...
Then,
Someone said you better not read the Bible in school,
The Bible that says'Thou shalt! Not kill,Thou shalt not steal,And love your neighbors as yourself,'And we said, OK...
Dr. Benjamin Spock saidWe shouldn't spank our childrenwhen they misbehaved
because their little personalitieswould be warped and we might damage their self-esteem.
And we said,
An expert should know what he's talking about.
So we won't spank them anymore...
Then someone said
Teachers and principals better not
Discipline our children when they misbehave.
And the school administrators said
No faculty member in this school
Better touch a student when they misbehave
Because we don't want any bad publicity,
And we surely don't want to be sued.
And we accepted their
Reasoning...
And the entertainment industry said,let's make TV shows and movies that promote
Profanity, violence and illicit sex...And let's record music that encourages
Rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes..
And we said,it's just entertainment
And it has no adverse effect
And nobody takes it seriously anyway,
So go right ahead.
Now we're asking ourselves
Why our children have no conscience,
Why they don't know right from wrong,
And why it doesn't bother them toKill strangers, classmates or even themselves.
Undoubtedly,If we thought about it long and hard enough,We could figure it out.
I'm sure it has a great deal to do with...'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW,'
Pass it on If you think it has merit! But if you discard this thought process,Then don't sit back and complain aboutwhat bad shape this country is in!

Forgiven all

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(If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins andpurify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
Warning: Side affects include: freedom from guilt, reduced tension, increasedjoy, spontaneous laughter, love for your fellow human, eternal life and an urgeto tell others the good news.
Prescribed by the Great Physician
The next time you feel like GOD can't use you, just remember...
Noah was a drunk
Abraham was too old
Isaac was a daydreamer
Jacob was a liar
Leah was ugly
Joseph was abused
Moses had a stuttering problem
Gideon was afraid
Samson had long hair and was a womanizer
Jeremiah and Timothy were too young
David had an affair and was a murderer
Elijah was suicidal
Isaiah preached naked
Jonah ran from God
Naomi was a widow
Job went bankrupt
Peter denied Christ
The Disciples fell asleep while praying
Martha worried about everything
The Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once
Zaccheus was too small
Paul was too religious
Timothy had an ulcer...
ANDLazarus was dead!And Don't forget,Jesus Helped them all!!!!
Now! No more excuses!
God can use you to your full potential.
Besides you aren't the message, you are just theMessenger.
In the Circle of God's love, God's waiting to use yourFull Potential.
1. God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts.
2. Dear God, I have a problem, it's Me.
3. There is no key to happiness. The door is always Open.
4. Silence is often misinterpreted but never Misquoted.
7. Do the math …Count your Blessings.
8. Faith is the ability to not panic.
9. If you worry, you didn't pray. If you pray-Don't worry.
10. As a child of God, prayer is kind of like callingHome everyday.
11. Blessed are the flexible for they shall not beBent out of shape.
12. The most important things in your house are thePeople.
13. When we get tangled up in our problems, be still.God wants us to be still so He can untangle the knot.
14. A grudge is a heavy thing to carry.
15. He who dies with the most toys is still dead.Have a great day!!! The SON is shining and heCan certainly use you!Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind ofBattle. Live simply, Love generously Care deeply, Speak kindly.......Leave the rest to God Love and Prayers Always