Friday, December 10, 2010

Advent prayer by Angela of Foligno, 1248-1309

O Lord Jesus Christ, make me worthy to understand the profound mystery of your holy incarnation, which you have worked for our sake and for our salvation. Truly there is nothing so great and wonderful as this, that you, my God, who are the creator of all things, should become a creature, so that we should become like God. You have humbled yourself and made yourself small that we might be made mighty. You have taken the form of a servant, so that you might confer upon us a royal and divine beauty.

You, who are beyond our understanding, have made yourself understandable to us in Jesus Christ. You, who are the uncreated God, have made yourself a creature for us. You, who are the untouchable One, have made yourself touchable to us. You, who are most high, make us capable of understanding your amazing love and the wonderful things you have done for us. Make us able to understand the mystery of your incarnation, the mystery of your life, example and doctrine, the mystery of your cross and Passion, the mystery of your resurrection and ascension.

Blessed are you, O Lord, for coming to earth as a man. You were born that you might die, and in dying that you might procure our salvation. O marvellous and indescribable love! In you is all sweetness and joy! To contemplate your love is to exalt the soul above the world and to enable it to abide alone in joy and rest and tranquility.

Lord, give us grace to understand your supreme love in creating and redeeming us, in choosing the human race from all eternity to attain to a vision of yourself. Give us grace to understand your goodness in creating us with the gift of reason, by which we may perceive your glory and our own sin and wretchedness, and by which we are able to resist our sensual nature which inclines us to sin. You have created us, Lord, in your own likeness and clothed us with the light of reason. O Supreme Being help us to understand your love, for you yourself are love! All the angels and saints love you and contemplate you and gaze upon you and worship you for ever. Amen.

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