My Favorite Prayers

ONE SOLITARY LIFE

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another obscure village,
where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty.
Then for three years he was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never had a family or owned a home.
He never lived in a big city.
He never travelled 200 miles from the place where he was born.
He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness.
He had no credentials but himself.

While he was still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him.
His friends deserted him. He was turned over to his enemies,
and went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.

While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his garments,
the only property he had on earth.
When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave,
through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone,
and today he is the central figure for much of the human race.
All the armies that ever marched,
All the navies that ever sailed,
All the parliaments that ever sat,
All the kings that ever reigned,
put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth
as much as this
One Solitary Life.

anonymous

I asked for strength that I might achieve;
I was made weak that I might obey.

I asked for health that I might do great things;
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.

I asked for riches that I might be happy;
I was given poverty that I might be wise.

I asked for power that I might have the praise of others;
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

I have received nothing I asked for,
All that I hoped for.

My prayers are answered.

From the diary of a soldier wounded in the Civil War.

THE ROAD AHEAD

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.

Thomas Merton