Favorite Prayer of Sister Maureen Finn
In the Hands of God
Fr. Pedro Arupe, SJ
More than ever I find myself in the hands of God.
This is what I have wanted all my life from you youth.
But now there is a difference;
the initiative is entirely with God.
It is indeed a profound spiritual experience
to know and feel myself so totally in God´s hands.
Pedro Arupe composed this prayer after he suffered a debilitating stroke, the effects of which he patiently endured for the final 10 years of his life.
From Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits Loyola, 2004
Prayer of Abandonment
Charles Fouchauld
Father,
I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you
with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord,
and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands,
without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.
Patient Trust
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability -
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you,
your ideas mature gradually - let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don´t try to force them on,
as thought you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your won good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.