St. John Chrysostom
I love to read. I read everything and everywhere; even when I backpacked out in the Alaskan wilderness a book was as much a necessity as knife or matches. In a determined effort to try to follow along more with the liturgical year, I took out subscriptions to “Living with Christ-Your Daily Companion for Praying and Living the Eucharist” and “Magnificat.”
I enjoy reading the saints’ stories and quotes in Magnificat. Some of them are really wacky and intriguing historical or supernatural tales. But I really value the commentary in Living with Christ. There is always something I can immediately put to use. The writing is clear and plain, with none of the obfucation that makes religious reading usually such a purgatory.
In this month’s edition of Living with Christ “Guides for the Journey” focuses on St. John Chrysostom: My Advice on Prayer.
“Prayer, loving conversation with God, is the supreme good. It is both a relationship with God and union with God. As the eyes of he body are made sharper by the sight of light, so the soul yearning for God is illuminated by God’s ineffable light. Prayer is not the result of an external attitude. It comes from the heart.
Prayer, by which we present ourselves to God, is the joy of the heart and the soul’s rest. Prayer gives a real assurance of the good things to come, in faith, and makes our present blessings more recognizable.”
Prayer of St. John Chrysostom:
O Lord, deprive me not of Thy heavenly blessings;
O Lord, deliver me from eternal torment;
O Lord, if I have sinned in my mind or thought, in word deed, forgive me.
O Lord, deliver me from every ignorance and heedlessness, from pettiness of the soul and stony hardness of heart;
O Lord, deliver me from every temptation;
O Lord, enlighten my heart darkened by evil desires;
O Lord, I, being a human being, have sinned; do Thou, being God, forgive me in Thy lovingkindness, for Thou knowest the weakness of my soul.
O Lord, send down Thy grace to help me, that I may glorify Thy holy Name;
O Lord Jesus Christ, inscribe me, Thy servant, in the Book of Life, and grant me a blessed end;
O Lord my God, even if I have done nothing good in Thy sight, yet grant me, according to Thy grace, that I may make a start in doing good.
O Lord, sprinkle on my heart the dew of Thy grace;
O Lord of heaven and earth, remember me, Thy sinful servant, cold of heart and impure, in Thy Kingdom.
O Lord, receive me in repentance;
O Lord, leave me not;
O Lord, save me from temptation;
O Lord, grant me pure thoughts;
O Lord, grant me tears of repentance, remembrance of death, and the sense of peace.
O Lord, grant me mindfulness to confess my sins;
O Lord, grant me humility, charity, and obedience;
O Lord, grant me tolerance, magnanimity, and gentleness;
O Lord, implant in me the root of all blessings: the fear of Thee in my heart;
O Lord, vouchsafe that I may love Thee with all my heart and soul, and that I may obey in all things Thy will;
O Lord, shield me from evil persons and devils and passions and all other lawless matters;
O Lord, Who knowest Thy creation and that which Thou hast willed for it; may Thy will also be fulfilled in me, a sinner, for Thou art blessed forevermore. Amen.
