Rouse us, O Lord, from the sleep of apathy and from tossing to and fro in our thoughts, that we may no longer live as in a troubled dream but as people awake and resolved to finish the work you have given them to do. By your humble birth root out of our hearts all pride and haughtiness, that humble ways may content us, if so be that we may serve the humble. By the life of compassion for those who labor and are heavy laden, teach us to be concerned one for another and to bear one another’s burdens. By your hallowed and most bitter anguish on the cross, make us to fear you, and love you, and follow you, O Christ. [Amen.]
a prayer of Brigid
in the Ancient Christian Devotional, ed. Thomas Oden and Cindy Crosby, 192.
This is a deep cry of my heart that I daily fight with my will. ” Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Rom 7
Mark – I was particularly gripped by the prayer for humility and the cry to be roused from sleep and resolved in action. This prayer just shines with passion.