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Prayers to
God the Father
St. Catherine of Siena
O Deity, my love, I see the world lying in death and so great a death
that my soul grows faint at the sight. How can life be restored to this
corpse? Your beloved Son will not come again, except in majesty to judge.
But You call Your servants “christs,” and by means of them You wish to
cast out death and restore life to the world, if only they walk manfully
along the way of the Word with ardent desire, and patiently endure
sufferings and grief for the sake of Your honor and the salvation of
souls. O Supreme Redeemer, grant us then such “christs” as will spend
their lives in watching, in tears, in prayer for the salvation of the
world!
Prayer XII
O Eternal God, O compassionate, merciful Father, have pity on us who
are blind, deprived of all light. With that glance of compassion whereby
You have created us and all things, look upon the needs of this world and
provide for them. You gave us being out of nothingness; enlighten, then,
this being which belongs to You.
Prayer VIII
Restore, O eternal God, health to the sick and life to the dead, and
give us a voice, so that we may cry out to You, with the voice You give
us, for mercy to the world and for the reformation of holy Church: listen
to that voice of Yours whereby we cry out to You.
Prayer XX
Cancel out our sins today, O true God, and cleanse the face of our
souls with the Blood of Your only-begotten Son, shed for us; so that, dead
to ourselves, living for Him, we may exchange our passion for His with
bright face and undivided soul.
Prayer VI
I implore Your omnipotence, Eternal Father, the wisdom of Your
only-begotten Son through His Precious Blood, and the clemency of the Holy
Spirit, furnace and abyss of charity, Who held the same Son fixed to the
cross, to have mercy on the world and restore the warmth of love with
peace and unity in the holy Church.
Prayer XXIV
O delightful love, O fire, O abyss of charity, O incomprehensible
sublimity! The more I consider Your exaltedness in the Passion of the
Word, the more my soul is ashamed of never having known You. But today may
it please the loftiness of Your charity to enlighten the eye of my
intellect and that of all human beings!
Prayer XII
Do not delay, most benign Father. Turn the eye of Your mercy upon the
world. You will be glorified more by bestowing light upon them than if
they were to remain in the blindness and darkness of sin, although You
draw the glory and praise of Your name from everything. But I wish to see
the glory and praise of Your name in Your creatures, who follow Your will
and reach the goal for which You created them. Grant, O most kind and
compassionate Father, Your sweet and eternal blessing.
Prayer XX
You see, Eternal Father, that Your servants stand at the door of Your
Truth and ask. And for what are they asking? For the Blood of this door,
Your Truth. In His Blood You have cleansed our iniquity; His Blood is ours
because You have made of It a bath for us. You neither can refuse It to
anyone asking It of You in truth, nor wish to. Give, then, the fruit of
the Blood to Your creatures; place on the scales the price of Your beloved
Son’s Blood, so that the infernal demons may not abscond with Your little
sheep.
Dialogue, 134
O Sweetest Father, I beseech You to have mercy on the world and on Your
holy Church. Do not delay any longer: yield to and fulfill the desire of
Your servants. It is You who bid them to cry out; listen, then, to their
voice! Your Truth has told us: ask and You shall receive; seek and You
shall find; knock and it shall be opened to You. O Eternal Father, Your
servants cry out for Your mercy: do respond to them.
Dialogue, 134
O good Shepherd, You gave us the true Shepherd, Your only-begotten Son;
and He, in obedience, laid down His life for Your sheep and made of His
Blood a bath for us. In their hunger, Your servants beg of You this Blood,
that You may take pity on the world and that Holy Church may blossom again
with the fragrant flowers of good and holy shepherds.
Dialogue 134
What made You establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the
incalculable love by which You have looked on Your creature in Yourself!
You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed You created her, by
love You have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good.
Dialogue 4,13
Oh Eternal Truth, I appeal to Your mercy that You grant me the grace to
follow Your Truth with a sincere heart; give me a fire, an abyss of
charity; give me a constant thirst to endure pain and torment for Your
sake. Grant to my eyes, Eternal Father, a fountain of tears whereby I may
incline Your pity toward the whole world and in particular toward Your
spouse.
Prayer XIX |