A prayer about slavery to sin
3 min • Digitized on June 25, 2024
#Prayer #Sin #What the Saints Say
From Meditations and Devotions, page 342
By St. John Henry Newman
THE BONDAGE OF SIN
1. Thou, O my Lord and God, Thou alone art strong, Thou alone art holy! Thou art the Sanctus Deus, Sanctus fortis—“Holy God, holy and strong!” Thou art the sanctity and the strength of all things. No created nature has any stay or subsistence in itself, but crumbles and melts away, if Thou art not with it, to sustain it. My God, Thou art the strength of the Angels, of the Saints in glory—of holy men on earth. No being has any sanctity or any strength apart from Thee. My God, I wish to adore Thee as such. I wish with all my heart to understand and to confess this great truth, that not only Thou art Almighty, but that there is no might at all, or power, or strength, anywhere but in Thee.
2. My God, if Thou art the strength of all spirits, O how pre-eminently art Thou my strength! O how true it is, so that nothing is more so, that I have no strength but in Thee! I feel intimately, O my God, that, whenever I am left to myself, I go wrong. As sure as a stone falls down to the earth if it be let go, so surely my heart and spirit fall down hopelessly if they are let go by Thee. Thou must uphold me by Thy right hand, or I cannot stand. How strange it is, but how true, that all my natural tendencies are towards sloth, towards excess, towards neglect of religion, towards neglect of prayer, towards love of the world, not towards love of Thee, or love of sanctity, or love of self-governance. I approve and praise what I do not do. My heart runs after vanities, and I tend to death, I tend to corruption and dissolution, apart from Thee, Deus immortalis.
3. My God, I have had experience enough what a dreadful bondage sin is. If Thou art away, I find I cannot keep myself, however I wish it—and am in the hands of my own self-will, pride, sensuality, and selfishness. And they prevail with me more and more every day, till they are irresistible. In time the old Adam within me gets so strong, that I become a mere slave, I confess things to be wrong which nevertheless I do. I bitterly lament over my bondage, but I cannot undo it. O what a tyranny is sin! It is a heavy weight which cripples me—and what will be the end of it? By Thy all-precious merits, by Thy Almighty power, I intreat Thee, O my Lord, to give me life and sanctity and strength! Deus sanctus, give me holiness; Deus fortis, give me strength; Deus immortalis, give me perseverance. Sanctus Deus, Sanctus fortis, Sanctus immortalise miserere nobis.