Tag: St Thomas More

Thank You

Thank you, dear Jesus,
for all you have given me,
for all you have taken away from me,
for all you have left me.

Give me the Grace, Good Lord

(Prayer was written by St Thomas More while imprisoned in the Tower of London)

Give me the grace, Good Lord:
– To set the world at naught. To set the mind firmly on You and not to hang upon the words of men’s mouths.

– To be content to be solitary. Not to long for worldly pleasures. Little by little utterly to cast off the world and rid my mind of all its business.

– Not to long to hear of earthly things, but that the hearing of worldly fancies may be displeasing to me.

– Gladly to be thinking of God, piteously to call for His help. To lean into the comfort of God. Busily to labour to love Him.

– To know my own vileness and wretchedness. To humble myself under the mighty hand of God. To bewail my sins and, for the purging of them, patiently to suffer adversity.

– Gladly to bear my purgatory here. To be joyful in tribulations. To walk the narrow way that leads to life.

– To have the last thing in remembrance. To have ever before my eyes my death that is ever at hand. To make death no stranger to me. To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of Hell. To pray for pardon before the judge comes.

– To have continually in mind the passion that Christ suffered for me. For His benefits unceasingly to give Him thanks.

– To buy the time again that I have lost. To abstain from vain conversations. To shun foolish mirth and gladness. To cut off unnecessary recreations.

– Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all, to set the loss at naught, for the winning of Christ.

– To think my worst enemies my best friends, for the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favour as they did him with their malice and hatred.

These minds are more to be desired of every man than all the treasures of all the princes and kings, Christian and heathen, were it gathered and laid together all in one heap. Amen.

Holy Sacraments – Give me the Grace

Give me the grace to long for Your Holy Sacraments,
and especially to rejoice in the presence of Your body,
sweet Saviour Christ, in the Holy Sacrament of the altar. Amen.

Lawyer’s Prayer

Thomas More, counsellor of law and statesman of integrity, merry martyr and most human of saints:

Pray that, for the glory of God and in the pursuit of His justice,
I may be trustworthy with confidences,
keen in study, accurate in analysis,
correct in conclusion, able in argument,
loyal to clients, honest with all,
courteous to adversaries, ever attentive to conscience.
Sit with me at my desk and listen with me to my clients’ tales.
Read with me in my library and stand always beside me
so that today I shall not, to win a point, lose my soul.

Pray that my family may find in me what yours found in you:
friendship and courage, cheerfulness and charity,
diligence in duties, counsel in adversity,
patience in pain—their good servant, and God’s first. Amen

Prayer for Good Humor

Grant me oh Lord, good digestion,
and also something to digest.
Grant me a healthy body, and
the necessary good humour to maintain it.
Grant me a simple soul that knows
to treasure all that is good
and that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil,
but rather finds the means to put things
back in their place.
Give me a soul that knows not boredom,
grumbles, sighs, and laments,
nor excess of stress, because of that
obstructing thing called “I.”
Grant me O Lord, a good sense of humour,
Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke
to discover in life a bit of joy,
and to be able to share it with others.

(By St Thomas More)

Prayer To St Thomas More

Holy martyr for the Church, you used your talents
to bring God’s love and mercy to earth. Yet you
realized that human fame and glory were
momentary and fleeting.

In your practice of law, you understood and were
loyal first to God’s eternal law spoken through the
successors of the Apostles. While a servant of
the king, you were a servant to the Church first.

Help me to see that loyalty to God’s laws must be
the first part of my ties and responsibilities with
others. Strengthen me to seek out what the
Church teaches. Give me the wisdom to make the
right choice, and the fortitude to carry it out. This
I ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.