"I had not informed my conscience neither suddenly nor slightly,
but by long leisure and diligent search". (St. Thomas More)

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Margaret's Prayer


When St. Thomas More was imprisoned in the Tower of London, his eldest daughter Margaret composed a special prayer for her and her father to pray in union with one another --  he in his cell and she at home:

"O Lord, give us grace of your tender pity so firmly to rest our love in you with little regard of this world, and so to flee sin and embrace virtue, that we may say with St. Paul, 'To me, to live is Christ and to die is wealth', and again 'I wish to be discharged and to be with Christ'.  Send me, O Lord, the grace, wretch that I am far, far, farthest of all other from such point of perfection, to amend my life, and continually to have an eye to mine end, without grudge of death, which to them that die in God is the gate of a wealthy life which God of his infinite mercy bring us all, Amen."
Source:  John Guy, A Daughter's Love, (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, 2009), p. 249;
Last Letters of  Thomas More, Alvaro de Silva, Ed. (William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2000), pp. 104-107 (Letter 17).

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