During the 2024 Lenten season, I took the sacrament of reconciliation during a retreat. The
priest asked me if I had a favourite prayer? For my penance, he asked that I say that prayer slowly, focusing on every word and phrase.
Do you have a favourite prayer? If I had been asked that question anytime in the first six
decades of my life, I would have replied that I don’t believe in prayer or in it being answered. If you feel that way, as well, would you consider exploring the thinking that changed my mind in Is God Messing With My Mind?. If you do have a favourite prayer, might you consider applying my penance to it? Here’s how mine went.
“Good (time of day), Father. I love You, my dear beloved Father. I love You with all my
heart, all my strength and all my mind.” Here, I examine my love for God using the criteria laid out in All the Alls in The Greatest Commandment.
“Thank-you for enabling my love of You by opening my mind and heart to Your love and to the discernment and accomplishment of Your will. I thank those who may have prayed, on my behalf, for Your grace of healing my blindness.” Here, I think of all that the healing of my blindness has meant to me.
“Thank-you for Your invitation to eternal intimacy with You in heaven, for Your constant
and unconditional outreach to me during my lifetime on earth, for Your revelation and for the gifts of skepticism, questioning, reasoning, imagination, visualization and integration that were essential to my learning to better know You and more deeply love You.” Here, I reflect on each of these bountiful gifts.
“I offer You this day my free will; please unite it to Your divine will; show me what You would have me do this day and then help me, my dear beloved Father, to accomplish
it.” Here, I recommit to searching my mind for God’s help.
“Father, I offer You this day my all – my person, my possessions, my gifts, my
accomplishments and my relationships – all gifts to help me to learn to more
selflessly and unconditionally love You, all Your children and the whole of
creation.” Here, I recommit to putting selfless and unconditional love ahead of all else.
“I love You more than I ever dreamed of; more than I thought possible; more than I love
anyone on Earth and even more than I love my dear, beloved late wife, Peggy who,
as You know, I love more than anyone.”
Here I reflect on those I love most and the ways my love for God surpasses my love for each of them.
“I love you more than I love my beloved parents, Jack and Mabel, whose characteristics I
inherited and modelled. I love you more than I love my beloved late wife, Peggy, whose modelling shaped me into the person you formed me to become. I love you more than I love my beloved wife, Marcelle, who brought beauty, charm, companionship, love and a large circle of siblings and friends into my life to help heal the terrible emptiness of my loss of my dear, beloved late wife, Peggy.”
As the priest rightly discerned, praying and reflecting on all this, early and late in the day, helps me love my God with all my heart, all my strength and all my mind. Might this practice, with your favourite prayer, help you love your God with all your heart, all your strength and all your mind?
Del H. Smith conducts research into life’s meaning and is the award-winning author of the
Amazon Best Seller, Discovering Life’s Purpose.