Dear God, be good to me.
The sea is so wide and my boat is so small.
–Breton fisherman’s prayer
God grant me
the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference
– living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time,
accepting hardships as the pathways to peace;
taking as He did, this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it;
trusting that He will make things right
if I surrender to His will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him forever.
–Serenity Prayer in full
Let nothing disturb you
Let nothing frighten you
Everything passes.
God alone remains.
Patience obtains everything.
He who has God has everything.
God alone suffices!
–Bookmark of Saint Teresa
O great Spirit,
whose voice I hear in the winds,
and whose breath gives life to all the world,
hear me!
I am small and weak;
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty,
and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise
so that I may understand the things
you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons
you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength, not to be greater than my friend,
but to fight my greatest enemy – myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset,
may my spirit come to you without shame.
–Native American prayer. Red Cloud Indian School
O God, you have prepared the peaceful path
I am to follow today,
Help me to walk straight on the path
If I speak, remove lies from my mouth.
If I am hungry, remove complaints from my lips.
If I have plenty, remove pride from my heart.
May I go through the day calling on you, o Lord,
you who know no other Lord.
–An Ethiopian prayer for peace
I sit beside my lonely fire
And prayer for wisdom yet :
For calmness to remember
Or courage to forget.
–Charles Hamilton Aid?
Prayer. This is that incense of the heart,
Whose fragrance sells to Heaven.
–Nathaniel Cotton
Two went to pray? Oh, rather say
One went to brag, the other to pray;
One stands up close and treads on high
Where the other dares not send his eye;
One nearer to God’s altar trod,
The other to the altar’s God.
–Richard Crashaw
I ask not a life for the dear ones,
All radiant, as others have done,
But that life may have just enough shadow
To temper the glare of the sun;
I would pray God to guard them from evil,
But my prayer would bound back to myself :
Ah! a seraph may pray for a sinner,
But a sinner must pray for himself!
–Charles M Dickinson
Away in foreign fields they wondered how
Their simple words had power –
At home the Christians, two or three had met
To pray an hour.
Yes, we are always wondering, wondering how –
Because we do not see
Someone – perhaps unknown and far away –
On bended knee.
–Anonymous
God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers.
And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face,
A gauntlet with a gift in’t.
–Anonymous
Doubt not but God who sits in high,
Thy secret prayer can hear;
When a dead wall thus cunningly
Conveys soft whispers to the ear.
–Anonymous