In preparation for the Jubilee ’25, the Pope has designated 2024 a Year of Prayer. Aleteia brings you a weekly prayer to grow in this year.
The prayer for this week during this Year of Prayer is by Blessed Raymond Jordano, a medieval French abbot who wrote around the year 1381. This poignant prayer celebrates the pricelessness of Jesus’ love and voices our desire to be blessed with it:
Most gracious Lord Jesus Christ, you who are the fullness of love, neither honor, money, nor any earthly wealth, nor even goodness, nor any skill or knowledge can fill the heart and satisfy the craving of our conscience, but only a true and pure love for you.
O most merciful Lord Jesus Christ, richest in love, whoever wants to be enriched and satisfied must have true love which restores and perfects the heart and satisfies it. For whoever is without true love, even if they had all the world’s riches and in addition wisdom, courage, simplicity, and loveliness, nevertheless would be poor and wretched because, not content with them, they would always be seeking other things.
O kindest Lord Jesus Christ, consuming love, what a wonderful lesson you have shown us sinners for our salvation by warning us to buy tried gold, by which is understood wholehearted love. Nothing can be bought that is better than this love and nothing is more precious than this when it is gained.
O most gentle Lord Jesus Christ, rich in love, I am wretched and pitiable, destitute, naked and blind; give me this tried gold that is love of you, so that my heart may be set on fire with it, that it may be restored and calmed in you, and that I myself, enriched by your grace and love, may reach love’s eternal kingdom. Amen
And today we celebrate...