St Alphonsus for priests (Tuesday)

Prayer to be said by the priest after celebrating Mass (Tuesday)

Ah! My Lord, how could I have offended you so many times, knowing that by sinning, I was so greatly displeasing you. I beg you, through the merits of your passion, forgive me, and bind me to you by the bond of your love; may the stench of my faults not separate you from me. Make me acknowledge more and more your goodness, and the love which is owed to you, and the love with which you loved me.

I desire, O good Jesus, to devote my whole self to you, who have willed to offer yourself in sacrifice for me. You have bound me to yourself by innumerable proofs of charity; do not permit me, I pray, ever to separate myself from you. I love you, my God, and I wish always to love you. And how can I live separated from you and without your grace when I have known your love?

I give you thanks because you have borne with me when I was living without your grace and because you have still granted me time for loving you. If destruction should have come upon me then, I would not have been able to love you any more. But because I can love you now, I wish to love you with all my strength, O most sweet Jesus, I ardently desire to please you in all things. I love you, O infinite goodness, I love you more than myself; and because I love you, I give you my body, my soul, and my whole will. Do, and dispose with me according to your good pleasure. I subject myself to you in all things. If you would grant that I should always love you, I ask for nothing else. Give earthly goods to those who want them; I lack nothing and ask nothing else except perseverance in your grace and your holy love.

O eternal Father, relying on the promise of your Son Amen, amen I say to you, if you should ask the Father anything in my name, he will give it to you (Jn 16.23), in the name of Jesus Christ, I ask of you holy perseverance and the grace of loving you with my whole heart, and of perfectly doing your will from now on. O Jesus, you became a victim for me and you gave yourself for me, so that I should give myself to you, and so that I should immolate my will; for you say: My son, give me your heart (Prov 23.26). Behold my heart, O Lord, behold my heart and my soul which I give to you and completely devote to you. Nevertheless, you know my weakness, O Lord: help me; do not permit me to take back this my desire so that I should sin against you. No! Do not permit this; grant that I may always love you, make me love you as a priest should love you; and as your Son could say while dying on the cross It is consummated, so also in my death, may I be able to say that from this day, I have kept your commandments. Grant that in every temptation and danger of sinning against you I may always come back to you and not fail to implore your assistance through the merits of Jesus Christ.

O Mary most holy, who can do all things with God, obtain for me this grace, that in temptation I may always fly to God and to you.

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