Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and thy grace, for this is sufficient for me.
The Suscipe Prayer, written by St. Ignatius. Suscipe is Latin for “take.”
If we’re wondering what to do with our lives, or even with the next fifteen minutes, the Suscipe is a wonderful prayer to fall back on. When it comes to decision making, context is everything, and this is a prayer that instantly puts our decision making into the right context, even when our own words fail us, when our own desires are pulling us in a million directions. The more you roll this prayer around in your soul, and the more you think about it, the more radical it is revealed to be.
This is a great lesson from our Lord, exampled by our Blessed Mother.
“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” Mark 12:17
This week’s Praise Monday song is based on this prayer.