imploring thy mercy, and beseeching thee to take pity and compassion on [him] in this [his] present and pressing affliction [infirmity, poverty, temptation , trouble, or whatsoever other spiritual or corporal necessity ].
Hear my prayers, O assured refuge of all afflicted wretches! behold my tears, consider my sorrows, and remedy my distresses; for, finding myself encompassed with very grievous calamities by reason of my great crimes, I know not whither to fly for succour, or to whom I may make my moan, but to thee, my meek and merciful Saviour, with a full hope and confidence that thou, O my loving Redeemer, wilt vouchsafe to lend the ears of thy ordinary pity and accustomed clemency to the humble petition of thy poor child; and by that sweetness which thy blessed soul perceived at the time of thy union with our human nature, when, resolving with the Father and the Holy Ghost to unite thy divine person to mortal flesh for man’s salvation, thou didst send thy angel to the Holy Virgin Mary with those happy tidings, and, clothing thyself with our human nature in her chaste womb, remainedst true God and true man for the space of nine months in her sacred womb.
By the anguish thou enduredst when, the time of thy designed passion drawing nigh, thou prayedst to thy eternal Father, that if it might stand with his most divine providence, thou desiredst that that bitter chalice might pass away from thee; yet concluding with a most perfect act of resignation, “Not my will, O heavenly Father, but thine be done.”
By the outrageous injuries, shameful, disgraces, cruel blows, contumelious blasphemies, forged witnesses, false accusations, and unjust judgments which thou, innocent Lamb, patiently enduredst; by the
