At the Offertory.
CONSIDERATION.
REFLECT that Christ, your model and example, having offered himself to the Eternal Father to die for the expiation of sin, it is but just you should offer to do the same.
AFFECTIONS.
O ETERNAL Father! behold thy dear Son, who out of his abundant charity offered himself to die for my sins and offences: is it not just that I should imitate this divine model? I offer thee then my heart, my soul, my liberty, and my life, united to those of my dear Saviour, that so they may find favour in thy sight. Like a criminal guilty of treason, condemned by thy divine Majesty to death, I submit, and rejoice that my body will be reduced to dust, that thereby the faults which my proud mind has committed for its sake may be punished. But, oh! let my soul return to thy hands from whence it came. I resign myself to all the bitterness, temptations, pains, and anguish, which may accompany my death, begging thy support under them. This being all I can offer to thy divine Majesty in atonement for my sins, I beseech thee to accept of it, to forget my iniquities, and to remember that I am the work of thy hands, the price of thy blood, the conquest of thy cross. “I am thine, save me: for I have sought thy justifications .” ( Psalm cxviii. 94.)
I protest before thee, my God, that I will never admit any thoughts but such as are conformable to what faith teaches; that I will hope in thy mercy, and love thy goodness: and if any sentiments contrary to these present themselves to my mind, I reject and disavow them. I recommend my soul,
