Page:TheParadiseOfTheChristianSoul.djvu/115

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have received from thee innumerable benefits, and most extraordinary gifts; my creation, redemption, vocation, the gift of the Holy Ghost, preservation, with infinite others, produced by or contained in them, of which I am most unworthy. Most especially I thank thee for this benefit, N. N. For this and for all others, I now return thee infinite thanks, with all my heart and strength, in proportion to the infinitude of thy love and goodness, which have prompted thee to give me them.

2. Acknowledging, then, my infinite obligations to thee, O infinite goodness, and being ignorant and incapable of returning thee the thanks I ought, and would desire, I call upon Jesus Christ, the blessed Virgin, and all creatures, both seen and unseen, to return thee thanks in my behalf. And I now offer thee, for myself, all the thanks, of every kind, which they themselves render thee, in whatever way, or have rendered, or will render thee ever. And I return thee thanks in union with them, with the same love, gratitude, and thanksgiving as theirs.

3. This I do, not as if those blessings were mine, but because they are thine. For I am ready and prepared to be deprived of them as often as it pleases thee to require them of me again. And I pray thee to take them from me, as often as thou judgest it to be conducive to thy greater glory.

4. I return thanks also to thy divine majesty, because thou art who art, and for all the good thou possessest. In thanksgiving and gratitude besides for all the gifts and blessings given, or to be given, to me and to all other thy creatures, that are, or have been, or shall be; especially for those which thou hast hitherto most bountifully bestowed upon holy angels and men, on the most blessed Virgin, on the most sacred humanity of thy Son our Lord, in the manner and form which pleases thee best, — I offer thee, O my God, thyself, who art the fulness and perfection of all things.

5. And not content with this, from this moment I give, deliver, and dedicate myself to thee, in token of gratitude; with the desire and wish to serve thee faithfully, and to love thee eternally with all my heart; most humbly praying that thou wouldst vouchsafe to accept this poor offering, whatever its value, unworthy as it is of thy majesty, and already thine by a thousand titles. Amen.