O Good Master, I have nothing to offer Thee but my sins and guilt.
My faith is weak and full of imperfections.
My good works are filthy rags, an embarrassment in light of Thy excessively generous gifts.
Fear of Thy just retribution covers me like a thick, black cloud, obscuring all view of anything but my culpability.
Even to pray, I feel resistance, as though some dark power menaces me.
But Thou O Lord, art love; Thou art to the Greeks agape and to the Hebrews ch'sed. No word in my native tongue approaches these renderings, so we say Thou art perfect charity.
In this do I hope; not in my prayers, not in my poor excuse for faith, not in my religious observance, not in my mediocre fasting or impoverished almsgiving.
Only in this goodness and mercy of the divine Essence, which the Apostles teach us Thou art.
At the foot of Thy holy cross I tremble, ashamed, afraid.
How unfathomable is my debt to Thee, O Lord!
Only that grace which Thou pourest into my stony, cold heart can save me.
Only these actual graces - gratuitous gifts from your most merciful heart, pierced with the lance of my pride - can deliver me from my craven, unspiritual fear on the one hand and my insufferable arrogance and presumption on the other.
When Thou judgest me at my death, consider these wounds of charity, Good Master, remember the terrible price you paid to ransom my soul, and not the contemptible vessel who receives the benefit of their merit.
Grant to me O merciful and loving Jesus to persevere in the grace which You lavish upon sinners, and not to despair of my unworthiness but to remain immovably attached to your Passion on our behalf.
Amen.
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