Prayer of St Bonaventure

Print or download the following prayer of St. Bonaventure.  It is especially fitting to pray this prayer after sacramental or spiritual communion, but it is a beautiful prayer to pray anytime.

Pierce, O most sweet Lord Jesus, my inmost soul with the most joyous and healthful wound of your love, and with true, calm and most holy apostolic charity, that my soul may ever languish and melt with entire love and longing for you, may yearn for you and for your courts, may long to be dissolved and to be with you.  Grant that my soul may hunger after you, the Bread of Angels, the refreshment of holy souls, our daily and supersubstantial bread, having all sweetness and savor and every delightful taste.

May my heart ever hunger after and feed upon you, Whom the angels desire to look upon, and may my inmost soul be filled with the sweetness of your savor; may it ever thirst for you, the fountain of life, the fountain of wisdom and knowledge, the fountain of eternal light, the torrent of pleasure, the fullness of the house of God; may it ever compass you, seek you, find you, run to you, come up to you, meditate on you, speak of you, and do all for the praise and glory of your name, with humility and discretion, with love and delight, with ease and affection, with perseverance to the end; and be you alone ever my hope, my entire confidence, my riches, my delight, my pleasure, my joy, my rest and tranquility, my peace, my sweetness, my food, my refreshment, my refuge, my help, my wisdom, my portion, my possession, my treasure; in Whom may my mind and my heart be ever fixed and firm and rooted immovably.  Amen.

For St. Bonaventure’s teaching on contemplative prayer, see Mystical Prayer in the Holy Spirit.