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                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Prayers for Illumination on Longing

Image of a woman staring out the window representing longing

Lord, teach us to seek you, and reveal yourself to us when we seek you.

For we cannot seek you unless you first teach us, nor find you except you reveal yourself to us. Let us seek you in longing, and long for you in seeking; let us find you in love, and love you in finding, O Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Ambrose of Milan, Quoted in Walter Mitchell, Trns, Early Christian Prayers, ed., A. Ham­man, Longman Green, London, and Henry Regnery, Chicago, 1961.

O Lord our God,

grant us grace to desire you with our whole heart,

that so desiring we may seek and find you;

and so finding you we may love you;

and loving you we may hate those sins

from which you have redeemed us;

for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Anselm of Canterbury, Found in Ed J. Manning Potts, Prayers of the Middle Ages, 1954.