Lord, deliver me from myself

 

As he was starting out on a journey, a stranger ran up, and kneeling before him, asked, 'Good Master, what must I do to win eternal life?'...Jesus looked straight at him; his heart warmed to him, and he said, 'One thing you lack; go, sell everything you have, and give to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; and come, follow me.' At these words his face fell and he went away with a heavy heart; for he was a man of great wealth. (Mark. 10: 17.21.22.)

Lord, do you hear me?

 

I’m suffering dreadfully.

Locked in myself,

I hear nothing but my voice,

I see nothing but myself,

And behind me there is nothing but suffering.

Lord, do you hear me?

 

Deliver me from my body; it is nothing but hunger, with its

thousands of tentacles outstretched to appease its insatiable

appetite.

 

Lord, do you hear me?

 

Deliver me from my heart; when I think that it’s overflowing

  with love, I realize angrily that it is again myself that I love

  through the loved one.

 

Lord, do you hear me?

 

Deliver me from my mind, it is full of itself, of its ideas, its

  opinions; it cannot carry on a dialogue, as no words reach it

  but its own.

 

Alone, I am bored,

             I am weary,

             I hate myself,

             I am disgusted with myself.

For ages, I have been running around inside myself like a sick man

   in his feverish bed.

 

Everything seems dark, ugly, horrid.

It’s because I can look only through myself.

I feel ready to hate men and the whole world.

It’s because I’m disappointed that I cannot love them.

I would like to get away,

Walk, run, to another land.

I know that joy exists, I have seen it on singing faces.

I know that light exists, I have seen it in radiant eyes.

But, Lord, I cannot get away, for I love my prison and I hate it,

For my prison is myself,

And I love myself, Lord.

I both love and loathe myself.

 

Lord, I can no longer find my own door.

I grope around blindly,

I knock against my own walls, my own boundaries.

I hurt myself,

I am in pain.

 

I am in too much pain, and no one knows it, for no one has come in.

I am alone, all alone.

 

Lord, Lord, do you hear me?

Lord, show me the door,

         take me by the hand.

Open the door,

Show me the way,

The path leading to joy, to light.

 

…But…

But, Lord, do you hear me?

 

Son, I have heard you.

I am sorry for you.

I have long been watching your closed shutters; open them,

    my light will come in.

I have long been standing at your locked door; open it, you will

    find me on the threshold.

I am waiting for you, the others are waiting for you,

But you must open,

You must come out.

 

Why choose to be a prisoner of yourself?

You are free.

It is not I who locked the door,

It is not I who can open it.

…For it is you, from the inside, who persist in keeping it solidly

   barred.

 

(From Prayers of Life by Michel Quoist, Gill & Macmillan,1963)