My Tender and Forgiving Lord
(Confession)

Tender Lord, art Thou willing that I should kneel before Thee ere I make my way to beg absolution of Thy Priest?

I want to thank Thee, sweet forgiving Lord, for Thy powerful grace that has shone so brightly upon my soul, revealing to me stains long since forgotten,-wounds of years gone by, which though confessed and forgiven, have left their mark behind.

I scarce know what words to utter to my darling, tender Lord, for while I grieve for having caused Thee pain, I long to fly to Thee in love and confidence.

It may be, sweet Lord, that my soul is not scarred with crime and vice, great shame if it were, but are  not my infidelities, my coldness and my resistance to grace as painful in Thy sight on a soul so steeped in grace, as are the mortal wounds on the soul of an ignorant, pitiful sinner?

My soul, darling Lord, my soul, flooded with light and inundated with grace, is weighed down and heavy with the vapors of the world, nauseated and bewildered with its incessant whirl.

Insensible to Thy sweet influence, deaf to the pleadings of Thy Voice, heedless of Thy constant knocking at my heart, indifferent to Thy appeal, I turn from Thee day after day, my tender Christ, nor do I hasten to return; but Thou, in Thy exquisite mercy, comest to me and I hear Thee whisper to my soul:- "Come to me, all ye, who are weary and heavily laden and I will refresh you."