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A Prayer for Surrender

© Rev. Marie Jones

"Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess You have given me. I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more." St. Ignatius Loyola

It was during a time of physical recuperation that Inigo de Loyola, born in 1491, was converted to a life for Christ. He had suffered a severe leg injury and had been holed up for several weeks in the castle of Loyola, where out of sheer boredom he picked up a book on the life of Christ and the saints. As he read, he began to feel a strong connection with the saints and their lives of devotion, and his conversion began.

"Ignatius," as he would become known, eventually met with the Pope, traveled to the Holy Land on pilgrimage, and studied Latin in Barcelona to become a priest. So zealous was he in his desire to teach others how to pray, he was jailed by the Inquisition for 42 days.

But nothing would stop Ignatius from becoming a successful spiritual writer, teacher and beloved Jesuit priest and from establishing Jesuit schools and universities all over the world. St. Ignatius was beatified on July 27, 1609 and canonized in 1622. But to this day, his prayers are reverently spoken by Christians who deem to express their love for a glorious God.

This is a prayer of surrender, of completely giving oneself over to God and His will, and asking only for His love and grace in return. How St. Ignatius must have felt, loving a God so strongly, and being so strongly loved in return. Yet this same love is available to us should we desire it.

Worth more than all the gold and silver and monetary riches in the world, God's loving will for our lives is the most precious gift we are ever given. To recognize, as St. Ignatius does, that all that we are is because of God, and that all we have been given comes from God, is wisdom the soul longs to know and understand. To give ourselves over to this wisdom and let it guide our lives is to be who God intended us to be.

Jesus has told us that we should desire only the Kingdom of God, and that all else would be given to us once we entered the Kingdom. St. Ignatius tells us that once we receive the glory of God's loving grace, we will desire nothing more, for we will have everything.

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