This prayer is kind of a modern version of the Anima Christi.
Jesus, may all that is you flow into me.
May your body and blood be my food and drink.
May your passion and death be my strength and life.Jesus, with you by my side enough has been given.
May the shelter I seek be the shadow of your cross.Let me not run from your love which you offer,
But hold me safe from the forces of evil.On each of my dyings shed your light and your love.
Keep calling to me until that day comes,
When with your saints, I may praise you forever.Amen.
I pray this prayer just about every morning. I always pause on the fourth line. Do I really think that with Jesus by my side, I will not need anything else? How many times have I wished to walk with Him and still wanted something else, or some one else? How many things have I tied myself to along with wanting God? Shouldn’t my longing for God be solely for God? Why can’t I see with my whole heart and head that He is enough?
The fifth line causes me to pause too. Shelter under the cross? Among all the pain and sorrow that occurred on the cross, do I really deep down believe that it all was transformed into happiness and joy, from defeat into victory, death into life? I do. I do. I do, but how deeply do I? Enough to run to it instead of from it every time I feel sorrow or pain?
Which leads to the sixth line. My first reaction to sorrow and pain is to run from it, or to fight it, or to avoid it, walk around it. Anything but engage it, face it, walk through it to the other side. I have been here enough now to realize that when I do let go, face it, walk through the fire with Him, I will be transformed as the eighth line says.
I recently heard a line that puts some things into clear perspective, “Go away closer.” My first reaction to sorrow, or even to joy sometimes, or to the awesome but scary love of Jesus, is to say, “Go away!” “This hurts too much. It will change me too much. You love me too much.” But I see that Jesus is there, the object of my longing, and I say, “Come closer.”
Two steps backwards, three steps forward. Go away closer.
Jesus, please bring me closer to you.