A Sinner’s Prayer for Mercy

O LORD my God, thou unfathomable abyss of compassion, my sins are more in number than the sand upon the seashore, and I am not worthy to lift mine eyes up towards thee. My soul is a loathsome sink of iniquities, a foul and festering carcass of corruptions. Mine iniquities are gone over my head, and as a heavy burden have become heavy upon me. Within me reigns unchecked pride, vain-glory, impurity, avarice, envy, gluttony, sloth, and all kinds of evil. What shall I do, wretch that I am, or where hide myself from the face of the anger of God? Alas, O my Lord God, how many are my wounds, how utter the weakness of my soul! To whom shall I pour out my complaint by reason of all my evil and my sin, but unto thee, O Lord, thou Saviour and Redeemer of my soul? O Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy upon me, for with thee nothing is impossible, save to refuse mercy to the wretched. O sweet Jesus, restore to me thy grace once more, and receive me to thy friendship. Look upon me, not according to my merits, but according to thy great goodness. I grieve exceedingly for all the sins whereby I have offended thee, my most kind and loving God. O Lord my God, I hate, I abhor, I detest and abominate all my sins even as thou dost execrate and abhor them; would that I could grieve for them as thou dost desire! And to supply what is lacking in my grief, I offer thee all that contrition, all that sorrow, all that aversion from sin, which thy Son felt and endured in the Garden of Olives, when by reason of his excessive sorrow and anguish of soul his sweat fell in drops of Blood to the ground, and all his bowels were troubled within him; beseeching thee that thou wouldst now vouchsafe to accept that contrition in supply of what is lacking to mine, and to absolve me from my sins. Amen.