{"id":3504,"date":"2009-01-21T17:21:53","date_gmt":"2009-01-21T17:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2009\/01\/an-act-of-love\/"},"modified":"2009-01-21T17:21:53","modified_gmt":"2009-01-21T17:21:53","slug":"an-act-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2009\/01\/an-act-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"An Act of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vultuschristi.org\/P%C3%A8re_Muard.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"P&egrave;re_Muard.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vultuschristi.org\/P%C3%A8re_Muard-thumb-300x482.jpg?resize=300%2C482&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"300\" height=\"482\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right; margin: 0 0 20px 20px;\" \/><\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<em>My confessor said something to me today that reminded me of a prayer that impressed me back in the days of my monastic youth, and still does:  The <em>Act of Love<\/em> of Father <a href=\"http:\/\/catholique-sens-auxerre.cef.fr\/spip1.9\/Pere-Jean-Baptiste-Muard.html\">Jean-Baptiste Muard<\/a> (1809-1854), founder of the Society of Saint Edmund and of the Benedictine Abbey of La-Pierre-Qui-Vire.  Thirty-seven years ago, if I am not mistaken, my excellent Novice Master told me that he said this prayer every day after Holy Communion.  It is extraordinary the way certain things lodge themselves in one&#8217;s memory.<\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><br \/>\nP&egrave;re Muard&#8217;s Act of Love<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>Desiring to love Thee, my God, as much as is possible to a feeble creature,<br \/>\nI desire that all my thoughts, all my wishes, all my sentiments,<br \/>\nall my aspirations, all the pulsations of my heart,<br \/>\nall my movements, be so many acts of love.<br \/>\nI desire that every character I trace in writing,<br \/>\nevery word, every letter, I read be to me so many acts of love.<br \/>\nWould that I could offer Thee each day as many acts of most fervent love<br \/>\nas there are grains of sand on the sea-shore,<br \/>\nleaves on the trees of the forest,<br \/>\natoms in the air, and created things, and multiply them to infinity.<br \/>\nI offer Thee, my God, in compensation for my weakness,<br \/>\nall the acts of love of all the angels and all the saints in heaven and earth;<br \/>\nall the acts of love. of the most holy Virgin and, above all,<br \/>\nthe acts of love for Thee of Jesus Christ our Lord.<br \/>\nAlas ! my God, that I cannot love Thee as Thou deservest to be loved;<br \/>\ngive me, then, the heart of a Seraph or, rather,<br \/>\nfill my heart with the love of all the Seraphim,<br \/>\nthe love of all the Saints, the love of all hearts,<br \/>\nand increase it ever more and more<br \/>\nthat I may love Thee as much as I desire to love Thee. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My confessor said something to me today that reminded me of a prayer that impressed me back in the days of my monastic youth, and still does: The Act of Love of Father Jean-Baptiste Muard (1809-1854), founder of the Society of Saint Edmund and of the Benedictine Abbey of La-Pierre-Qui-Vire. Thirty-seven years ago, if I <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,13,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-florilegium","category-monastic","category-saints"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paVypq-Uw","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3504"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}