Behold, O Lord, my heart is before You.
A Meditation on Human Redemption, from the complete philosophical and theological treatises of Anselm of Canterbury, as translated by Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson. Published by the Arthur J. Banning Press, Minneapolis 2000
Behold, 0 Lord, my heart is before You. It strains, but can do
nothing of itself; Do, 0 Lord, what it cannot do. Receive me into
the inner chamber of Your love. I ask, I seek, I knock. You who
cause me to ask, cause me also to receive. You grant that I seek;
grant that I also may find. You teach me to knock; open to me
when I knock. If You deny to him who asks, to whom do You then
give ? If he who seeks seeks in vain, who then finds? If You keep
[the chamber door] closed for one who knocks, for whom do You
open ? If You withhold Your love from one who implores, what
do You give to one who does not implore? You cause me to desire;
cause me also to obtain. 0 my soul, cling to Him, cling tenaciously.
Good Lord, 0 good Lord, do not scorn my soul, which
faints out of hunger for Your love. Revive my soul; let Your tender
kindness satisfy it, let Your affection make it fat, let Your love
fill it. Let Your love seize my whole being; let it possess me completely,
because together with the Father and the Holy Spirit You
are the only God, blessed forever. Amen.