Dear Lord,
Help me to spread your fragrance wherever I go.
Flood my soul with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of yours.
Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel your presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me, but only you, O Lord!
Stay with me, then I shall begin to shine as you do; so to shine as to be a light to others.
The light, O Lord, will be all from you; none of it will be mine; it will be you shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise you in the way you love best, by shining on those around me.
Let me preach without preaching, not by words but by my example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to you.
Amen.
-John Henry Newman
(One of Mother Teresa's favorite prayers, said every day by the Missionaries of Charity)
