Prayer of St. Columban

O Lord Jesus, you are that Fountain always to be desired, always to be drunk from. Lord Christ, may you always give us this water that it may be in us a fountain of water that lives and springs up to eternal life.

I know Lord Jesus that I am asking a great gift from you but I know King of glory, that you are infinitely generous in giving and that you promised great things to those who ask; you have promised yourself to us; what greater gift could we ask.

For that reason we ask that we may know the thing we love, since we pray for nothing other than Yourself to be given to us; for You are our all, our life, our light, our salvation, our food, our drink, our God.

Inspire our hearts, we beg You, dear Jesus, with that breath of Your Spirit, that wound our souls with Your love, that the soul of each one of us may be able to say in truth, “Show me Him Whom my soul has loved, for by love I am wounded”.  I desire that those wounds may be in me, O Lord.

Blessed is the person who is wounded by such love; who seeks the Fountain, who drinks, though he discovers in drinking that he thirsts for more, because he discovers in this loving desire, painful as it is, that he is being healed.

We invite you, our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, to wound the inmost part of our souls with this love, you who live and reigns with you Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.