Anselm's "Prayer to God"

“Almighty God, merciful Father, and my good Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. Grant me forgiveness of my sins. Make me guard against and overcome all snares, temptations, and harmful pleasures. May I shun utterly in word and in deed, whatever you forbid, and do and keep whatever you command. Let me believe and hope, love and live, according to your purpose and your will. Give me heart-piercing goodness and humility; discerning abstinence and mortification of the flesh. Help me to love you and pray to you, praise you and meditate upon you. May I act and think in all things according to your will, purely, soberly, devoutly, and with a true and effective mind. Let me know your commandments, and love them, carry them out readily, and bring them into effect. Always, Lord, let me go on with humility to better things and never grow slack. Lord, do not give me over either to my human ignorance and weakness or to my own deserts, or to anything, other than your loving dealing with me. Do you yourself in kindness dispose of me, my thought and actions, according to your good pleasure, so that your will may always be done by me and in me and concerning me. Deliver me from all evil and lead me to eternal life through the Lord.”The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm (Penguin Books, 1986), 93-94

Anselm's prayers our fruition of his reading and meditating on the Scriptures where he came to understand the wickedness of himself and the great majesty of God. We grow in humility the more that we read Scripture and see the grandness and greatness of Christ and our prayers our shaped by understanding our sinful state, our need for Christ, and the mercy we find at the Cross. Take a moment a read this prayer out loud and may we all find unison is praying "Help me to love you and pray to you, praise you and meditate upon you…"