Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

From friary days, Father David Mary stressed that I must own this part of the mass. It was for me. His words embraced my affliction of alcoholism. The words follow the Lord’s Prayer, occuring after we rose from kneeling in reverence of the bread and wine being transfigured into the Body and Blood, in preparation to receive communion, before communally praising the omnipotence and omnipresence of Our Lord and the exchanging of charity with our neighbors. It is the time, even to a greater degree than the opening penitential rites, that I center myself deeply in humility and gratitude, forgetting myself, enraptured in smallness, moving past self-consciousness, enveloped in love, eager with hope, quieted through faith. The only way I can truly own anything is through weakness and surrender, through faith and hope, supplicating the Lord, trusting His love will provide what I need.