Written by St Thomas More while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London, 1534.

Give me thy grace, good Lord,
To set the world at naught.

To set my mind fast upon thee
And not to hang upon the blast of men’s mouths.

To be content to be solitary,
Not to long for worldly company.

Little and little utterly to cast off the world
And rid my mind of all the business thereof.

Not to long to hear of any worldly things,
But that the hearing of worldly fantasies may be to me displeasant.

Gladly to be thinking of God,
Piteously to call for his help.

To lean unto the comfort of God,
Busily to labour to love him.

To know my own vility and wretchedness,
To humble and meeken myself under the mighty hand of God.

To bewaile my sins passed
For the purging of them patiently to suffer adversity.

Gladly to bear my purgatory here;
To be joyful of tribulations.

To walk the narrow way that leadeth to life,
To bear the cross with Christ.

To have the last thing in remembrance,
To have ever afore mine eye my death that is ever at hand.

To make death no stranger to me,
To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of hell.

To pray for pardon before the Judge come,
To have continually in mind the Passion that Christ suffered for me.

For his benefits incessantly to give him thanks,
To buy the time again that I before have lost.

To abstain from vain confabulations,
To eschew light foolish mirth and gladness.

Recreations not necessary to cut off;
Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all to set the loss at right naught for the winning of Christ.

To think my most enemies my best friends
For the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favour as they did him with their malice and hatred.

These minds are more to be desired of every man than all the treasure of all the princes and kings,
Christian and heathen, were it gathered and layed together all upon one heap.

(Thomas More wrote this prayer in the margins of the Book of Hours which he had with him while in the Tower of London.)

This prayer is extracted from our ebook Thomas More. Talented scholar, lawyer, politician, and Henry VIII’s chancellor, who chose his faith in God over earthly power, and who was proclaimed patron of statesmen and politicians by John Paul II in 2000.

Explore the life of this incredible saint, who dedicated his life so much to God that he was able to die for Him, by downloading Thomas More from your preferred ebook platform today.