To You, O God, Fountain of Mercy

Prayer for the forgiveness of sins

To you, O God, Fountain of Mercy I come as a sinner that you would deign to wash away my uncleanness.

O Sun of Justice, give sight to a blind man. O Eternal Healer, cure one who is wounded. O King of Kings, clothe the destitute. O Mediator between God and man, restore the reprobate. O Good Shepherd, lead back the stray.

Give, O God,

mercy to the wretched, reprieve to the criminal, life to the dead, justification to the sinful, and, to the hard of heart, the anointing of grace.

O Most Merciful,

call back those who flee, draw back those who resist, raise up those who fall, watch over those who stand, lead forward those who stray.

Do not forget the one who forgets you. Do not forsake the one who forsakes you. Do not despise the sinner.

For I, by sinning, have offended you, my God. I have hurt my neighbor, and have not spared myself.

O God, Almighty Father, in weakness I have sinned against you.

O God, all-knowing Son, in ignorance I have sinned against you.

O God, Gentle Holy Spirit, in malice I have sinned against you.

In all of these things I have offended you, most high Trinity. Woe to me, a pitiful soul! How many, how great, and how diverse the faults I have committed! I have abandoned you, Lord.

I have opposed your goodness, surrendering to a harmful love, and by a harmful fear I am brought low, preferring thus to lose you than be bereft of what I loved, to offend you than avoid the things I should have feared.

O my God, how much harm I have done by word and by deed, by sinning secretly, openly, and defiantly!

Thus, out of my weakness, I beseech you not to pay heed to my iniquity but to your immense goodness, and mercifully to pardon what I have done, granting me sorrow for what is in the past and an efficacious warning for the future. Amen.