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PT

Offering of Works

1 min

I adore you, my God, and I love you with all my heart. I thank you for having created me, made me a Christian and kept me in this night. I offer you the actions of the day: grant that all of them may be according to your holy will and for your greater glory. Preserve me from sin and from all evil. May your grace be always with me and with all my loved ones. Amen.

About this prayer

Four movements in a few seconds — adoration, thanksgiving for the night just passed, the day's actions handed over, and a petition for protection — prayed on rising and again before sleep.

History

This is not a composed devotion but a household prayer, carried in Spanish and Italian homes long before Opus Dei existed. St. Josemaría learned it as a boy from his mother and went on praying it, morning and evening, for the rest of his life; through him it became the customary offering of works in the Work.

Its shape is worth noticing. It does not offer *feelings* or resolutions, but *acciones* — the actions of the day, whatever they turn out to be: the work, the interruptions, the commute, the contradictions. That is the whole of Opus Dei's spirituality compressed into one sentence, and it is why the offering is made at the moment of rising, before the day has had a chance to declare what it will contain.

How to pray it

Pray it standing, at the moment of rising, before anything else is decided. Do not rush the second sentence — *created me, made me a Christian, kept me this night* are three distinct gifts, and the third one is why you are awake to name the other two. Then let *the actions of the day* mean the actual day ahead of you, not an abstraction.

The customary *ofrecimiento de obras* of the Opus Dei *Pocket Prayer Book*, an old Spanish and Italian household prayer St. Josemaría learned from his mother and kept morning and night. Spanish: *Te adoro, Dios mío, y te amo con todo mi corazón. Te doy gracias por haberme creado, hecho cristiano y conservado en esta noche…*