tribute of prayer. Amen.
ASPIRATION BEFORE THE DIVINE OFFICE.
Our Lord recommended St. Mechtilde to say the following brief prayer before reciting her office, promising her that the prayer of those who habitually did so should be united with his own most perfect and availing prayers, and so have an infinite worth before God.
O Lord Jesus, in union with the intention and love with which thou didst give praise to God the Father, I offer and will recite this holy office,
REMEDY AGAINST DISTRACTIONS.
When you are distracted in prayer, commend it to the Heart of Jesus, to be perfected by him, as our Lord himself taught St. Gertrude. One day, when she was much distracted in prayer, he appeared to her, and held forth to her his Heart with his own sacred hands, saying: Behold, I set my Heart before the eyes of thy soul, that thou mayest commend to it all thine actions, confidently trusting that all that thou canst not of thyself supply to them will be therein supplied, so that they may appear perfect and spotless in my sight.
Remember always to say the Gloria Patri with great devotion. The hermit Honorius relates that a certain monk who had been accustomed to say his office negligently appeared to another after his death, and being asked what sufferings he had to undergo in punishment of his carelessness, he said that all had been satisfied for and
