examination of the heart 486 PREPARATORY PRAYER238 We beseech you, O Lord, to anticipate all our actions with Your inspiration and to support them with Your assistance, that every prayer and work of ours may always originate in You and likewise end in You. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. [f.161r] MEDITATION I ON THE UNIVERSAL BENEFITS 1. Consider what you were before God created you; or who was He Who created you. It was God, the being most absolute of all beings, without any beginning and origin; the most perfect Goodness and Wisdom; infinite Love and Omnipotence. So it is He, Who is, that created you, and you, who were nothing, were created. Know that you were created from nothing, formed from utterly worthless matter; nonetheless, you were made so beautiful by the sagacity of the Maker God, that except heavenly beings, you surpass by your looks all other creatures. Also ponder the kind of soul that He breathed into you: it was formed in His image and likeness. And indeed, He endowed it with intellect for you to comprehend that God is your Creator. He granted you a heart that you may love. To the same soul He affixed a will, in order to show clearly that you possess freedom, and you are not subject to anything, and that you are permitted: to strive for whatever you would want; to choose whatever you would strive for; to love and follow whatever you would choose. Finally, to this divine image He added memory, with which to reflect upon His benefits granted to you, and to remember that He is your Creator and that you were once dust and shall return to dust, as He Himself once declared to the first Parent, saying: “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19). 238 Cf. MIR, p. 82 (Sabbato Quatuor Temporum Quadragesimæ — Oratio). Cf. MIR, p. l (Gratiarum Actio Post Missam — “Actiónes nostras …”).
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