"Give us a measure of your Spirit that we may be enabled to obey your teaching:
to pacify anger, to take part in pity, to moderate desire, to increase love, to put away sorrow,
to cast away vain glory, not to be vindictive, not to fear death;
ever entrusting our spirit to the immortal God..."
St. Apollonius
This prayer recognizes the insufficiency within ourselves to obey God in the power of our flesh. These graces must be performed within us by His Holy Spirit. We must be in constant communion with God in order to display any of the fruits of the Spirit, and this is the goal of St. Apollonius’s pleading prayer.
If we sin or cannot find the will to obey God, we must always ask for His help to do so. We pray this prayer for God’s provision to live a life of true faith and be conformed into the image of His Son.
