Prayer in Any Tribulation

When St. Gertrude and her sisters had long prayed to God in a certain affliction without receiving any answer, she said at length: How is it, O thou most tender Lover of my soul, that thou thus deferrest my hope? Then our Lord answered her, saying: It were not to be wondered at that a father should permit his son to ask him for a piece of money, if at each demand he laid up for him a hundred. In like manner do not wonder if I seem to defer to grant your petition in this matter; for as often as you pray to me in this matter, be it only by one word or by one thought, I lay up in store for you far more than a hundredfold of eternal good things.

O FATHER of mercies and God of all consolation, vouchsafe, I beseech thee, to look on me with the eyes of thy compassion, as thou didst look upon thy beloved Son when, in the Garden of Olives, he cried unto thee in the sore anguish of his spirit, and bedewed the ground with his sweat of blood. Is it not thy will, O most pitiful Father, that we should flee to thee in all our necessities, and call upon thee to turn away from us all our perils? Seeing, therefore, that thou willest that we should pray to thee and call upon thy Name, I beseech thee in accordance with thy will that thou wouldst deliver me from this tribulation, in thy own most adorable good-pleasure. O most tender Father, incline the ears of thy compassion to my prayers, all unworthy as they are, and draw me out of this great strait. Before the eyes of thy mercy, at the feet of thy tender love, I lay open all the anguish of my heart and the distress of my spirit, and I offer it to thee that thou mayest do with it as seemeth best in thy sight. O sweet Jesus, by all the anguish and the distress thou didst undergo for our salvation, let this chalice pass from me. O most compassionate Jesus, I offer thee that transcending prayer which thy sweat of blood in view of the agony of death rendered so fervent, and which the glowing love of thy Divinity rendered so effectual; beseeching thee to hear me through its virtue, and to deliver me from this affliction. Wherefore I implore thee, with thine own intention and resignation, with the feelings of thine own heart and the words of thy sacred lips, saying: Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this chalice from me; nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt. Amen.