Anoint my heart with the oil of Thy mercy, O my most merciful Lord.
Let neither wrath against the mighty nor contempt for the powerless ever flare up in my heart. Behold, everything is more powerless than the morning dew!
Let hatred never weave its nest in my heart against those who plot evil against me. Let me remember their end, and be at peace.
Mercy opens the way to the heart of all creatures, and brings joy. Mercilessness draws a fog across the brow, and makes an anguished solitude.
Have mercy on the merciful, O Most Tender Hand, and reveal to him the mystery of Thy wisdom.
The All-Man is the child of the mercy of the Father and the light of the Spirit.
The whole created world is only a story about Him. The mighty suns in the heavens and the smallest drops of water in the lake tell, each in themselves, one part of the story about Him. All the builders of heaven and earth, from the most mighty Seraphim to the Rulers and to the smallest crumb of dust, tell the same identical story about Him, their primal essence and their primal source.
What are all the things on the earth and the moon but the sun in stories? Truly, in the same way all visible and invisible creation is the All-Man in stories. Essence is simple, but to the stories about essence there is neither end nor number.
My neighbors, how shall I speak to you of essence, when you do not understand even the stories?
Oh, if you knew what sweetness, and breadth, and strength there is when one sinks to the bottom of all stories; there, where stories begin and where they end. There, where the tongue falls mute, and where everything is said at once!
How tedious then become all the long and slow stories of creatures. Truly, just as tedious as it is tedious to listen to a story about thunderbolts for one who is accustomed to beholding thunderbolts.
Receive me into Thyself, O Only-Begotten Son, that I may be united with Thee as I was before creation and the fall.
Let my long and wearisome story about Thee be finished by a moment's vision of Thee. Let my self-delusion die, as though I were something beside Thee, something other outside Thee.
My ears are overfilled with stories. My pupils seek no longer to gaze upon an exhibition of garments, but upon Thee, my essence, overladen with stories and garments.