Prayer time

I remember going to Mass at the Newman Center a couple years ago and Father Joe referring to a prayer by Thomas Merton. The prayer was printed on the weekly bulletin although there had been an typing error and the last line of the prayer was missing. Despite its incompleteness, I distinctly remember that the prayer resonated with me, and when I got home, I cut it out and laid it by my bed. For years it has bothered me that the last line of the prayer is missing. Without it the prayer seems incomplete and pessimistic. Today I stumbled across it again and finally found the last line.


MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.