O Master of all, you who hold the threads of existence,

I come to you today, not just as a knight bearing the shield of his faith, but as a drowning man reaching out from the abyss of nothingness and sin. I, who dwelt in the wilderness, and whose soul fed on the crumbs of the world until the fountain of light within me dried up, which is you, O Lord. O Lord, I have sold my innocence in the markets of anxiety, and I have lost your holy face behind the fog of my sins that have become mountains separating me from you.

O Jesus, O healer of souls that have no cure except by a touch from you, only after acknowledging you as our Savior.

Look at my heart, which has cracked from thirst, my thirst for you, and at my eyes, which have ceased to weep from excessive pain. I confess before the altar of your holiness that I am not worthy to lift my gaze to heaven, but I dare with tears of repentance, those tears which are my baptism.

Wash me from the dust of days, and purify the old man within me who still pulls me to the earth. Make from my ruins a new temple, and from my groaning a hymn that glorifies you. You who forgave the thief at the last moment, accept me, the prodigal who returned to your house in the last watch of life, for I have finally realized that the whole world is a mirage, and that you are the only truth worth dying to live by.

Amen.