Prayer of Acclaim to the Suffering Christ
O Lord, you received affronts without number from your blasphemers, yet each day you free captive souls from the grip of the ancient enemy.
You did not avert your face from the spittle of perfidy, yet you wash souls in saving waters.
You accepted your scourging without murmur, yet through your meditation you deliver us from endless chastisements.
You endured ill-treatment of all kinds, yet you want to give us a share in the choirs of angels in glory everlasting.
You did not refuse to be crowned with thorns, yet you save us from the wounds of sin.
In your thirst you accepted the bitterness of gall, yet you prepare yourself to fill us with eternal delights.
You kept silence under the derisive homage rendered you by your executioners, yet you petition the Father for us although you are his equal in divinity.
You came to taste death, yet you were the Life and had come to bring it to the dead. Amen.
Saint Gregory the Great
