Prayers of Surrender and Abandonment to God

I. Prayer of Abandonment from the Fathers of Mercy

Jesus, I Love you…. Jesus, I trust in you….

Lord, teach me not only to accept but to truly love my littleness and my inner poverty and to place blind trust in your infinite goodness and mercy that I may be entirely dependent upon your protective, fatherly care and experience the transforming power of your grace in my life…

My Lord and Savior, I know that you love me more than I can ever imagine and that you have a plan for my life that will end in eternal glory if I but surrender my heart and soul to you, entrust myself completely to you, and allow you to lead me always, especially through the darkest hours of my life….

My loving Jesus, let the fire of your Holy Spirit purify my soul, my senses, and my entire being to remove from my life anything that might stand as an obstacle to my ability to enkindle that flame of pure love – the love that you desire to receive from me….

Lord, teach me to be not only resigned to your holy will but to always seek your will, embrace your will, and truly, lovingly abandon myself to it, with joyful confidence that you desire my happiness far more than I do my own. Let my faith response be to give thanks and praise to you always, even when you will that I bear the cross of suffering. With the holy and immaculate Virgin Mary, let me say “yes” to your divine plan for my life, knowing that great things happen when we say “yes” to you….

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, let me love you with all my soul and all my strength. Grant me the grace to adore you with every beat of my heart and with every fiber of my being, that I may love you with the same passionate intensity with which you have loved me. Amen.

II. Suscipe of St. Ignatius

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all I have and call my own. 

You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. 

Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me. Amen.

III. Healing Prayer of Surrender

Dear Lord Jesus, it is my will to surrender to you everything that I am and everything that I’m striving to be. I open the deepest recesses of my heart and invite your Holy Spirit to dwell inside of me.

I offer you my life, heart, mind, body, soul, spirit, all my hopes, plans, and dreams. I surrender to you my past, present, and future problems, habits, character defects, attitudes, livelihood, resources, finances, medical coverage, occupation, and all my relationships.

I give you my health, physical appearance, disabilities, family, marriage, children, and friendships. I ask you to take Lordship over every aspect of my life. I surrender to you all my hurt, pain, worry, doubt, fear, and anxiety, and I ask you to wash me clean.

I release everything into your compassionate care. Please speak to me clearly, Lord. Open my ears to hear your voice. Open my heart to commune with you more deeply. I want to feel your loving embrace. Open the doors that need to be opened and close the doors that need to be closed. Please set my feet upon the straight and narrow road that leads to everlasting life. Amen.

IV. Prayer of Fr. Thomas Merton, OCSO

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 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 that I have that desire in all that I am doing.

And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road although 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. Amen.

V. The Surrender Novena Prayer - Father Don Dolindo Ruotolo

The central prayer of the Surrender Novena:
O Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything! (10 times)

To Our Lady:Mother:
I am yours now and forever.
Through you and with you.
I always want to belong
completely to Jesus.

For the full novena, please click the link in the title of the prayer.

VI. Brother Charles de Foucauld – Prayer of Abandonment

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you
with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord,
and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands,
without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.
Amen.

VII. Offertory Prayer of Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Here is my body. Take it. Here is my blood. Take it. Here is my soul, my will, my energy, my strength, my property, my wealth—all that I have. It is yours. Take it! Consecrate it! Offer it with yourself to the heavenly Father…Consecrate these trials of my life, which would go unrewarded unless united with You. Transubstantiate me so that like bread which is now your Body and wine which is now your Blood, I too may be wholly yours…My station in life, my routine duties, my work, my family—all these are but the species of my life which may remain unchanged; but the substance of my life, my soul, my mind, my will, my heart—transubstantiate them, transform them wholly into your service, so that through me all may know how sweet is the love of Christ. Amen

VIII. Prayer of Surrender

Loving Father,

I surrender to you today with all my heart and soul. Please come into my heart in a deeper way. I say, “Yes” to you today. I open all the secret places of my heart to you and say, “Come on in.” Jesus, you are the Lord of my whole life. I believe in you and receive you as my Lord and Savior. I hold nothing back.

Holy Spirit, bring me to a deeper conversion to the person of Jesus Christ. I surrender all to you: my time, my treasures, my talents, my health, my family, my resources, my work, relationships, time management, successes and failures. I release it and let it go.

I surrender my understanding of how things ‘ought’ to be, my choices and my will. I surrender to you the promises I have kept and the promises I have failed to keep. I surrender my weaknesses and strengths to you. I surrender my emotions, my fears, my insecurities, my sexuality. I especially surrender ______ (Here, mention other areas of surrender as the Holy Spirit reveals them to you.)

Lord, I surrender my whole life to you, the past, the present, and the future. In sickness and in health, in life and in death, I belong to you.

IX. Serenity Prayer

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as He did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that He will make all things right,
If I surrender to His will,
That I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with Him forever in the next.
Amen.

X. Prayer of Surrender from St. John Henry Newman

O, my God, I will put myself without reserve into Your hands. Wealth or woe, joy or sorrow, friends or bereavement, honor or humiliation, good report or ill report, comfort or discomfort, Your presence or the hiding of Your countenance, all is good if it comes from You. You are wisdom and You are love—what can I desire more? You have led me in Your counsel, and with glory You received me. What have I in heaven, and apart from You what want I upon earth? My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the God of my heart, and my portion forever.