Radiating Christ

Dear Christ Jesus,
help us to spread Your fragrance everywhere we go.
Flood our souls with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess our whole being,
so utterly,
that our lives may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through us,
and be so in us,
that every soul with whom we come in contact
may feel Your presence in our soul.
Let them look up and see no longer us
but only Jesus.
Stay with us,
and then we shall begin to shine as You shine;
so to shine as to be a light to others;
the light, O Jesus, will be all from You,
none of it will be ours;
it will be You, shining on others through us.
Let us thus praise You in the way You love
by shining on those around us.
Let us preach You without preaching,
not by words but by our example,
by the catching force,
the sympathetic influence of what we do,
the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to You.
Amen.

~A prayer adapted from the writings of John Henry Newman