Lord Jesus Christ, listen to the voice of our distress 

    in the desert of penitents crying out to you;

    that we may not be deceived 

    by the falsehood of discussion in nobility of birth, 

    from superstition of religion, 

    from curiosity of knowledge tempting us; 

grant us to prepare the way to you by abandoning sin,

    by the purpose of repenting,

    by the remission of wrongs,

    by contempt of temporal things,

    and by the observing of the commandments.

May your paths be made straight in us 

    by the renunciation of our own will, feeling, self-confidence,

    by the spending over and above of deliberations;

that in the house of Bethany of obedience 

    baptized with the water of true contrition, 

    with the Holy Spirit and with fire across Jordan, 

    and after the river of the last judgment 

we may perfectly know you,   

    the Mediator of virtue and knowledge, 

    the Mediator of God and men.

 

St. Albert the Great, 1206-1280, German Dominican

 

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Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, 

    so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith,

    just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit,

    according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, 

    and not according to Christ. 

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 

    and you have been filled in him,    

    who is the head of all rule and authority.