Monday Prayer: A Scholar's Wish (Or a Pastor's)

God help my thoughts! They stray from me, setting off on the wildest journeys. 
When I am in church, they run off like naughty children, quarreling, making trouble. 
When I read the Bible, they fly off to a distant city, filled with beautiful women. 
My thoughts can cross an ocean with a single leap; they can fly from earth to heaven, and back again, in a single second. 
They come to me for a fleeting moment, and then away they flee. No chains, no locks can hold them back; no threats of punishments can restrain them, no hiss of lash can frighten them. 
They slip from my grasp like tails of eels; they swoop hither and thither like swallows in flights. 
Dear, chaste Christ, who can see into every heart and read every mind, take hold of my thoughts. Bring my thoughts back to me, and clasp me to yourself. 

Amen. 

"Celtic Prayers". The HarperCollins Book of Prayers, 1993. p. 95