"TO BE PRODIGAL OF MYSELF"

About a decade ago, I was in London Oratory, sitting in a pew and gathering my thoughts after Mass. Someone approached me and slipped a prayer card into my hands. The card asked for prayers that a prince of the Church be canonized a Saint. The prelate was Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val. He was born in a London embassy to Spanish parents, but he had English blood on his mother's side and Irish blood on his father's side. 

He was raised in the England of Queen Victoria. A creature of Victorian England, he went on to wield a profound influence on the Church during the last decade of the 19th and the first three decades of the 20th century 'til his death at the age of 64 in 1930. He bridged the gap between the world of old that had been his youth which was a time of horse-drawn carriages and rooms lit only by candles to a time of rapid technological advances from the advent of the car and electricity. 

Merry del Val was often a key character in Vatican intrigue; his influence deserves our careful study. During the conclave of 1903, Merry del Val had the role of secretary, and he received the order from Emperor Franz Joseph which vetoed the election of Cardinal Rompolla on the grounds that Franz Joseph declared Rompolla to be a Freemason. Instead of Rompolla, Pope Pius X was elected. Merry del Val has been credited with encouraging Pius X to accept his role as Peter. That Rompolla did not become Pope is often cited as the reason the Church stayed as it was 'til Vatican II. 

I have been reviewing some prayers composed by Merry del Val - I found them in the Raccolta in the section devoted to the Holy Name - as part of my preparation for Christmas. In the prayer below, Merry del Val petitioned Our Lord that he might be "prodigal" of self. If prodigal means extravagant wastefulness, he asked that he might waste himself so that others may have him as an abundant luxury.  

Prayer composed by Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val

O dearly beloved Word of God, teach me to be generous, to serve Thee as Thou dost deserve, to give without counting the cost, to fight without fretting at my wounds, to labor without seeking repose, to be prodigal of myself without looking for any other reward save that of knowing that I do Thy holy will.  

Rabid fans of Cardinal Merry Del Val may like the face mask of a photo of him working somberly at his desk in the Vatican. In the event that he is moved up the ladder to sainthood soon and made a Venerable, everyone attending the ceremony in the hallowed halls of the Vatican could wear the masks, and the photographers would snap a sea of people wearing the face of Cardinal Merry del Val upon their faces.