St. Anselm of Canterbury wrote this prayer around 1100, asking Christ to draw our hearts into friendship with him and with one another. Pray it today when you long for deeper intimacy with the Lord, or when you feel isolated from God or from others.
O Lord Jesus Christ, draw thou our hearts unto thee; join them together in inseparable love, that we may abide in thee, and thou in us, and that the everlasting covenant between us may stand sure forever. O Lord, kindle our hearts with the fire of thy love, that we may daily increase in love toward thee, and toward each other for thy sake; that being rooted and grounded in love, we may be strong to apprehend with all saints the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. Amen.
St. Anselm of Canterbury, c. 1100
How this prayer works
Anselm asks Christ to “draw” our hearts, to “join” them, to “kindle” them. The prayer recognizes that union with God is not achieved by effort alone but received as gift. St. Anselm, the Benedictine archbishop who wrote the Proslogion and Cur Deus Homo, understood the spiritual life as relational, not transactional. His prayer echoes John 15:4, “Abide in me, and I in you,” and Ephesians 3:17-19, which speaks of being rooted and grounded in love to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.
The prayer moves from petition (“draw our hearts”) to consequence (“that we may abide”) to second petition (“kindle our hearts”) to final consequence (“that we may be strong to apprehend”). It asks for intimacy with Christ first, and then for the fruit of that intimacy: love toward one another. Friendship with Jesus is never private; it opens into communion with the saints.
Pray it slowly in the morning, before your day fractures into tasks. Let the phrases settle: “inseparable love,” “the everlasting covenant,” “the fire of thy love.” Return to it when you feel distant from God or when relationships feel brittle.
Carry it through this day.
