I call upon You, my God, my Mercy (Psalm 58: 18), who made me, and did not forget me, although I forgot You.

I call You into my soul, which You prepare to accept You by the longing that You breathe into it.

Do not desert me now when I call upon You, for before I called upon You, You went ahead and helped me (Isaiah 64: 4), and repeatedly You urged me on by many different words, so that from afar I would hear You, and be converted, and call upon You as You called to me.

For You have wiped away my evil deserts, O Lord, so as not to return them to these hands of mine, whereby I fell away from You, and You went ahead and helped me in all my good deserts, so that You could restore them to Your own hands, whereby You made me.1

1The Confessions of Saint Augustine, translated by John K. Ryan (New York: Image Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, 2014), page 302.