# Wednesday of Holy Week: A Prayer from Evelyn Underhill
*2015-03-31*

> Bill Young reflects on Holy Wednesday with a prayer taken from Evelyn Underhill’s *Living with Christ*, offering a heartfelt petition to bring hidden sins and anxieties before the Lord.

## Introducing the Prayer

Good afternoon. This is Bill Young, and welcome to the Prayer and Lunch podcast. Today is Wednesday of Holy Week, and we’ll be praying from *Living with Christ* by Evelyn Underhill, the renowned Anglo‑Catholic writer and mystic of the early twentieth century.

## The Prayer

Lord, penetrate those murky concerns which we hide in memory and tendency, those things we do not care to look at but which will not disappear. Yield them freely up to You, that You may purify and transmute them. The persistent, grudging bitterness, the half‑acknowledged enmity that still smolders, the loss we have not turned into sacrifice, the private comforts we cling to. The secret fear of failure that snaps our initiative and inflames pride. The pessimism that insults Your joy. Lord, we bring all these to You, and we lay them before Your steadfast light.

## A Holy Wednesday Reflection

May this prayer help us confront the hidden shadows in our hearts, allowing Christ’s light to transform them as we journey toward the solemnity of the Passion.

*By offering our hidden fears and grudges to the Lord, we open ourselves to His purifying love on this Holy Wednesday.*