Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
all that I have and possess.
Thou hast given all to me;
to thee, O Lord, I return it.
All is thine; dispose of it wholly according to thy will.
Give me thy love and thy grace,
for this is sufficient for me.
Amen.
CATHOLIC 1548 AD
The Suscipe
Also known as Take, Lord, Receive · The Prayer of St. Ignatius · Suscipe Domine
Other forms
Latin (Suscipe, Domine)
Suscipe, Domine, universam meam libertatem.
Accipe memoriam, intellectum, atque voluntatem omnem.
Quidquid habeo vel possideo mihi largitus es;
id tibi totum restituo, ac tuae prorsus voluntati trado gubernandum.
Amorem tui solum cum gratia tua mihi dones, et dives sum satis,
nec aliud quidquam ultra posco. Amen.
About this prayer
The Suscipe is the closing prayer of the Contemplation to Attain Love, the final spiritual exercise in Saint Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises, published in 1548. It is the culmination of the four-week retreat that Ignatius designed as the foundational training of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), and it expresses the spiritual disposition Ignatius believed the entire Exercises were meant to produce: complete surrender of self to God, in exchange for nothing but God's love and grace.
The prayer's structure is a sequence of total offerings. The petitioner offers their liberty (the freedom of will), their memory (the past), their understanding (the present), and their will (the future). They then state the theological foundation of the offering: 'Thou hast given all to me; to thee, O Lord, I return it.' The petitioner has nothing to give back that did not originally come from God. The final petition asks only for divine love and grace, declaring these sufficient for any human life.
The Suscipe is one of the most demanding prayers in the Catholic tradition. It does not ask for protection, blessing, or specific outcomes; it asks for nothing except God's love and grace, while offering everything else back unconditionally. The prayer presupposes the full conversion of self that the Spiritual Exercises are designed to produce, and Ignatius placed it at the end of the Exercises rather than at the beginning for this reason.
The English translation included here is the standard public-domain rendering from 19th-century Catholic devotional manuals. It precedes the well-known 1951 translation by the American Jesuit Louis J. Puhl, which is in copyright. The translation captures the structure and meaning of the Latin original without reproducing any specific modern copyrighted rendering.
When it's said
Used by Jesuits at the close of the Spiritual Exercises and as a daily prayer of self-offering. Said by Catholics across many religious orders and in lay devotion as an act of complete surrender of self to God. Often used at the start of a major life transition (entering religious life, making a significant decision, beginning a new vocation), at retreats based on Ignatian spirituality, and as a personal daily prayer for those who have made the Spiritual Exercises. The prayer is sometimes said before receiving Holy Communion as a preparation for the encounter with Christ in the sacrament.
Notes on the text
Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) was a Basque nobleman whose conversion to a religious life followed a serious injury at the Battle of Pamplona in 1521. The Spiritual Exercises, composed between 1522 and 1548, are not a book to be read but a structured month-long retreat designed to be made under the guidance of a director. The Suscipe is meant to be the prayer that emerges naturally from a person who has completed the full Exercises, rather than a prayer to be recited in the absence of that interior preparation. The Latin verb 'suscipe' (from which the prayer takes its common name) means 'take up' or 'receive,' but with the connotation of 'take charge of' or 'undertake.' The petitioner is not just handing over an object but asking God to actively assume responsibility for the totality of their being.
Common questions
What does 'Suscipe' mean?
Suscipe is the Latin verb meaning 'take up,' 'receive,' or 'undertake.' In the prayer, it carries the sense of 'take charge of' or 'assume responsibility for.' The petitioner is asking God to actively take possession of their entire being, not just to receive a passive offering. The prayer takes its common name from this first word of its Latin form.
Why is the Suscipe placed at the end of the Spiritual Exercises?
Ignatius designed the Spiritual Exercises as a structured four-week retreat that gradually deepens the retreatant's conversion of life. The Suscipe is the prayer that should emerge naturally from someone who has completed the full Exercises and arrived at the disposition of complete surrender that Ignatius believed was the goal of authentic Christian conversion. Said in the absence of the preparatory work of the Exercises, the prayer is still meaningful but not what Ignatius intended.
Did Ignatius write the Anima Christi too?
No. Ignatius placed the Anima Christi at the opening of his Spiritual Exercises in 1548, which led to the long-standing assumption that he wrote it. Manuscript evidence shows the Anima Christi was already in circulation in the early 14th century, more than two centuries before Ignatius. The Suscipe is Ignatius's own composition; the Anima Christi is older.
Source
Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Exercitia Spiritualia (1548), the closing prayer of the Contemplation to Attain Love (Fourth Week). The English translation given here follows older PD renderings standard in Catholic devotional manuals before 1923. Public domain.
Last reviewed: June 2026 against primary source.