Lord, are you not the retrieval specialist?
I shall soon be 84 years old.
I stand before you.
You can take back what you wish.

I offer you my ears.
I have used them from the moment of my existence.
They have listened to all kinds of things, heard so much noise.
They no longer worth much.
I offer them to you to take them back.

I offer you my eyes.
They have read, they have looked,
They have blinked, they have laughed, they have cried,
They have led, directed, informed me.
Opened, they have taught me a lot;
Closed, they have revealed the Good Lord to me
To a great extent
In a world new and eternal.
I have little vision left, enough to guide myself
So that I don’t need a seeing-eye dog
Nor a white cane,
Enough to realize it is diminishing little by little.
I give them to you to take back.

I offer you my tongue.
It has a lot of power.
It is not suffering from wear.
It has great effect on people.
If it says positive things
The faces around me radiate.

Father Louis-Marie Parent, O.M.I.
Compose in 1994