An ancient prayer attributed to Ambrose, set in a quieter, older visual language for pardon, mercy, and a heart made living again.
O Lord, who hast mercy upon all, take away from me my sins, and mercifully kindle in me the fire of Thy Holy Spirit.
Take away from me the heart of stone, and give me a heart of flesh, a heart to love and adore Thee, a heart to delight in Thee, to follow and to enjoy Thee, for Christ’s sake.
Amen.
This is a prayer for pardon when sin has made the heart heavy, numb, or hard. It asks God for more than forgiveness: it asks Him to burn away what is dead and give back a living heart.
Lord, take away my sins. Remove my heart of stone. Give me a heart that loves You, follows You, and delights in You. Amen.
The prayer begins with mercy. Not performance. Not self-improvement. Mercy. It names God as the one who has compassion on all, then asks Him to remove sin and kindle holy fire.
The center of the prayer is the exchange: a heart of stone for a heart of flesh. It is the language of resurrection at street level. The dead thing becomes living. The cold thing becomes capable of love.
“I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” The prayer echoes this promise directly.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God.” It carries the same posture: confession, cleansing, renewal.
God’s love is poured into the heart through the Holy Spirit. Ambrose’s prayer asks for that fire to be kindled again.
Lord, take away from me my sins. Give me a heart of flesh — a heart to love You, follow You, and enjoy You.
Lord, have mercy on [Name]. Take away what is hardened in them, and give them a heart alive with Your love.
Lord, take away from us our sins. Remove our hearts of stone. Give us hearts that love and adore You.
It is for pardon, repentance, mercy, and the renewal of a hardened heart.
It is attributed to Ambrose of Milan, a fourth-century bishop and one of the major teachers of the early church.
Yes. Replace “me” with a person’s name, or change the language to “us” when praying with a group.
This wording appears in public-domain early church prayer collections, including Prayers of the Early Church, edited by J. Manning Potts.