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O God, who art moved by humiliation and appeased by satisfaction, incline the ear of Thy goodness to our prayers and mercifully pour forth upon the heads of Thy servants sprinkled with these ashes the grace of Thy blessing...

Inter vestibulum et altare plorabunt sacerdotes ministri Domini, et dicent: "Parce, Domine, parce populo tuo: et ne claudas ora canentium te, Domine."

Indeed you love truth in the heart;
then in the secret of my heart teach me wisdom.
O purify me, then I shall be clean;
O wash me, I shall be whiter than snow.

"Thou, O my Lord and God, thou alone art strong, thou alone art holy! Thou art the Sanctus Deus, Sanctus fortis -- 'Holy God, holy and strong.' Thou art the sanctity and the strength of all things. No created nature has any stay or subsistence in itself, but crumbles and melts away, if Thou art not with it, to sustain it. My God, thou art the strength of Angels, of the Saints in glory -- of holy men on earth...

My God, if thou art the strength of all spirits, how preeminently art thou my strength! ... Whenever I am left to myself, I go wrong. As sure as a stone falls down to the earth if it be let go, so surely my heart and spirit fall down hopelessly if they are let go by thee. Thou must uphold me by thy right hand or I cannot stand... I approve and praise what I do not do. My heart runs after vanities, and I tend to death, I tend to corruption and dissolution, apart from thee, Deus immortalis.

My God, I have had experience enough what a dreadful bondage sin is. If thou art away, I find I cannot keep myself, however I wish it -- and am in the hands of my own self-will, pride, sensuality and selfishness. And they prevail with me more and more every day, til they are irresistible. In time the old Adam within me becomes so strong, that I become a mere slave. I confess things to be wrong which nevertheless I do. I bitterly lament over my bondage, but I cannot undo it. O what a tyranny is sin! And what will be the end of it? By thy all-precious merits, by thy Almighty power, I entreat thee, O my Lord, to give me sanctity and strength...

Sanctus Deus, Sanctus, fortis, Sanctus immortalis, miserere nobis."

~Cardinal Newmann on the Bondage of Sin, from Meditations and Devotions