Of Another Means of Helping Our Neighbor, Which Is Prayer

THE second means that our Father gives to help our neighbor is prayer. ‘Our neighbor is likewise helped,”

he says, “by our desires before God and our prayers.” As this business of gaining and converting souls is supernatural, more is attained and done in it by prayers, tears, and sighs than by words and exclamations. Moses’ prayer did more and bore a greater part in the victory against Amalek than all the lances and swords engaged in the fray. So long as Moses held his arms outstretched, the people of Israel were winning the fight; but when he lowered them, they were getting the worst of it. So it was necessary for two attendants to hold up his arms, one on one side and the other on the other, that they might be always held up; and so they gained the victory (Exod. xvii. 12). This was the way in which the people of God conquered their enemies. That is what the Madianites said in alarm, when they saw the great victories of the children of Israel: This people is destined to destroy us, as the ox with its mouth bites the grass down to the roots (Num. xxii. 4)— with its mouth; that is, with its prayers. So St. Augustine and Origen explain this passage. Now, if victory in war, to which our strength and human power may be reckoned to bear some proportion, is given by God through prayers, what must be the victory over spiritual enemies and the conversion of souls, where our means, our strength and efforts, fall so far short as to bear no proportion to so high an end! It is by prayers and sighs that we must arrange this matter with God. It is they that must appease God and win pardon and conversion.

St. Augustine very well illustrates and weighs the value and efficacy of this means, on those words of God to Moses: Leave me, that my wrath may be enraged against them, and I may exterminate them from off the face of the earth (Exod. xxxii. 10). When the children of Israel had adored the calf and God wished to destroy them, Moses set himself to ask God on their behalf, saying: “Why, Lord, seekest thou to chastise thy people, whom thou hast led out of Egypt with strong and mighty arm? See what the Egyptians will say, that for this Thou didst lead them out into those mountains and deserts, to gather them together, as they say, in the open, and destroy them there entirely. Remember, Lord, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Thy servants, to whom Thou didst promise and swear to multiply their seed as the stars of heaven and give them the Land of Promise.” God answered: “Leave Me alone, for I am minded to destroy them utterly.” What is this, O Lord? Why dost Thou say, Leave Me? Who holdeth Thee back, or can hold Thee back? Who can tie Thy hands? Who hath withstood his will? (Rom. ix. 19). What hand can be raised against Thee? What dost Thou mean by Leave Me? Here you see, says St. Augustine, the force of prayer, and how much it avails with God. That is what He wishes us to understand by that word, Leave Me. It is not a word of command; for if it were, it were ill done in the servant not to obey it. Nor is it a word of petition or request, since God has no need to petition His servant; but He wishes to give us to understand that “the prayers of the just are sufficient to resist the anger of God.” St. Jerome says the same on those words in Jeremy (vii. 16): See that I am minded to chastise this people, therefore ask thou me not on their behalf, nor intercede for them with praises and prayers; make me no resistance. On which St. Jerome’s remark is as above: Sanctorum preces Dei irae possunt resistere. The Prophet David clearly says the same: And God had a mind to destroy our fathers, had not Moses, His chosen one, in the moment of destruction stood in his sight to remove his anger that he might not destroy them (Psalm ev. 23). Moses resisted God with prayer, put himself before Him, and turned away His arm when it was about to deliver the blow. And the Lord was appeased, and did not carry out to the end against his people the chastisement which he had said (Exod. xxxii. 14). The like thing happened in the sedition and murmuring that the people of Israel set up against Moses and Aaron on the death of Core, Dathan, Abiron, and their followers, saying that they had been the cause thereof. God was angry with His people, and had a mind to destroy them; and the deaths among them amounted to more than fourteen thousand. Aaron thereupon put himself in prayer before God for the people, and offered incense for them, and the plague ceased (Num. xvi. 48). On this score the Wise Man (Wisdom xviii. 20) calls prayer a shield. These are his words: But thy anger, O Lord, did not last long, for at once thy servant put himself in prayer before thee, and fought on the people’s behalf [for to pray is to fight]. Aaron then put his hand to the shield of prayer, and therewith resisted the anger of God, and thereupon the work of death ceased. “What a good shield is prayer,” says St. Ambrose, “with which all the blows of the enemy are repelled!”

And, moreover, God is very glad when we withstand His chastisement, and someone is found to intervene to prevent it. An affectionate father, when he threatens his son with punishment, had rather not inflict it, but that someone should intervene to prevent it; and sometimes he has a previous arrangement with friends and acquaintances to hold his hand. So God, Who is more than a father and more than a mother for the great love that He bears us— as being, after all, His children, and children who have cost Him so much, seeing that we have cost Him His lifeblood— would rather not come to blows, and would be very glad if any of His friends would stand in His way. Nay, He goes to seek such, and complains bitterly when there is no one to come to the rescue. He says by the Prophet Ezechiel: I sought someone who would put himself as a hedge before me, and withstand me, that I might not lay waste the land, and I found none (xxii. 30) ; I had none to go out to meet me, none to oppose himself as a wall and resist me in defense of the house of Israel (xiii. 5). As a wall keeps the enemy out, and as men go forth to meet the enemy to resist him, so do the prayers of the just resist the sentence of God, His Majesty so condescending to them. The Prophet Isaias also complains bitterly of this: Alas, O Lord, there is now none, as there used to be, to invoke thy holy name, to arise and encounter thee, and hold thee back (Isaias lxiv. 7). There is now no Jacob to wrestle with God and hold his own arm to arm against Him, and say: J will not let thee go until thou bless me (Gen. xxxii. 26)—the very thing that God desires. Herein is well shown the force and efficacy of the prayers of the just, the friends of God, since they are powerful enough to restrain His arm and resist His anger. Hence will be better understood and confirmed what we said in the previous chapter, how much it makes for any help that we can render to our neighbor, to be ourselves holy and great friends of God; and how right we were in saying that a good and holy life was the chief means to that end. Anyone who would act as mediator, and effect forgivenesses and reconciliations, must by all means be a grata persona, standing high in favor with the person with whom he mediates; otherwise he will rather provoke anger and indignation than get pardon.

A good and holy life is so profitable for the good of our neighbor that, though we made no other prayer nor did any other thing in his service, but only took care to be ourselves very good and very holy, that alone would get them on and avail them very much. That is a marvelous story that is told by Holy Writ in Genesis. God was minded to destroy those cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their great sins. Abraham put himself in prayer before God, and said to Him: “Wilt thou destroy the just with the impious? (Gen. xviii. 23). That doth not seem in accordance with Thy clemency. If there be fifty just men in the city, wilt Thou not pardon the people for love of them?” The Lord said: “Certainly; if there be found fifty just men, I will pardon all for love of them.” Abraham spoke once more: “As I have begun, I will go on speaking to my Lord, dust and ashes though I be. Though there be less than that, say, if there be five less, wilt Thou not pardon all for the sake of the five-and-forty just men that there are?” “Yes,” said God; “if there are found forty-five just men, I will pardon all for their sakes.” Abraham spoke again: “And if there be only forty just men?” “I will pardon all for their sake.” “Be not angry, O Lord, if I speak once more. What if there be not found more than thirty just men, wilt Thou not pardon all for love of those thirty?’ It is to be observed that, to start with, Abraham went diminishing the number quite little by little, only five at a time, and now, emboldened by the favor and kindness that he met with, he plucked up courage to diminish it ten at a time; from forty he brings it down to thirty. The Lord said: “If there be thirty just men, for love of them I will pardon all.” “AsI have begun, O Lord, give me leave to go on speaking. What if there be not found more than twenty just men?” “Very well; for love of them I will pardon them.” “I beseech Thee, O Lord, not to be angry: this is my last word; what if there be found ten just men?” ‘“Be it so; I am content with that,” said the Lord; “if there be found ten just men among them, I will pardon them all for ten just men.” They were not found, and so God destroyed those five cities. Here we see well of what use and profit for others is the good and holy life of the just. What a blessing it would have been to have had at least ten just men among them!

Another time, when God was minded to punish Jerusalem and hand the kingdom of Judah over to the Chaldeans to destroy and sack and put all to the sword, for the great sins that they had committed against His Divine Majesty, He said first by Jeremy: “Go diligently through the streets and squares of Jerusalem, and see and search carefully if you can find one just man, who does right judgment by himself and is.faithful and true to his God and to his neighbor; and if you find one, for his sake I will pardon the city and the kingdom, and withdraw the chastisement and ruin that I have threatened” (Jerem. v. 1). St. Jerome had good reason to cry out on this passage and say: “See what value God sets on a just man; for not only for ten just men who should have been found in the city, as He formerly said to Abraham, but for one single just man, to be found in the midst of countless sinners, He was ready to pardon all and grant a reprieve of the punishment they deserved.” Great is the love that God bears to the virtue of the just man, since for his sake He suffers and pardons so many sinners.

Good people are greatly to be respected in a community and commonwealth, and great is the good they do, even though they make it their only business to be good and virtuous. This is one of the reasons that theologians and saints advance to prove that the township owes support to religious, even though they exercise no ministry for the benefit of their neighbors, but live in recollection without. going out of their corner and their cell; because from there they do a vast amount of good to the people about, and it is for the sake of these few that God endures so many evil persons in the world. This is confirmed by the parable of the Gospel, telling how, to save the wheat, the master omitted to root out the cockle. Lest it happen that in gathering the cockle ye root out the wheat at the same time; let the one and the other grow until harvest time (Matt. xiii. 29-30).

When God was determined to destroy with fire those cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Scripture says that He remembered His well-loved Abraham, and for love of him He delivered Lot, who was his nephew. It is to be observed that we are not told that Abraham asked God for Lot, but that, because Abraham was so much in the good graces of God, He looked after his things and all that concerned him. And God was so careful to look after Lot, Abraham’s nephew, that, when he was hurrying him forth to get out of Sodom and save himself in a little town hard by, He said to him: Make haste, and take refuge there, since I can do nothing till thou puttest thyself in a place of safety (Gen. xix. 22). O tender mercies of our God! O infinite bounty and compassion! God says He can do nothing until you put yourself in safety. See the account that God makes of one just man, and what He says and does out of regard for him.

Do you, then, take care to be very just and very much of a friend of God, and be sure that God will look after all your affairs, and will remember your parents and your relations and friends, and all that concerns you; and that all the more, the more you neglect and forget it to take care of yourself and give yourself more to God, although you did not ask for anything in particular; for works ask and cry to God more than words. If the wickedness of the wicked man, as Holy Writ says, cries loud to God, calling for vengeance—the voice of thy brother’s blood cries to me from the earth (Gen. iv. 10)—much more will virtue and goodness cry in still louder tones to obtain mercy in His sight, Who is such a lover of well-doing, and to Whom it is proper always to pardon and show mercy.