Day 40

x [ 129 ] jfort^first 3>a$ 4 Pray without ceasing ? — Luke xviii, I, 8.

ND He spoke a parable to them, that we ought always to pray, and not to faint.’

This unceasing prayer does not consist in a perpetual application of mind that could only exhaust one’s strength, and which would perhaps after all not attain its end. We ‘ pray always ’ when — having offered our prayer at its regular hours — we gather from prayer, and from sacred reading, some truth or some special saying that we keep within our heart, and recall from time to time with no effort : — when we keep ourselves in thought, as far as possible, dependent on God ; showing Him all our needs by laying them before Him without words. Then, just as the yawning and dried-up earth seems to beg for rain by the mere fact of exposing its parched surface to heaven, so does the soul pray by exposing its needs to God. And this is what FORrr-FiRsr dat David means when he says : — ‘I stretched forth my hands to thee : my soul is as earth without water to thee.’ 1 That is : O Lord, I have no need to ask of Thee ; my need asks Thee ; my destitution asks Thee ; my necessities ask Thee !

So long as we keep in this disposition, we ‘pray without praying’ ; so long as we give our minds to avoiding all that might endanger our soul, we ‘ pray without praying’ ; and God understands this language. ‘ O Lord, before Whom I stand, and to Whom my misery is known in all its fulness, have pity on it ! And every time Thine eyes shall behold it, O God of all goodness, may it draw down on me Thy mercies ! ’

Here is one way of ‘ always praying’ — and perhaps the most effectual.

1 Ps. cxlii. 6.

[ 1 3 I ] f ort^aeconfc 2>a> We are to call upon God with repeated and importunate cries — Luke xviii. 4, 5, 7.

HE importunity that we are told to use towards God consists in that urgent form of prayer just described : — never fainting.

Think of that cry of the elect that rises night and day before God ! We must firmly believe that our own unjust deeds — our scandals — all we do that disedifies the Saints and makes them suffer, calls down vengeance upon us by day and by night ; and that we can only appease this cry bya continual cry of repentance. Have mercy, O God, have mercy ! This is what we must cry, night and day : — this is what our needs are incessantly calling out.

Remember the sad state of that judge who said : 4 1 fear not God, nor regard man.’ When all restraint is gone, there is no more hope. So long as there is some check upon us : — so long as, though not fearing God, we are at least slightly restrained by the fear of man : — there is yet hope, and our passions are subject to some kind of moderation.

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Grounds of hope in prayer . — Matt. vii. II.

HE certain foundation of this faith, exacted of us by Jesus Christ, that in praying we shall obtain, is the clear understanding that God is a father . How much more liberal, He tells us, will our heavenly Father be than an earthly one ! i If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him ? * If you give away what has been given to you, and what you really hold only as a loan, how much more readily will not God give : — He who is the source of all possessions, and whose very nature, so to speak, is giving ?

4 You who are evil.* Are we, then, evil even to our own children ? This is what the Son of God would have us to understand here ; and experience proves only too clearly that it is so, and that we think of ourselves rather than of them in the very goods that we bestow upon them. God alone, Who is generosity itself and the very essence of goodness, can do nothing but good to those who have recourse to Him.

We should always say in our hearts : — We may hope for all things from a father . And we may say again, with Christ : What is a raven ? Yet our heavenly Father feeds it.

Will He who feeds the servants forget the sons ? Could He Who remembers the animals be insensible to the wants of His children > Then, we may ask for everything : and we are bound to hope for everything, since we ask of a Father.

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Asking through Jesus Christ : The qualities of a perfect prayer . — John xvi. 23, 37.

E must learn to ask through Jesus Christ $ and to ask through Christ is to ask for what He commands ; to ask for His glory ; to introduce the Saviour’s name ; to place our trust in His goodness and in the infinite merits of His Blood. Whatever we ask through our Saviour ought chiefly to concern our salvation : — anything else should be merely asked as an accessory. When we ask in that Name, to which the Father can refuse nothing, we are sure to obtain what we want, for our Lord has promised it $ and to doubt this is to make Jesus Christ a liar. c Amen, Amen, I say to you : if you ask the Father anything in my name, he will give it you.’

If, then, we do not get what we ask for, we may take for certain that we have prayed badly, [ 13s ] according to what St James says: — ‘You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss ; that you may consume it on your concupiscences.* 1 To ask amiss, is to ask without faith, as we learnt before from the same Apostle : — 4 If any of you want wisdom, let him ask it . • . but in faith, nothing wavering * : — without fear — believing firmly that what you ask will be granted, if you pray well and persevere in prayer.

Our Saviour will not give us anything we ask for which may hinder our salvation. Let us ask for our conversion : if we keep to that request, we shall obtain it.

And let souls who are in the Religious state remember this : — that, for them, the chief fruit of Christ’s teaching on prayer should be faithfulness to the hours consecrated to it. Even should they be inwardly distracted — supposing that they lament it, and would gladly not be so — if they remain faithful, humble, and submissive externally : — then the obedience rendered to God, to the Church, and to their Rule, by observing the prescribed genuflections, inclinations, or other outward forms of worship, preserves the real spirit of prayer. They are praying then by means of their state, their disposition, 1 James iv. t.