Part 2, lesson 1. That prayer is the principal means ; and that it is necessary to pray with humility and confidence

Q. After showing me in what the Christian Spirit consists, will you teach me the means to acquire and preserve it ?

A. One of the principal and most efficacious means is prayer;

for our Lord assures us in the Gospel, that God, our Father, will give the good spirit to their that ask it of him.*

Q. What method must we observe in prayer ?

A. We must bring to it the same dispositions as our Saviour himself, the same which he taught to his disciples; we must address ourselves to the eternal Father, in all humility and confidence, as our Lord did in those beautiful prayers, which we read in the Gospel of St. John, and in the Our Fa ther.

Q. What do you mean by the word humility ?

• Pater vester de coelo dabit spiritum bonum petentibus se. Luc. xi, 13.

A. I mean first, a sentiment of confusion for our un worthi ness, caused by the sight of our sins, for which God has the ut most abhorrence. "You are not a God that loves iniquity,"* says the Psalmist to him.

Secondly, I mean by humility the same sentiment of shame and confusion, arising from our utter incapacity for praying. For prayer is a supernatural action, which we cannot per form without grace; and being by ourselves entirely void of it, we are therefore by oirrselves utterly incapable of praying.

Q. How can we then pray •with confidence ?

• Non deus volens iniquitatem tu es. Ps. v, 5.

A. God has provided for it, and I am going to tell you how we can have that confidence, so glorious to God and so use ful to us. After keeping our selves for some time in the sen timent of humility, of which I have just spoken, we must recollect ourselves in the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is in the heart of all the chil dren of the church, to raise them to prayer, as St. Paul says;* and it is in this spirit that we pray with confidence. It is what is implied in the name of Father, which we give to God, and by

• Accepisti Spiritum adoptionis filiorum, in quo clamamus, Abba, Pater. Rom. viii, 15.

the cry that our heart utters to him in praying, according to the word of the same Apos tle. This expresses the great confidence and eagerness with which we ask of God all our wants. I will add here what St. Paul mentions in another place, that the Spirit himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings.*

Q. What does that mean ? I never heard before that the Holy Spirit groaned.

A. It is mysteriously that the Scripture says that the Holy Spirit groans; for all the words of the Scripture are mysterious:

• Spiritus postulat pro nobis gemitibus inenarrabilibus. Rom. viii, 26.

it means that when we pray in union with the Holy Spirit, we obtain more than we would by all our groans and tears. I will also remark, that our Lord, who dwells in us, and does therein the part of the Holy Spirit,* is called by David in the spirit of prophecy, a Host of vociferation.!

Q. What is meant by the ex pression, Host of vociferation?

A. The prophet makes allu sion to the cries uttered in the temple by the animals destined for the sacrifices, which were the figure of Christ upon the

• Factus est in Spiritum vivificantem. I Cor. xv, 45.

t Hostiam vociferationis. Ps. xxvi, 6.

cross and in our hearts. Now, it is said of our Lord, that he prayed for us with abundant tears and powerful cries.*

Q. What does this signify in our Lord ?

A. It shows the tenderness of his love for us and the strength of his zeal in his prayer.

Q. Does our divine Lord do the same in our hearts ?

A. Yes; he does it, wherever he is, both in our hearts, and in the holy Sacrament, and in the bosom of his Father; and here is the reason why: What the Holy Spirit commenced once

• Preces supplicationesque cum clamore valido et lacrymis offerens. Hebr. v, 7.

in the heart of Jesus, he con tinued during all his life, and will continue during all eter nity. The operations of sanc tity in the heart of Jesus, are eternal like those of all the Saints in heaven. The great secret of Christianity, and the reason of the confidence of the children of God, consists in this, that Jesus is all things to us, as St. Paul says:* "He is our prayer, our patience, our charity, etc.

These are the dispositions with which we must pray, and the order we ought to observe in

• Omnia et in omnibus Christus, Col. iii, ii. Omnia in ipso constant. Ibid. i, 17.

our prayers. We must present ourselves to God, our Father, who is always full of charity, and who tells us by one of his prophets that he loved us with a continual love;* and although our sins render us unworthy to appear before him, yet, if we unite ourselves to Jesus Christ, our unworthiness is covered be fore his Father, when he per ceives the perfume exhaled from the vestments of his eldest Son, Christ our Lord, with which we are covered, as Jacob was with the robe of Esau. We must then, after having held ourselves for some time in sen-

• In charitate perpetua dilexi te. Jerein. xxxi, 3.

ti merits of humility, enter into Jesus Christ as our prayer, and unite ourselves to him as our advocate;* and then, animated by this spirit, pay to God all our homages, and ask of him all our wants: and, to say all in one word, the principal point in prayer, after humility and grief for our sins, is to come to it armed with an unbounded con fidence and a perfect faith, founded upon these words of our Lord: If you ask my Fa ther any thing in my name, he will give it to you.t In fact,

• Semper vivens ad interpellanlum pro nobis. Hebr. vii, 25. Advocatura habemus apud Patrem Jesum Christum justum. I Joan. ii,l.

t Si quid petieritis Patrem in nomine meo, dabit vobis. Joan, xvi, 23.

we see in the Apocalyse* that our Lord appears before his Fa ther as a lamb, standing, and apparently dead 5 which signi fies that he is always before the throne of his Father, clad with the arms of his passion, asking for us through his divine mys teries all that we stand in need of, and saying to him in his prayer, like David :t my God, remember the meekness and patience I had in my death: I beseech thee by my penitential life to have pity on my children.

• Et ecce in medio throni Agnum stantem tanquam occisum. Apoc. v, 6.

f Memento, Domine, David, etomnis mansuetudinis ejus. Pa. cxxxi, 1.