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We have spoken of the purification of the soul by the sacraments,
by sacramental confession, assistance at Mass, and frequent Communion.
We shall now discuss the purification of the soul in beginners through
prayer. First of all, we shall speak of the efficacy of the prayer of
petition in general, then of liturgical prayer, which is the psalmody,
and of the spirit which ought to animate it, finally of the mental
prayer of beginners. We shall begin with the most general principles.
THE NECESSITY OF A STRONG BELIEF IN THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER The
question of the efficacy of prayer interests all souls without
distinction: those who are beginning, those who have made progress,
and even those in the state of mortal sin, for though the sinner who
has lost sanctifying grace cannot merit, he can always pray. Merit,
being a right to a reward, is related to divine justice; (1) prayer,
on the other hand, is addressed to divine mercy, which often hears and
grants it and lifts up the soul without any merit on its part; thus it
raises up souls that have fallen into the state of spiritual death.
The most wretched man, from the depths of the abyss into which he has
fallen, can utter this cry to mercy, which is prayer. The beggar who
possesses nothing but his poverty can pray in the very name of his
wretchedness, and, if he puts his whole heart into his petition, mercy
inclines toward him; the abyss of wretchedness calls to that of mercy.
The soul is raised up, and God is glorified. We should recall the
conversion of Magdalen; let us also remember the prayer of Daniel for
Israel: "Thou hast executed true judgments in all the things that Thou
hast brought upon us . . . for we have sinned and committed iniquity.
. . . Deliver us not up forever, we beseech Thee, for Thy name's
sake." (2) The psalms are filled with these petitions: "But I am needy
and poor; O God, help me. Thou art my helper and my deliverer: O Lord,
make no delay." (3) "Help us, O God, our Savior; and for the glory of
Thy name, O Lord, deliver us: and forgive us our sins for Thy name's
sake." (4) "Thou art my helper and my protector: and in Thy word I
have greatly hoped. . . . Uphold me according to Thy word, and I shall
live: and let me not be confounded in my expectation." (5) Do we
believe in the power of prayer? When temptation threatens to make us
fall, when light does not shine in us, when the cross is hard to
carry, do we have recourse to prayer, as Christ advised us to? Do we
not doubt its efficacy, if not in principle at least in practice? Yet
we know Christ's promise: "Ask, and it shall be given you." (6) We
know the common teaching of theologians: that true prayer, by which we
ask for ourselves with humility, confidence, and perseverance the
graces necessary for our salvation, is infallibly efficacious.(7) We
know this doctrine, and yet it seems to us at times that we have truly
prayed without being heard. We believe in, or rather we see, the
power of a machine, of an army, of money, and of knowledge; but we do
not believe strongly enough in the efficacy of prayer. The power of
that intellectual force which is knowledge, we see by its results;
there is nothing very mysterious about it, for we know whence this
power comes and approximately whither it goes. It is acquired by human
means and produces effects that remain within human limits. If, on the
contrary, prayer is in question, we believe too weakly in it, because
we do not know clearly whence it comes and we forget whither it is
going. Let us recall the source of the efficacy of prayer and the
end to which it is ordained, what it ought to obtain; in other words,
its first principle and its end. THE SOURCE OF THE EFFICACY OF
PRAYER The sources of rivers are high up; the waters of the heavens
and the fountain of the snows feed their streams. A river is first a
torrent which descends from the mountains before irrigating the valley
and casting itself into the sea. This is a figure of the loftiness of
the source of the efficacy of prayer. At times we seem to believe that prayer is a force which should have
its first principle in ourselves, one by which we would try to bend
the will of God by persuasion. Immediately our thought encounters the
following difficulty, often formulated by unbelievers, in particular
by the deists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: namely, no
one can move, no one can bend the will of God. God is indeed Goodness
which asks only to give itself, Mercy ever ready to come to the help
of him who suffers. But God is also perfectly immutable Being. The
divine will is from all eternity as immovable as it is merciful. No
one can boast of having enlightened God, of having made Him change His
will: "I am the Lord, and I change not." (8) By the decrees of
Providence, the order of things and of events is strongly and gently
established from all eternity.(9) Must we conclude from this, with
fatalism, that prayer can do nothing, that it is too late, that
whether we pray or not, what is to happen will happen? The words of
Holy Scripture remain, and the interior life must ever penetrate them
more deeply: "Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall
find: knock, and it shall be opened to you." (10) Prayer is not, in
fact, a force having its first principle in us; it is not an effort of
the human soul, trying to do violence to God in order to make Him
change His providential dispositions. Such a manner of speaking, which
is used occasionally, is a metaphorical, human way of expressing
oneself. In reality, the will of God is absolutely immutable, but this
superior immutability is precisely the source of the infallible
efficacy of prayer. Fundamentally it is very simple in spite of the
mystery of grace involved in it. We have here a combination of the
clear and the obscure that is most captivating and beautiful. First of
all, we shall consider what is clear: true prayer is infallibly
efficacious because God, who cannot contradict Himself, has decreed
that it should be.(11) This is what the contemplation of the saints
examines profoundly. A God who would not have willed and foreseen
from all eternity the prayers that we address to Him, is a conception
as puerile as that of a God who would change His plans, bowing before
our will. Not only all that happens has been foreseen and willed (or
at least permitted) in advance by a providential decree, but the way
things happen, the causes which produce events; all is fixed from all
eternity by Providence. For material harvests, God prepared the seed,
the rain that must help it to germinate, the sun that will ripen the
fruits of the earth. Likewise for spiritual harvests, He has prepared
spiritual seeds, the divine graces necessary for sanctification and
salvation. In all orders, from the lowest to the highest, in view of
certain effects God prepares the causes that must produce them.
Prayer is precisely a cause ordained to produce this effect: the
obtaining of the gifts of God. All creatures exist only by the gifts
of God, but the intellectual creature alone can realize this.
Existence, health, physical strength, the light of the intellect,
moral energy, success in our enterprises, all is the gift of God; but
especially is this true of grace which leads to salutary good, causes
it to be accomplished, and gives strength to persevere. Grace and,
even more, the Holy Ghost who has been sent to us and who is the
source of living water, is the gift par excellence which Christ spoke
of to the Samaritan woman: "If thou didst know the gift of God, and
who He is that saith to thee: Give Me to drink; thou perhaps wouldst
have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water. . . .
Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but he that shall
drink of the water that I will give him shall not thirst forever. But
the water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of
water, springing up into life everlasting." (12) The intellectual
creature alone is able to realize that it can live naturally and
supernaturally only by the gift of God. Must we, then, be astonished
that divine Providence has willed that man should ask for alms, since
he can understand that he lives only on alms? Here, as elsewhere,
God wills first of all the final effect; then He ordains the means or
the causes which must produce it. After having decided to give, He
decides that we shall pray in order to receive, as a father, who has
resolved in advance to bestow a pleasure on his children, purposes to
make them ask for it. The gift of God is a result; prayer is the cause
ordained to obtain it. St. Gregory the Great says: "Men ought by
prayer to dispose themselves to receive what Almighty God from
eternity has decided to give them." (13) Thus Christ, wishing to
convert the Samaritan woman, led her to pray by saying to her: "If
thou didst know the gift of God!" In the same way, He granted Magdalen
a strong and gentle actual grace which inclined her to repentance and
to prayer. He acted in the same manner toward Zacheus and the good
thief. It is, therefore, as necessary to pray in order to obtain the
help of God, which we need to do good and to persevere in it, as it is
necessary to sow seed in order to have wheat. To those who say that
what was to happen would happen, whether they prayed or not, the
answer must be made that such a statement is as foolish as to maintain
that whether we sowed seed or not, once the summer came, we would have
wheat. Providence affects not only the results, but the means to be
employed, and in addition it differs from fatalism in that it
safeguards human liberty by a grace as gentle as it is efficacious,
fortiter et suaviter. Without a doubt, an actual grace is
necessary in order to pray; but this grace is offered to all, and only
those who refuse it are deprived of it.(14) Therefore prayer is
necessary to obtain the help of God, as seed is necessary for the
harvest. Even more, though the best seed, for lack of favorable
exterior conditions, can produce nothing, though thousands of seeds
are lost, true, humble, trusting prayer, by which we ask for ourselves
what is necessary for salvation, is never lost. It is heard in this
sense, that it obtains for us the grace to continue praying. The
efficacy of prayer well made is infallibly assured by Christ: "Ask,
and it shall be given you: seek and you shall find: knock, and it
shall be opened to you. . . . And which of you, if he ask his father
bread, will he give him a stone? Or a fish, will he for a fish give
him a serpent? . . . If you then, being evil, know how to give good
gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven
give the good Spirit to them that ask Him?" (15) To the apostles He
also says: "Amen, amen I say to you: if you ask the Father anything in
My name, He will give it to you. Hitherto you have not asked anything
in My name." (16) Prayerful souls ought more than all others to live
by this doctrine, which is elementary for every Christian; by living
it, one discovers its depths. Let us, therefore, have confidence in
the efficacy of prayer. It is not only a human force which has its
first principle in us; the source of its efficacy is in God and in the
infinite merits of Christ. It descends from an eternal decree of love,
it reascends to divine mercy. A fountain of water rises only if the
water descends from an equal height. Likewise when we pray, it is not
a question of persuading God, of inclining Him to change His
providential dispositions; rather we have only to lift our will to the
height of His in order to will with Him in time what He has decided
from all eternity to grant us. Far from tending to bring the Most High
down toward us, "prayer is a lifting up of the soul toward God," as
the fathers say. When we pray and are heard, it seems to us that the
will of God inclines toward us; on the contrary, it is ours which
rises; we begin to will in time what God willed for us from all
eternity. Hence, far from being opposed to the divine governance,
prayer cooperates in it. We are two who will instead of one. And when,
for example, we have prayed much in order to obtain a conversion and
have been heard, we can say that it is certainly God who converted
this soul, but who deigned to associate us with Him and from all
eternity had decided to make us pray that this great grace might be
obtained. Thus we cooperate in our salvation by asking for ourselves
the graces necessary to attain it; among these graces, some, such as
that of final perseverance, cannot be merited,(17) but are obtained by
humble, trusting, and persevering prayer. Likewise, efficacious grace,
which preserves us from mortal sin and keeps us in the state of grace,
is not merited; otherwise we would merit the very principle of merit
(the continued state of grace); but it can be obtained by prayer.
Moreover, the actual and efficacious grace of loving contemplation,
although, properly speaking, not merited de condigno, is
obtained by prayer: "Wherefore I wished, and understanding was given
me: and I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me."
(18) Even when we are trying to obtain the grace of conversion for another,
who perhaps resists it, the greater the number of persons who pray and
the more each one perseveres in prayer, the more hope there is of
obtaining this grace of conversion. Prayer thus greatly cooperates in
the divine governance. THE PARTICULAR PETITIONS WE SHOULD MAKE We
have just seen the nature of the first principle of the efficacy of
prayer. We shall now consider the end to which it is ordained by God,
what it can obtain for us. The end to which Providence has ordained
prayer as a means, is the obtaining of the gifts of God necessary to
sanctification and salvation; for prayer is a cause which has its
place in the life of souls, as heat and electricity have their place
in the physical order. Now the end of the life of the soul is eternal
life, and the goods which direct us to it are of two kinds: spiritual
goods, which lead us to it directly; and temporal goods, which can be
indirectly useful to salvation in the measure in which they are
subordinated to the first. Spiritual goods are habitual and actual
grace, the virtues, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, and merits, the
fruits of the virtues and of the gifts. According to what we have just
said, humble, trusting, persevering prayer is all-powerful to obtain
for the sinner the grace of conversion and for the just man actual
grace that he may persevere in the performance of his duties. Prayer,
made under the same conditions, is all-powerful to obtain for us also
a more lively faith, a firmer hope, a more ardent charity, a greater
fidelity to our vocation. The first petition we should make, as the
Our Father points out, is that the name of God may be sanctified,
glorified by a radiating faith; that His kingdom may come is the
object of hope; that His will may be done, fulfilled with love, by an
ever purer and stronger charity. Moreover, prayer can obtain our
daily bread for us in the measure in which it is necessary or useful
for salvation, the supersubstantial bread of the Eucharist and the
suitable dispositions to receive it well. Besides, prayer obtains for
us the pardon of our sins and disposes us to pardon our neighbor; it
preserves us from temptation or gives us the strength to triumph over
it. To accomplish all this, prayer must have the indicated
conditions: it must be sincere, humble (it is a poor man who is
asking), trusting in the infinite goodness, which it must not doubt,
persevering, in order to be the expression of a profound desire of our
hearts. Such was the prayer of the woman of Canaan, whom the Gospel
mentions and to whom Christ said: "O woman, great is thy faith. Be it
done to thee as thou wilt." (19) Even if the Lord leaves us
contending with great difficulties from which we have prayed Him to
deliver us, we must not believe that we are not heard. The simple fact
that we continue to pray shows that God is helping us, for without a
new actual grace we would not continue to pray. He leaves us to battle
with these difficulties in order to inure us to warfare. He wishes to
show us that the struggle is profitable for us and that, as He said to
St. Paul in similar circumstances, the grace granted us suffices to
continue a struggle in which the very strength of the Lord, which is
the source of ours, is more clearly shown: "My grace is sufficient for
thee: for power is made perfect in infirmity." (20) We see this
especially in the passive purifications of the senses and the spirit,
which are at times a spiritual tempest, in which we must continually
ask for efficacious grace, which alone can prevent us from weakening.
In regard to temporal goods, prayer can obtain for us all those which
should, in one way or another, assist us in our journey toward
eternity: our daily bread, health, strength, the success of our
enterprises. Prayer can obtain everything, on condition that over and
above all else we ask God for greater love of Him: "Seek ye therefore
first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall
be added unto you." (21) If we do not obtain these temporal goods, it
is because they are not useful to our salvation; if our prayer is well
made, we obtain a more precious grace in place of them. "The Lord is
nigh unto all them that call upon Him." (22) And the prayer of
petition, if it is truly a lifting up of the soul to God, prepares the
soul for a more intimate prayer of adoration, reparation, and
thanksgiving, and for the prayer of union.
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1. Merit de condigno is based on justice; merit de congruo,
on the rights of friendship.
2. Dan. 3:28 f., 34.
3. Ps. 69:6.
4. Ps. 78:9.
5. Ps. 118: 114, 116.
6. Matt. 7:7.
7. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q.83, a.15 ad :um: "Four conditions are
laid down: namely, to ask (I) for ourselves (2) things necessary for
salvation (3) piously, (4) perseveringly; when all these four concur,
we always obtain what we ask for." And likewise of the sinner's
prayer, he says (ibid., a.16): "God hears the sinner's prayer if it
proceeds from a good natural desire, not out of justice, because the
sinner does not merit to be heard, but out of pure mercy, provided,
however, he fulfills the four conditions given above, namely, that he
beseech for himself things necessary for salvation, piously and
perseveringly."
8. Mal. 3:6.
9. This divine immutability is often affirmed, and in a beautiful
manner, in Holy Scripture: "God is not a man. . . that He should be
changed" (Num. 13:19). "The heavens are the works of Thy hands. They
shall perish, but Thou remainest: and all of them shall grow old like
a garment, and as a vesture Thou shalt change them, and they shall be
changed. But Thou art always the selfsame, and Thy years shall not
fail" (Ps. 101:26-28). "Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is
from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is
no change, nor shadow of alteration" (Jas. I: 17).
10. Matt. 7:7; Luke 11:9; Mark 11:24.
11. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q.83, a.2: "Divine providence disposes
not only what effects shall take place, but also from what causes and
in what order these effects shall proceed. Now, among other causes,
human acts are the causes of certain effects. Wherefore it must be
that men do certain actions, not that thereby they may change the
divine disposition, but that by those actions they may achieve certain
effects according to the order of the divine disposition: and the same
is to be said of natural causes. And so is it with regard to prayer.
For we pray, not that we may change the divine disposition, but that
we may impetrate that which God has disposed to be fulfilled by our
prayers."
12. John 4: 10, 13 f.
13. Dialogues, Bk. I, chap. 8. This passage is quoted by St.
Thomas in IIa IIae, q.83. a.2.
14. To every adult, though he may be a great sinner, is offered the
efficacious grace to pray. How? Every man receives from time to time
the actual grace which renders prayer really possible for him. In this
sufficient grace is offered efficacious help, as fruit in the flower.
But if man resists this grace, called sufficient grace, he merits to
be deprived of efficacious grace, which would make him pray
effectively. We are face to face here with the mystery of grace, which
can be expressed in the following terms: if resistance to grace, which
is an evil, comes solely from our defectibility, non-resistance, which
is a good, comes first of all from God, the primary source of all
good. And as the love of God for us is the cause of all good, no one
would be better than another if he were not more loved by God. "What
hast thou that thou hast not received?" (I Cor. 4:7.) Cf. St. Thomas,
la, q.20, a. 3 f.
Christ said (John 15:5): "Without Me you can do nothing" in the order
of salvation. This is an additional reason to beg Him to grant us
grace as He recommends us to do. If, therefore, after sincerely
praying with humility, confidence, and perseverance, we did not obtain
the helps necessary to salvation, there would be contradiction in the
very heart of God and in His promises. These immutable promises are
the basis of the infallible efficacy of prayer well made.
15. Luke 11:9-13.
16 John 16: 23 f.
17. The grace of final perseverance is, in fact, the state of grace
continuing unto death; but the state of grace, being the principle of
merit, cannot be merited. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 114, a.9:
"Whether a man may merit perseverance."
18. Wisd. 7:7.
19 Matt. 15:28.
20. Cf. II Cor. 12:9.
21. Matt. 6:33.
22. Ps. 144: 18.
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