The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1912-08-24
SAYING PRAYERS.

1t is most necessary to have reg
ular time for prayer, writes c. B.
Walker in the Catholic World. For
busy people morning and evening
prayers are the rule, and prayers at
other times when possible. Now with
regard to morning prayer, the diff
Guilty lies very largely in getting
matter Of habit, difficult matter, but
one which can be formed. Fervor in
this case will suggest impracticable
schemes. 1t is not the slightest use
to make resolution forthwith to rise
daily at half-past six and when all our
lives hitherto we have been rising
daily at half-past seven. For few
mornings we shall doubtless rise at
half-past six, very few if experience
is to be trusted. And then 1t is
excellent to make fixed endeavor in
early life, as far as we can, to hear
Mass every day Mass is at fixed
time and it is early. Perhaps not very
early, but sufficiently so for anyone
who finds difficulty in getting up in
the morning. If we are too far from
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will at least arise in time to get there.
And with regard to evening prayers.
If we are obliged to be up late at
night, and some of us have to do most
of our work when the rest of the
world is in bed, then evening prayers
are much better said early in the even.
ing. 1t requires no great preparation
to retire to ones bedroom for a quar-
ter of an hour or so in the evening;
no very elaborate excuses need be
made, so long of course as ones alb
sence entails no neglect of other du-
ties. And then the saying of the De
Profundis as we are undressing is no
irreverence, and the Nunc Dimittis
as we get into bed, and an unfinished
Hail Mary as we drop asleep, "di-
rectly our head touches the pillow"
as we say. Surely not. But our even
ing prayers would have been but
poor kind had we deferred them so
long.
The Holy Bible, is as we know,
not one book, but many. If we desire
to study the history of nations we d.
not take down our Longfellow from
our bookshelf; if it be drama that our
mind Graves for we do not lay hands
upon Buckle or Adam Smith. So If we
desire to pray we shall turn to those
parts of the Sacred Library which
contain prayer-later on, we shall
come to regard the whole Library as
one vast Prayer book; for the present
we turn to the special prayer section.
Was there ever such a prayer book as
the Psalter! Almost every line of it
puts thoughts into the mind and words
upon the lips for every conceivable
human need. Hard and stern it seldom
is, though hardness and sternness
have their right place in prayer; bit
ter and biting are the words we have
to use to God in our entreaty that sin
may be no more; sharp and keen must
be the word which denounces the
transgression. But love and peace, and
a great longing for a clearer knowl-
edge of God, are the prevailing notes,
and upon these rises that deathless
song of praise and petition, of inter
cession and thanksgiving, and SYM
phony with it's war song of the Church
Militant, it's wall of the Church suf-
fering, and it's endless Alleluia of the
Holy Host of Heaven, responding
with one voice to the beating of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus. So in part at
least, the Bible must be considered a
very important book when we kneel
down to pray