The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1915-02-06
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mind and heart to God" BY true
prayer we, poor human beings, are
raised above the thought of earthly
things, and our minds fixed upon God
Himself, upon heaven, upon super
natural truths and facts that are in
themselves far above our comprehen-
sion. And the lifting up of the mind
by that attention to and reflection on
the truths of faith, which must enter
into real prayer, should be directed to
fixing the will in a loving aspiration
and stretching out to God and to all
that leads to God, as our last end.
True prayer, then, is an exercise of
faith, hope and charity. To be really
effective it must aim at introducing
more and more into our lives, into the
details of our daily activities, the
good intention of serving and pleasing
God for love in all that we do. Now,
all this is supernatural, and therefore
not only difficult to the natural man,
but impossible without some kind of
help from above. Prayer is mounting
to heaven, and we are of the earth,
earthly; prayer means resolute effort
and perseverance, and we are naturally
disinclined toward spiritual things and
inept of ourselves both in conceiving
them and in reaching after them.
Prayer means looking out with the eye
of the soul beyond this earth to the
things of God; and our earthly sight is
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gether to absorb our attention.
The first difficulty of prayer comes,
then, from its character as wholly
supernatural thing, involving super
natural acts of mind and will, super
natural views and aspirations. Other
difficulties in prayer are undoubtedly
| of our own making. Perhaps we do
not want to pray we'll, and make no
effort to do so. We say prayers be.
cause we are afraid to omit them alto
gether; but we put no heart into
them, because we have not realized
what true prayer should be. Our say
ing of prayers is a perfunctory tribute
to conscience, and to the explicit
teaching of Christianity that prayer is
necessary for salvation.
Perhaps, again, we do not 1egislate
for prayer in our lives; it plays no
important part in our daily routine.
1t is thing to be got in" somehow,
and we grudge the time given even
to such hurried recitation of our pray
ers as we are content with. Or we
for get the warning of the Preacher:
Before prayer prepare the soul, and
be not as man that tempteth God"
(Ecclus. xviii, 23.) We go to our pray
ers without recollection with no
thought of the presence of God, with
no reverence for the divine majesty
we are about to address. Again, our
| difficulties and distractions may come
| from habit of frivolous occupations
and reading. 1t is not possible to pray
well if life is wholly devoid of serious
ness, given up to pleasure, to dress,
to what IS called Killing time" and
is really the killing of every good de-
sire and aspiration after better things
that God has implanted in us.
Yet even those who are not at fault
an earnest desire to pray we'll, de-
voutly and fervently, frequently ex-
perience great difficulty in accomplish
ing their pious desires. 1t is for these
( that the following considerations are
intended, in the hope that they may
afford some consolation and encour-
agement in the face of the difficulties
of prayer of mounting to heaven.
And, first, it is a consolation to
know that no complicated apparatus
of learning, of talent or of genius is
necessary in order to pray WE'LL 1t is
of this that spiritual writer's are think
ing when they say, as they do some
times say, that prayer is easy. They
presuppose good will on the part of
the one who prays and that God has
given the. grace of prayer, which He
does give to those who ask. With
these presuppositions, we may say that
prayer is easy, in the sense that no
learning, no profound reasoning is re-
quired for praying we'll: but good
will and simple heart; some
thoughts about God and spiritual
things which faith supplies; and,
above all, a loving confidence and a
loving aspiration of the heart toward
our good God. Or, in other words,
prayer is easy in the sense that it is
accessible to all without exception.
Secondly, the grace of prayer is Civ
en-, as we said, to all who wish and
try to pray. There is no grace of God
more universally and literally given
than the grace to pray. Thirdly. God
does not demand that we should per.
fectly succeed in prayer! success is
His own gift. What God asks is our
cooperation with His grace, our per.
severing efforts to pray well. He is
satisfied with the attempt, if that at
tempt be sincere. If, then, we can
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