This duty we owe to our pastors before all others, as we learn from the example of the Apostle in his Epistle to the Colossians, in which he solicits them to pray for him, " that God may open unto him a door of speech;" [1] a solicitation which he also repeats in his Epistle to the Thessalonians. [2] In the acts of the Apostles, we also read that " prayers were offered in the church without intermission for Peter." [3] St. Basil, in his " Morals," urges to a faithful compliance with this salutary obligation: " We must," says he, " pray for those who preside over the word of truth." [4] That it is incumbent on us to offer up our prayers for princes is obvious from the recorded sentiments of the same Apostle. Who does not know what a singular blessing the Commonwealth enjoys in a religious and just prince? We should, therefore, beseech God to make them such as they ought to be, fit persons to rule over those who are subject to their authority. [5]
To offer up our prayers also for the good and pious is a practice sanctioned and supported by the authority of holy men. Even the good and the pious have occasion for the prayers of others; and this is a wise dispensation of Providence, that, aware of the necessity they are under of being aided by the prayers of those who are inferior to them in sanctity, they may not be inflated with pride. Our Lord has also commanded us, " to pray for those that persecute and calumniate us;" [6] and the practice of praying for those who are not within the pale of the Church, is, as we know on the authority of St. Augustine, of Apostolic origin. [7] We pray that the faith may be made known to infidels; that idolators may be rescued from the error of their impiety; that the Jews, emerging from the darkness with which they are encompassed, may arrive at the light of truth; that heretics, returning to soundness of mind, may be instructed in the true faith; and that schismatics, connected by the bond of true charity, may be united to the communion of the Catholic Church, from which they have separated. The great efficacy of such prayers, when poured from the heart, is evinced by a variety of examples. Numerous instances occur every day in which God rescues individuals of every class which we have enumerated from the powers of darkness, and transfers them into the kingdom of his beloved Son, from vessels of wrath making them vessels of mercy; and that, in realizing so happy a consummation, the prayers of the pious have considerable influence, no one can reasonably doubt.
Prayers for the dead that they may be liberated from the fire of purgatory are of Apostolic origin; but this subject we have already treated at large, when expounding the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. [8] Those who are dead in sin derive little advan-
- ↑ Col. iv. 3.
- ↑ i Thess. v. 25.
- ↑ Acts xii. 5.
- ↑ Basil, lib. Moral. Reg. 56. cap. 5. item. horn. in. Isaiam.
- ↑ Vid. Tertull. Apol. c. 30. et ad Scap. c. 2.
- ↑ Matt. v. 44.
- ↑ Vid. Aug. Epist. 10. ad Vital. Cypr. de Oral. Dom. Item Coelestinum Papam Epist. 1, c. 11.
- ↑ Dionys. cap. lib. de Eccles. Hierarch. c. 6, 7. Clem. Pap. ep. 1. et lib. Constit. Apol. Tertul. de Ciron. milit. et in exhort, ad castit. et in lib. de monog. Cypr. ep. 66.
