you can do nothing ' (John xv. 5) . St. Augustine remarks on this subject that Our Saviour did not say. You can complete nothing without Me; but, You can do nothing. This truth was proclaimed at the second Council of Orange, when it was defined that man does no good thing except what God enables him to do by the operations of His grace. Man is therefore quite unable to work out his own salvation unassisted, since it is God's will that all he has or can have should come to him by the help of grace. Now, this grace God only grants, in the ordinary course of His providence, to those who pray for it. According to the maxim laid down by Gennadius, ' No man can attain salvation without the help of God; no man can obtain this help except by prayer.' This does not mean, says St. Thomas, that it is necessary for us to pray in order that God may know of what we stand in need; but that we must pray in order that we ourselves may understand our need of having recourse to God to obtain the aid necessary for our salvation, and may thus acknowledge Him as the only author of all our good."
NECESSITY OF PRAYER.
WE ought always to pray, and not to faint. — Luke xviii. 1. Watch ye, and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. — Matt. xxvi. 41. Ask and it shall be given you, — Ibid. vii. 7. Without Me you can do nothing.— John xv. 5. Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. — 2 Cor. iii. 5. God bestows some favors without prayer, such as the beginning of faith; others, such as perseverance, are granted only to those who pray. — St. Augustine. To enter heaven, continual prayer is necessary after baptism; for although all sins are remitted by that sacrament, there still remain concupiscence to assail us from within, and the world and the devil to attack us from without. — St. Thomas. All the
