ON PRAYER
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 any thing 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. Aug. To enter heaven, continual prayer is necessary after baptism; for although all sins are remitted by that sacrament, there still remains concupiscence to assail us from within, and the world and the devil to attack us from without—St. Thomas. All the graces, which God hath prepared for us from all eternity, will be granted only to prayer.—St. Thomas. Prayer is necessary, not to make our wants known to Almighty God, but to convince us of our obligation to recur to his mercy for succor, and thus to make us acknowledge him to be the author of all our works.—Ibid. God wishes to give, but he gives only to those who ask.—St. Aug. As the soul animates the body, so prayer sustains the life of the soul. As the body cannot live without the
