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Here shall the Press the People's Bights maintain, Vnawed by influence and unlrihed by gain ; Here Patriot Truth tier glorious precepts draw, Pledged toifteligiun, Liberty and Law. ESTABLISHED 1833.) ST. JON'S, NEWFOUNDLAND, SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 1874. (No. 21.. ^THI^IG'JNTILLIGENGE. FATHER BURKE'S Discourse on the Ifuty of Prayer. Os the 15th ult., Father Burke de^ livered a discourse on " The Duty of Prayer," to a crowded congregation at | at St. Mary's, Cork, where he was con- " ducting a " Retreat." The /cry Rev. gentleman asked his II hearers to let him recall to their minds the great truth with which they had started in that retreat,namely—that Almighty Qod created us and placed us in this world in order that we might be united to Him; th-- union beginning here in. grace, and to be perfected hereafter in glory. Everything in the life of a true Christian man must be reduced to perfect conformity with that union ; everything must tend to it—just as a man preparing for any particular trade or profession directs his attention, conforms his habits, shapes all his studies and turns his mind to the acquisition of the knowledge antl skill necessary for ' that pursuit. And now that they had considered the nature of sin, and God's dealings with sin, both in the order of llis justice and of His mercy; now that he wast trying to lead their thoughts up to a higher union with God, he came to speak to them on a subject very high and very spiritual, but at the same time, absolutely necessary, without which no man could be united to God—and" that subject was the iudispensible duty of Prayer. What did he mean by Prayer ? Some were perfectly satisfied if they could say, " Oh Father, I say my prayers ;" but in the minds of many men that waa a very different thing' from Prayer. Many a man recited certain forms of Prayer, morning and evening, but without recollection, earnestness, or fixedjpur pose, apd between the morning and evening there was not a single thought of God, any more than if He did not exist at all. And yet that .man jl thought he prayed, because he " says j his prayers." That waa not the Prayer j| of which he was going to speak to them. ' Amongst the complaints which Almighty God made of His people, there was this one: " This people," said He, "honor Me with thejr lips, but their heart is far, far from Me." What was •he curse He put upon them for that? He said " their prayer shall be turned Hito a sin." That was the moat fearful of all—that a man's prayer instead of being answered by the Divine Mercy, should be turned into a sin and flung || back upon him! The prayer of which he spoke was the elevation of the heart, So''l, and spirit to God—a conscious communication with God—an earnest, i-npassioned petition to God; the prayer *hich penetrated a man's whole being, *'hich was performed as the mttat important of all duties—nay more, which, Performed in the morning, remaihed hovfirfn'g' dver the man's soul the whole •%, and .took the form of habitual and ■"roost' constant communication with ' ('od. He gpoke not of the occasional Practice of prayer, but the spirit fcf prayer, which made a man's life a life of prayer. Some meu imagined if a thing was high, grand, spiritual, that f>r that very reason they were hot to lose a thought about it—that it' was above them. That was not so. How could anything'be too grand or too high fir men who received the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ? What was there in heaven to which they ought not to aspire, seeing how the Lord God of Heaven cane and mo, le Himself their own? Prayer was necessary for rain's salvation, because he could hot be saved without' the grace of God—he could not live for a'siugle instant as hrf ought to live without that grace. ' Without its help he could not so much as think a good thought, nor mention, as he ought to mention, the name of Jesus Christ.] Soabaolutely necessary was Divine ..-racey for the Christian that ro purchase-it for him, God canednvuft'o.n heaven, was' incarnate by the Holy Ghost .if the Virgin M-try, antl was made man ; that!) he shed His blood and died on the Cross, like price th is pud -.va-- s > great that Almighty God opened up the whole treasury of His grace, and gave it all to i :s.' There was not a single grace in the 1 and of God that was beyond the ambition of any ordinary Christian man. Did he want purity like that of the Blessed Virgin?—love, tender and strong as that of St. John the Fivangelist?—sorrow as deep and salutary as that of Mary Magdalen?—that and every other grace was held in the hand of God,, aud belonged to man, through the blood of Jesus Christ. But God had attached j,") the granting of any grace one indis- pensible condition. That was prayer, '•'hey must ask for it. So true was this that they read in the epistle of St James that certain of the earlv Christians complained that they were falling- into sin, antl asked •*-hy they had not the grace of God ? The Apostle answered them ; " 1 herefore, you have not received, because you have not asked." If any man asked why was he constantly failing and falling? the answer was—because he did not practice prayer. Why did the Son of God remain thirty-three years amongst us ? Tbat He might build up in Himself and leave us a noble specimen of the true than—that He might be a model man for every mau to form himself upon unto the end of time, standing up before us the great original •—-the grandraan—the matjt who, in his own lite, showed of how much grandeur and sancitity a man was capable ? Was not our Lord emphatically a man of prayer ? They read of his prayer of forty days and nights, and that after his day's hard work he spent, the night in prayer wilh God. How grand, how brave the heart of Jesus Christ was in that practice of prayer! He knew that Judas waa about (to betray him, that ' his awful Passion wa3 approaching; and they were told by the Evangelist that when supper was ovei, He went, " according to 1 is custom," into the .garden to pray. "* According to his cusVom.'' It was,, hjs very life. He did'not require, says St. Ambrose, anything for himself; but we required the light of his example, to show us that the only man who can keep the grace of God, and hold his own soul, is the man who has the spirit and the practice of prayer. Even if prayer were not so necessary to a man's salvation, still it would.be necessary, because God had commanded it. " Watch and pray," He said ; and elsewhere. ** You must always pray,"- and the Apostle, repeating his Master's words,.said, "Beinstant and constant in prayer." The rain who best knew how to pray waa he who knew his own wants, who knew what he was asking for, and who knew how to ask for it. Some men did not know what they .were asking for in prayer—they never asked for anything specific at all. - That was not prayer. On the contrary "God said the vain and foolish petition was an abomination to him. If any one amongst them wanted a favor from some great man, he would not tell him that he wanted something in general—he did not know what. And yet men would c >me before God and ask for nothing prarticular, for the simple reason that they did not know their own wants. The first thing, then, for a man to do "•■before prayer was to consider what he was most in need of—what passion, for example, he was bound first to break down ; and when he had ascertained that, go to God, not with mere distracting words upon his lips, but with an earnest purpose. Remember how hard was the struggle for eternal salvation, and that the Kingdom of Heaven and lheir souls were at stake. When a man's prospects in life depended on his obtaining a certain favor, did he not use every available means to procure j**, throwing his whole heart and soul int. the effort? When he came to pray, was i; not aques- tion of life antl death with us ? When he prayed before God he said, " MyGod, I know you have made me a priest, and that you require of me a spirit of poverty, despising all the things of this world ; you require of me purity like to the angels'; you require of me perfect obedience and deep humility. You have entrusted to me the duty of preaching your Word, and although the exercise of that duty is conducive to vour glory and the salvation of souls, it has sent thousands of preachers to hell through pride. Hell is under my feet, if I give way to pride. Oh, God, since you haye imposed these obligations upon me, if 1 fail in them, I am damned for ever. Therefore, that 1 rnay not fail in them, O, ray God, grant me the grace to practice poverty, chasiity, obedience, humility." If he failed in any of these the next thing they would hear of him was, " He is gone! he is gone ! He pretended he could not believe in the Pope's Infallibility—that he thought the Church was going astray, and he could not follow her. He is gone! But it turns out now that he wanted to gratity his passions—that he wanted to many a woman and he ha* done so. -He is-»gone-!-"*----- Waa it not the same with any one of them ? Almighty God sait to them, «f If you do not struggle vith Me in prayer, -1 will not grant^you the grace y0u need ; but, as sure.as you pray ear nestly and constantly, there is not a grace in heaven that I won't give. But, you must pray constantly and earnestly." Again*, iniependent of that humility, earnestness and constancy in prayer, thetrje was something even higher still involved in the word of our Lord: " You must always pray." By that he required that we should throw the spirit of prayer over our whole life. That was done by the easy and most salutary, practice of trying, from time to time,, frequently throughout the whole day,-to remember the preseuce of God, and make a short interior prayer, offering to God one's heart, the business he was engaged in and suchlike aspirations. The sense of the presence of God thus fostered, hovered-round us like a guardian angel. In * that way a. man fulfilled, literally, the precept, " You must always pray ;'* for he sent the golden thread of prayer through every action of his life, passing, it hither and thither, until his whole life was an uniform and continuous prayer. The advantage of that was—. the sense of the presence of God frequently recalled, that offering of his actions, those aspirations frequently made, would preserve a man from tenip- tatiou. He lived in an atmosphere of God—he lived in a charmed circle of sanctity, into which the ruder demons of the grosser sins never dare intrude. Perhaps they would say it was too much to ask them to take up the practice of that spirit of prayer. Why, he had met Protestants, Methodists, Quakers, who lived in that atmosphere of prayer.— Was it of any advantage to them without faith and the sacraments ? He was •not prepared to answer. He knew that if tli-fey were in the state of invincible ignorance of the faith, that spirit of prayer would save their souls. One- thing was certain, it kept them de facto from committing many sins. .But, fit did so much for those who were outside- the pale of the Church, what would it not do for those who were living in the- full blaze of God's holy light, and fortified with the plenitude of God's holjr grace ? There would be an end of un- charitableness, of. impurity, of drunkenness, of all the real sorrows oi' life, if Catholic men would only consent to be* men of prayer. But there was one- moment in the life of every man, and it came very often to us, when piayer became an actual necessity then and. there, when a man's salvation depended upon his instant prayer:—when, if he did not pray, he was lost. That moment was the moment of temptation. The positive precept of prayer came down upon him then- with all its force. Then the man who praya is -saved, and the man who doesnot pray is lost.— When St. Peter was. walking on the waters, he felt the waters under him as solid as a rock, and he waa walking fearlessly to our 1,-ord, when suddenly the waters gave way, and he felt himself rapidly sinking out of sight, the waves gathering up around him, and in another instant he \u>uld be disowned. The moment he felt himself giving way, that moment he cried out, -?Lord; save me, or I perish •"' and* ttene:*? instant,
Object Description
Description
Title by Date | Cover |
Description | 1874-06-27, no. 21, The Patriot And Catholic Herald |
Type | Text |
Resource Type | Newspaper |
Sponsor | Centre for Newfoundland Studies |
Rights | Creative Commons |
PDF File | (8.40MB) -- http://collections.mun.ca/PDFs/the_patriot/18740627no21ThePatriotAndCatholicHerald.pdf |
Transcript | Here shall the Press the People's Bights maintain, Vnawed by influence and unlrihed by gain ; Here Patriot Truth tier glorious precepts draw, Pledged toifteligiun, Liberty and Law. ESTABLISHED 1833.) ST. JON'S, NEWFOUNDLAND, SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 1874. (No. 21.. ^THI^IG'JNTILLIGENGE. FATHER BURKE'S Discourse on the Ifuty of Prayer. Os the 15th ult., Father Burke de^ livered a discourse on " The Duty of Prayer," to a crowded congregation at | at St. Mary's, Cork, where he was con- " ducting a " Retreat." The /cry Rev. gentleman asked his II hearers to let him recall to their minds the great truth with which they had started in that retreat,namely—that Almighty Qod created us and placed us in this world in order that we might be united to Him; th-- union beginning here in. grace, and to be perfected hereafter in glory. Everything in the life of a true Christian man must be reduced to perfect conformity with that union ; everything must tend to it—just as a man preparing for any particular trade or profession directs his attention, conforms his habits, shapes all his studies and turns his mind to the acquisition of the knowledge antl skill necessary for ' that pursuit. And now that they had considered the nature of sin, and God's dealings with sin, both in the order of llis justice and of His mercy; now that he wast trying to lead their thoughts up to a higher union with God, he came to speak to them on a subject very high and very spiritual, but at the same time, absolutely necessary, without which no man could be united to God—and" that subject was the iudispensible duty of Prayer. What did he mean by Prayer ? Some were perfectly satisfied if they could say, " Oh Father, I say my prayers ;" but in the minds of many men that waa a very different thing' from Prayer. Many a man recited certain forms of Prayer, morning and evening, but without recollection, earnestness, or fixedjpur pose, apd between the morning and evening there was not a single thought of God, any more than if He did not exist at all. And yet that .man jl thought he prayed, because he " says j his prayers." That waa not the Prayer j| of which he was going to speak to them. ' Amongst the complaints which Almighty God made of His people, there was this one: " This people," said He, "honor Me with thejr lips, but their heart is far, far from Me." What was •he curse He put upon them for that? He said " their prayer shall be turned Hito a sin." That was the moat fearful of all—that a man's prayer instead of being answered by the Divine Mercy, should be turned into a sin and flung || back upon him! The prayer of which he spoke was the elevation of the heart, So''l, and spirit to God—a conscious communication with God—an earnest, i-npassioned petition to God; the prayer *hich penetrated a man's whole being, *'hich was performed as the mttat important of all duties—nay more, which, Performed in the morning, remaihed hovfirfn'g' dver the man's soul the whole •%, and .took the form of habitual and ■"roost' constant communication with ' ('od. He gpoke not of the occasional Practice of prayer, but the spirit fcf prayer, which made a man's life a life of prayer. Some meu imagined if a thing was high, grand, spiritual, that f>r that very reason they were hot to lose a thought about it—that it' was above them. That was not so. How could anything'be too grand or too high fir men who received the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ? What was there in heaven to which they ought not to aspire, seeing how the Lord God of Heaven cane and mo, le Himself their own? Prayer was necessary for rain's salvation, because he could hot be saved without' the grace of God—he could not live for a'siugle instant as hrf ought to live without that grace. ' Without its help he could not so much as think a good thought, nor mention, as he ought to mention, the name of Jesus Christ.] Soabaolutely necessary was Divine ..-racey for the Christian that ro purchase-it for him, God canednvuft'o.n heaven, was' incarnate by the Holy Ghost .if the Virgin M-try, antl was made man ; that!) he shed His blood and died on the Cross, like price th is pud -.va-- s > great that Almighty God opened up the whole treasury of His grace, and gave it all to i :s.' There was not a single grace in the 1 and of God that was beyond the ambition of any ordinary Christian man. Did he want purity like that of the Blessed Virgin?—love, tender and strong as that of St. John the Fivangelist?—sorrow as deep and salutary as that of Mary Magdalen?—that and every other grace was held in the hand of God,, aud belonged to man, through the blood of Jesus Christ. But God had attached j,") the granting of any grace one indis- pensible condition. That was prayer, '•'hey must ask for it. So true was this that they read in the epistle of St James that certain of the earlv Christians complained that they were falling- into sin, antl asked •*-hy they had not the grace of God ? The Apostle answered them ; " 1 herefore, you have not received, because you have not asked." If any man asked why was he constantly failing and falling? the answer was—because he did not practice prayer. Why did the Son of God remain thirty-three years amongst us ? Tbat He might build up in Himself and leave us a noble specimen of the true than—that He might be a model man for every mau to form himself upon unto the end of time, standing up before us the great original •—-the grandraan—the matjt who, in his own lite, showed of how much grandeur and sancitity a man was capable ? Was not our Lord emphatically a man of prayer ? They read of his prayer of forty days and nights, and that after his day's hard work he spent, the night in prayer wilh God. How grand, how brave the heart of Jesus Christ was in that practice of prayer! He knew that Judas waa about (to betray him, that ' his awful Passion wa3 approaching; and they were told by the Evangelist that when supper was ovei, He went, " according to 1 is custom," into the .garden to pray. "* According to his cusVom.'' It was,, hjs very life. He did'not require, says St. Ambrose, anything for himself; but we required the light of his example, to show us that the only man who can keep the grace of God, and hold his own soul, is the man who has the spirit and the practice of prayer. Even if prayer were not so necessary to a man's salvation, still it would.be necessary, because God had commanded it. " Watch and pray," He said ; and elsewhere. ** You must always pray,"- and the Apostle, repeating his Master's words,.said, "Beinstant and constant in prayer." The rain who best knew how to pray waa he who knew his own wants, who knew what he was asking for, and who knew how to ask for it. Some men did not know what they .were asking for in prayer—they never asked for anything specific at all. - That was not prayer. On the contrary "God said the vain and foolish petition was an abomination to him. If any one amongst them wanted a favor from some great man, he would not tell him that he wanted something in general—he did not know what. And yet men would c >me before God and ask for nothing prarticular, for the simple reason that they did not know their own wants. The first thing, then, for a man to do "•■before prayer was to consider what he was most in need of—what passion, for example, he was bound first to break down ; and when he had ascertained that, go to God, not with mere distracting words upon his lips, but with an earnest purpose. Remember how hard was the struggle for eternal salvation, and that the Kingdom of Heaven and lheir souls were at stake. When a man's prospects in life depended on his obtaining a certain favor, did he not use every available means to procure j**, throwing his whole heart and soul int. the effort? When he came to pray, was i; not aques- tion of life antl death with us ? When he prayed before God he said, " MyGod, I know you have made me a priest, and that you require of me a spirit of poverty, despising all the things of this world ; you require of me purity like to the angels'; you require of me perfect obedience and deep humility. You have entrusted to me the duty of preaching your Word, and although the exercise of that duty is conducive to vour glory and the salvation of souls, it has sent thousands of preachers to hell through pride. Hell is under my feet, if I give way to pride. Oh, God, since you haye imposed these obligations upon me, if 1 fail in them, I am damned for ever. Therefore, that 1 rnay not fail in them, O, ray God, grant me the grace to practice poverty, chasiity, obedience, humility." If he failed in any of these the next thing they would hear of him was, " He is gone! he is gone ! He pretended he could not believe in the Pope's Infallibility—that he thought the Church was going astray, and he could not follow her. He is gone! But it turns out now that he wanted to gratity his passions—that he wanted to many a woman and he ha* done so. -He is-»gone-!-"*----- Waa it not the same with any one of them ? Almighty God sait to them, «f If you do not struggle vith Me in prayer, -1 will not grant^you the grace y0u need ; but, as sure.as you pray ear nestly and constantly, there is not a grace in heaven that I won't give. But, you must pray constantly and earnestly." Again*, iniependent of that humility, earnestness and constancy in prayer, thetrje was something even higher still involved in the word of our Lord: " You must always pray." By that he required that we should throw the spirit of prayer over our whole life. That was done by the easy and most salutary, practice of trying, from time to time,, frequently throughout the whole day,-to remember the preseuce of God, and make a short interior prayer, offering to God one's heart, the business he was engaged in and suchlike aspirations. The sense of the presence of God thus fostered, hovered-round us like a guardian angel. In * that way a. man fulfilled, literally, the precept, " You must always pray ;'* for he sent the golden thread of prayer through every action of his life, passing, it hither and thither, until his whole life was an uniform and continuous prayer. The advantage of that was—. the sense of the presence of God frequently recalled, that offering of his actions, those aspirations frequently made, would preserve a man from tenip- tatiou. He lived in an atmosphere of God—he lived in a charmed circle of sanctity, into which the ruder demons of the grosser sins never dare intrude. Perhaps they would say it was too much to ask them to take up the practice of that spirit of prayer. Why, he had met Protestants, Methodists, Quakers, who lived in that atmosphere of prayer.— Was it of any advantage to them without faith and the sacraments ? He was •not prepared to answer. He knew that if tli-fey were in the state of invincible ignorance of the faith, that spirit of prayer would save their souls. One- thing was certain, it kept them de facto from committing many sins. .But, fit did so much for those who were outside- the pale of the Church, what would it not do for those who were living in the- full blaze of God's holy light, and fortified with the plenitude of God's holjr grace ? There would be an end of un- charitableness, of. impurity, of drunkenness, of all the real sorrows oi' life, if Catholic men would only consent to be* men of prayer. But there was one- moment in the life of every man, and it came very often to us, when piayer became an actual necessity then and. there, when a man's salvation depended upon his instant prayer:—when, if he did not pray, he was lost. That moment was the moment of temptation. The positive precept of prayer came down upon him then- with all its force. Then the man who praya is -saved, and the man who doesnot pray is lost.— When St. Peter was. walking on the waters, he felt the waters under him as solid as a rock, and he waa walking fearlessly to our 1,-ord, when suddenly the waters gave way, and he felt himself rapidly sinking out of sight, the waves gathering up around him, and in another instant he \u>uld be disowned. The moment he felt himself giving way, that moment he cried out, -?Lord; save me, or I perish •"' and* ttene:*? instant, |