according to what St James says: — ‘You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss; that you may consume it on your concupiscences.'[1]
To ask amiss, is to ask without faith, as we learnt before from the same Apostle: — ' If any of you want wisdom, let him ask it. . . but in faith, nothing wavering': — without fear — believing firmly that what you ask will be granted, if you pray well and persevere in prayer.
Our Saviour will not give us anything we ask for which may hinder our salvation. Let us ask for our conversion: if we keep to that request, we shall obtain it.
And let souls who are in the Religious state remember this: — that, for them, the chief fruit of Christ’s teaching on prayer should be faithfulness to the hours consecrated to it. Even should they be inwardly distracted — supposing that they lament it, and would gladly not be so — if they remain faithful, humble, and submissive externally: — then the obedience rendered to God, to the Church, and to their Rule, by observing the prescribed genuflections, inclinations, or other outward forms of worship, preserves the real spirit of prayer. They are praying then by means of their state, their disposition,
- ↑ James iv. 3.
