The Sermon on the Mount (Bossuet)/Day 39
Thirty-ninth Day
Of praying with faith; and of 'asking,' 'seeking' and 'knocking' -Matt. vii. 7.
AFTER having shown the sinner the melancholy and shameful state that he has fallen into, Our Saviour shows him the means of coming forth from it by prayer.
'Ask: seek: knock.’ These words stand for three degrees of prayer; and — so to speak — for three separate entreaties which we are to make, perseveringly, and one after the other. But what are we to entreat God to give us, that we may get out of this worse than bestial state that sin has plunged us into? Some words of St James will teach us: — ' But if any of you want wisdom, let him ask of God, Who giveth abundantly, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.’[1]
Our Lord Himself has told us the same thing. 1 Amen, I say to you, if you shall have faith, and stagger not,... if you shall say to this mountain: Take up and cast thyself into the sea, it shall be done, and all things whatsoever that you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.’[2]
See, then, what you have been brought to by sin, and ask with faith for your conversion. Never say that it is impossible: — though your sins were crushing you with a weight as of a mountain, pray, and the weight will yield to your prayer! Believe firmly that you will obtain what you ask, and it will be given to you. Jesus Christ makes use of these extraordinary comparisons on purpose to show that everything is possible for the man who prays.
Let every Christian, then, take courage, and never despair of his salvation.