Again we are admonished to pray in these words:
"We ought always to pray and not to faint" (Luke xviii. i).
"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).
"Amen, Amen, I say to you, if you ask the Father anything in My name He will give it you" (John xvi. 23).
The Royal Psalmist tells us: "The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him; to all that call upon Him in truth. He will do the will of them that fear Him, and He will hear their prayer and save them" (Ps. cxliv. 18, 19).
3. And what do the saints say? They call prayer the very breath of the soul, and assert that a man who does not pray is a lamp without oil, a body without food, a plant without water, a soldier without arms St. Alphonsus writes thus: "It is by means of prayer that all the blessed in heaven have attained to eternal felicity. All the damned have been lost because they did not pray; if they had prayed, they would certainly not have been lost."
The same saint urges us to prayer in these words:
"Prayer is a sure and indispensable means of obtaining salvation and all the graces lead-
