The Priest at Prayer, May 28

Second Part
The Priestly Ministry

The First Ministerial Duty

Second Meditation - The Priest must be a Man of Prayer

I. The Archangel called Daniel "a man of desires". Isaias called Christ "a Man of sorrows". Why not call Him equally "a Man of prayer"?

Christ's first act on entering into the world was, St. Paul assures us (Heb. x, 5), to pray to His Heavenly Father. His last before dying was that tr~mendous cry: Father, into Thy Hands I commend my spirit.­(Luke xxiii, 46)

During His Public Life He spends whole nights in prayer (Luke vi, 12), and at daybreak He returns to the temple to repeat His supplications (John viii, 2). While discoursing He raises His eyes to heaven and prays; He frequently teaches His disciples how to pray, and for the sake of engraving it on their memory He often repeats that supreme formula of prayer, the Our Father.

Our Lord, by example, teaching and recurrent exhortation, is the first Master of prayer.

O High Priest and Essential Mediator between God and man: Thou who hast not disdained to give me a special share in Thy Priesthood, see that there be accomplished in me one day the promise of Zacharias the prophet: "I will pour out upon you a gracious spirit of prayer." (Zach. xii, 10)

II.
Where shall I turn to ask for help but to Thee, O Lord?

The enemy is manifold and strong and, unfortunately for me, quite used to getting the upper hand; what with the fascinating allurement of the objects that surround me, the weakness and miseries teeming within me, the peremptory and most serious nature of my obligations, the need to tame and shackle the well-nigh invincible concupiscence of the flesh, the life of angels that I must live, so near to my God and Saviour in ideals, in aspirations, in loves, in my very bodily demeanour. There is no nature, however well-endowed one may imagine it, with the fund of energies that I require.

To nobody more than me canst Thou say, Lord:

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine; so neither can you; un1ess you abide with me . . . for without me you can do nothing. (John xv, 4, 5)

May I live continually in Thee, by Thy grace; and to Thee may I have recourse unceasingly in mind and heart! ­

III.
The Apostle calls the priest a man of God. The faithful would never have coined such a graphic turn of phrase by themselves, but their Christian instinct imparts to them what St. Paul received from the Holy Spirit: hence the faithful reward and respect in the priest one thing: the man of God.

Nothing is achieved by presenting ourselves to souls as men of books, or as geniuses steeped in profound lucubrations, or as orators of the well-rounded phrase and sparkling thought tinted with the magic splendour of a lively imagination; none of that invests us with the power over souls which characterises the Catholic priest.

The faithful demand that we descend to them, like Moses, from the pure unclouded summits of intimate communication with God, in order to speak to con­sciences in the Name of their Creator and their Saviour: that is, we must be men of prayer in the likeness of the Eternal Priest.

Are not our apostolic endeavours stricken with failure simply because we do not communicate inti­mately with God? The rays that radiated from Moses when he came down from the mountain do not radiate from us. The spirit of prayer does not shine in our countenances.

Resolutions
To turn more frequently to God; not to begin any work of my ministry without praying first, and to pray as my Lord Jesus Christ would have me pray.

If you ask anything of the Father in my name, He will give it you.

If you ask - so I will persevere untiringly until I am answered; anything - like a child entirely dependent upon, and expecting all from, his father; of the Father - ­with confidence, because no tide like that of "Father" can so inspire me; in my name - the Saviour's name, and therefore I must ask only for those things that are a help, or at least not a hindrance, to the salvation He came on earth to bring me; He will give it you - a guarantee that if I pray under these conditions I shall most certainly obtain everything from my heavenly Father.

So my one and universal asset is prayer.
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Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.

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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!