Thursday, August 09, 2012

Book 1: Meditation, Prayer, and the Particular Examen, 8/09

A Talk About Prayer* (Part 7)


In the next petition we ask Him to "Give us this day our daily bread."

Those who have given themselves up to God in an interior life, and have cast themselves upon His providence, have no need to importune their divine Master to give them their earthly bread for their bodily support, for as they have forsaken the love of the world for Him, He will provide for them, as He is in a manner bound to do. So, in this petition, we beg for our spiritual necessities.

Pray here for all the graces you need, for strength to support you in temptation, for light to know the will of Our Lord, since we can not do His will, as we have asked that it might be done, without the assistance and light of the Holy Ghost.

Also, when you are overburdened with grief, or temptations, or other trials, it is right you should pray for relief, as far as relief is needful for you; and in times of long-continued dryness, it is not wrong for you humbly to ask a little of the bread of consolation, if it be Our Lord's will.

But this petition may, in a special manner, be applied to the Blessed Sacrament, in which Our Lord Himself becomes our daily or supersubstantial bread; and we can turn this clause into a contemplation upon the real presence, and holy communion...

(Continued tomorrow)

* From Spencer's "The Little Grain of Wheat."
_________

From "Prayer-Book for Religious"
by Rev. F.X. Lasance
Copyright 1904, 1914

No comments: