(...)more remains to be said regarding our prayers to Christ, our supplications to our Blessed Mother and to the saints. When we pray to Christ we pray in the same sense that we pray to the Father, to the Holy Trinity; for Christ, the Son of God made man, is Himself true God and one with the Father. The essence of prayer to Christ is loving adoration, loving surrender to His Person, His commandments, His holy will. But through Christ we offer our prayers to the Father. Christ the Lord takes the prayer we direct to Him and carries it to the Father. So in our prayer to Christ we pray in, with, and through Him to the Father. To Mary and the saints we pray not in the sense of adoration—that belongs to the Father and to Christ and to the Holy Spirit alone—but in the sense of religious veneration due to their supernatural superiority. To our Lady we owe a deeper veneration than to the saints, the angels, and all mankind because of the divine favor that gives her precedence over all. If our veneration of our Lady and the saints is not an act of prayer, it is, nevertheless, an attitude of will, which acknowledges the greatness, the grace, the virtue, and the holiness passing beyond Mary and the saints to God Himself, thanking Him in his saints, extolling and glorifying Him with his saints, with their hearts, with their love, and with their surrender to His will. When we turn in trust to our heavenly Mother we do so in the clear realization that she is not our last recourse; we do so because she takes us with her to her Son and through Him to the Father, supplementing our love and our surrender with her own love and making good that which is wanting in us. If thou didst know the gift of God! (Jn 4: 10), the grace, the sublime power of Christian prayer. . . . Our Christian prayer has a dynamic force and power immeasurably greater than any human strength. What power has learning, technical skill, even the might of Satan and Hell compared with the potency of human prayer carried to God by Christ Himself? If thou didst know the gift of God! . . . Obviously we ought to value Christian prayer more highly— to rely more on its power—believe more in its power—and especially convince ourselves that, in spite of our human incapacity, we can pray in a manner pleasing to God. When our will is really integrated in the will of God we pray perpetually. Then our whole life is a constant prayer, an endless act of love toward God. What bliss will be ours when we learn to let the grace of God work in us without let or hindrance: then we shall no longer rely on our own human capacity, even in our prayers. Benedict Baur (In Silence with God, chapter 15)
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 14:41:23 +0000