The Ascent of Mount CarmelChapter XLIII. How the joy ana strength of tne will is to be directed to God in these devotions

Let such people then know that the more they rely on their ceremonies the less is their confidence in God, and that they will never obtain their desires. There are some people who labour more for their own ends than for the glory of God. Though they know that God will grant their prayer if it be for His service, and that He will not, if it be not; still, because of their self-love and the empty joy which they have in it, they will multiply their prayers beyond measure. Now if they were to attend to something else of more importance, they would do better: namely, if they set about the purification of their own conscience, and applied themselves to the affair of their own salvation, omitting all prayers which have not this for their end.

2. If they do this, they will obtain that which concerns them most, and they will obtain beside all else, though they did not pray for it, in a better and readier way than if they had directed all their energies to it. We have for this the promise of our Lord Himself, Who tells us, ‘seek ye, therefore, first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.’¹ Such seeking is most pleasing unto God and there is no better way to obtain the desires of our heart than to pray with all our might for that which is most pleasing unto Him; for then He will grant us, not only what we pray for, namely, our eternal salvation, but all that He sees to be expedient and profitable for us, though we ask it not, according to the words of the Psalmist, ‘The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth.’² They call upon Him in truth who pray for that which is most true, namely, their salvation, as the Psalmist adds, in the same place, ‘He will do the will of them that fear Him, and He will hear their prayer and save them. The Lord keepeth all them that love Him.’ To be ‘nigh’ unto men is to satisfy them, and to give them what never entered even into their thoughts to ask for.

3. We have an illustration of this in the history of Solomon. He asked of God wisdom to govern the people—a prayer that was acceptable unto Him—and the answer of God was: ‘Because this choice hath pleased thy heart, and thou hast not asked riches and wealth and glory, nor the lives of them that hate thee, nor many days of life; but hast asked wisdom and knowledge to be able to judge My people, over which I | have made thee king: wisdom and knowledge are granted to thee; and I will give thee riches and wealth and glory, so that none of the kings before thee, nor after thee, shall be like thee.’ God kept His promise, and made his enemies live in peace, and pay him tribute. We have the same lesson also in the book of Genesis, when God promised Abraham in answer to his prayer to multiply the posterity of his lawful son as the stars of heaven, He said: ‘I will make the son also of the bondwoman a great nation, because he is thy seed.’⁵

4. The powers of the will, therefore, and the joy it has in prayers, are to be thus referred to God: without leaning upon ceremonies and private observances which the Catholic Church neither adopts nor sanctions; we must resign to the priest the celebration of Mass, he stands in her place, and has received from her the order of its celebration. Men must not seek out new inventions, as if they knew more than the Holy Ghost and the Church. If they are not heard when they pray in simplicity, let them be sure of this—God will not hear them for their own inventions, however numerous they may be.

5. As to vocal prayer and other devotions, let no man rely on ceremonies and forms of prayer other than those which Christ and His Church have taught us. It is quite clear that, when His disciples said unto Him, ‘Teach us to pray, He told them all they were to do in order to be heard of the eternal Father. He knew His will. He then taught them only the seven petitions | of the Pater Noster, which include all our wants, spiritual and temporal. He did not teach them many, and other forms of words and ceremonies. He had before told them not to use many words when they prayed, saying, ‘When you are praying, speak not much .. . for your Father knoweth what is needful for you.’⁶ Only He charged them with great earnestness to persevere in prayer—that is, the Pater Noster—saying, ‘that we ought always to pray, and not to faint.’⁷ He did not teach us a variety of prayers, but to repeat often, with care and fervour, these petitions—for they contain the whole will of God and all our wants also. Thus He Himself, when He turned to the eternal Father, made His prayer the three times in the self-same words of the Pater Noster, saying, as the Evangelists tell us, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt;’— that is, Father, if I must drink this chalice, Thy will be done.

6. The rites and ceremonies which He taught us to observe in our prayers are reduced to one of two; either to retire into our chamber, where, away from the tumult and presence of men, we may pray with most pure and perfect heart—‘When thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret ;’⁸ or to withdraw into the lonely wilderness, as He did, in the better and more tranquil hours of the night. —

7. There is thus no necessity for determined seasons, nor for appointed days, nor for strange methods, nor for words of double meanings, nor for other prayers than those which the Church employs, and in the sense in which she employs them; for all prayers are comprehended in the Pater Noster. I am not, by this, condemning, but rather approving, those fixed days which some persons occasionally set apart for their devotions, such as novenas, and the like; what I condemn is the reliance which men have on the ceremonies and self-devised observances with which they keep them. This is what Judith also did when she rebuked the people of Bethulia, because they had fixed a time within which God was to have mercy upon them. ‘Who are ye,’ said the prophetess, ‘that tempt the Lord? This is not a word that may draw down mercy, but rather that may stir up wrath and enkindle indignation.’