Prayer - Its efficacy and value

To understand the efficacy and value of Prayer, we need only consider the great promises God has made to everyone who prays. Call upon me,... I will deliver thee (Ps. xlix. 15). Call upon Me, and I will save you from every danger. He shall cry to me, I will hear him (Jer. xxxiii. 3). Cry to me, and I will hear thee. You shall ask whatever you will, and it shall be done unto you (Jo. xv. 7). Ask whatsoever you wish and it shall be given to you. There are a thousand similar passages in the Old and New Testaments. By His nature God is, as St. Leo says, Goodness itself. Hence He desires, with a great desire, to make us partakers of His own good. St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi used to say that when any one prays to God for any grace, God feels in a certain manner under an obligation to him, and thanks him; because by prayer the soul opens to Him a way of satisfying His desire to dispense His graces to us. Hence, in the Holy Scriptures, the Lord appears to recommend and inculcate nothing more forcibly than to ask and pray. To show this, the words which we read in the Gospel of St. Matthew are sufficient. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you (Matt. vii. 7). St. Augustine teaches that by these promises God has bound Himself to grant all we ask in prayer. "By His promises God has made Himself a debtor." And the Saint says that if the Lord did not wish to bestow His graces upon us He would not exhort us so strenuously to ask them. "He would not exhort us to ask unless He wished to give." Hence we see that the Psalms of David and the Books of Solomon and of the Prophets are full of prayers.

Theodoret has written that prayer is so efficacious before God that, "though it be one, it can do all things." St. Bernard teaches that when we pray, the Lord, if He does not give us the grace we ask, will grant a more useful gift. "He will give either what we ask, or what He knows to be more profitable to us." And whom has God ever despised by not listening to his petition? Who hath called upon him, and he despised him? (Ecclus. ii. 12). The Scripture says that among the Gentile nations there is none that has its gods so willing to hear their prayers as our true God is to hear ours. Neither is there any other nation so great that hath gods so nigh to them as our God is present to all our petitions (Deut. iv. 7).

The princes of the earth, says St. John Chrysostom, give few audiences; but God grants audience to every one that wishes for it. David tells us that this goodness of God in hearing us at whatever time we pray to Him, shows us that He is our true God, Whose love for us surpasses the love of all others. In what day soever I shall call upon thee, behold I know thou art my God (Ps. lv. 10). He wishes and ardently desires to confer favours upon us; but He requires us to pray for them. Jesus Christ said one day to His disciples: Hitherto you have not asked anything in my name; ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full (Jo. xvi. 24). As if He said: You complain of Me for not making you perfectly content; but you ought to complain of yourselves for not having asked of Me all the gifts you stood in need of; ask, henceforth, whatsoever you want, and your prayer shall be heard. Many, says St. Bernard, complain that the Lord is wanting to them. But God complains with more justice that they are wanting to Him, by neglecting to ask Him for His graces.

The ancient Fathers, after having consulted together about the exercise most conducive to salvation, came to the conclusion that the best means of securing eternal life is to pray continually, saying: Lord, assist me; Lord, hasten to my assistance. "Incline unto my aid, O God; O Lord, make haste to help me." Hence the Holy Church commands these two petitions to be often repeated in the Canonical Hours by all the Clergy and by all Religious, who pray not only for themselves, but also for the whole Christian world. St. John Climacus says that our prayers as it were compel God by a holy violence to hear us. "Prayer does pious violence to God." Hence, when we pray to the Lord, He instantly answers by bestowing upon us the grace we ask. At the voice of thy cry, as soon as he shall hear, he will answer thee (Is. xxx. 19). Hence St. Ambrose says that "he who asks of God receives while he asks." And He not only grants His graces instantly, but also abundantly, giving us more than we pray for. St. Paul tells us that God is rich — that is, liberal of His graces to every one that prays to Him. Rich unto all that call upon him (Rom. x. 12). And St. James says: If any of you want wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men abundantly, and upbraideth not (James i. 5). He upbraideth not. When we pray to God, He does not reproach us with our sins, but seems to forget all the insults we have offered Him, and to delight in enriching us with His graces.