OCR Text |
Show I BUTTE. ; Father McCourt on Prayer. (Correspondence Intermountain Catholic.) Butte. Mont.. Aug. 14. Rev. Father McCourt preached on "Prayer" at St. Patrick's church on Sunday evening. He said in Dart: "Amen, amen, I say unto you, if you ask the Father anything in My name. He will give it ot you. Hitherto, you have not asked anything in My name. Ask and you shall receive, that your joy-may joy-may be full. St. John, 16, 23d and 24th verses. "These consoling words, my dear brethren, are to be found in that longest and most touching discourse of our Lord, that spoken on the night of the last supper. Uttered, as they were, for the comfort of the apostles, who were soon to be separated from Him and from one another, who were about to begin a new era of heroic labors and sufferings unsustained by human help or sympathy they are much more than words of mere passing comfort. They are the renewed declaration and manifestation mani-festation of a great truth. Our Lord had tried to impress upon them: they are the last confirmation to what had ever been His doctrine and practice. That doctrine was the importance of prayer; that example was the proper methods and conditions of prayer. The vords of the text contain His oft repeated re-peated command: 'Ask;' they contain His promise twice renewed; 'Ask. and you shall receive; if you ask, the Father will give;' they point out the universality univer-sality of His willingness and -the extent of our needs. 'Anything;' they inculcate incul-cate the condition, 'in My name.' and finally they foretell the reward 'That your joy may be full' not simply the satisfaction, the contentment, that comes from having our petitions answered, ans-wered, but that blessedness of peace and strength which comes from converse con-verse with God. "Prayer may be called the ordinary dress, the inseparable garment of the soul; it is the proper attitude, the habitual hab-itual posture of an intelligent being before its Maker; it is the sign of bodily life; it is the warp, the substantial background and basis of the soul's activities, ac-tivities, reason, conscience and dependence, depend-ence, upon which the filling up, the colors col-ors are inserted and woven; such is prayer to the Christian possessed of faith the mould in which, consciously and unconsciously, his thoughts, words and actions are cast, forming part of one and the same thiner. "Prayer is-an act. is the raising urof our mindsto God, to acknowledge His sovereignty, to render Him homage, and to petition Him for all that we need in soul and body. t "he great duties of life can, ordinarily, ordi-narily, be discharged only by prayer, for by prayer we honr God and glorify His perfections. "By prayer we join with and give joy to the holy angels. "By prayer we build up the church on earth. "By prayer we air our brethren, living and dead. "By prayer ve subdue our inferior nature. "By prayer we quell temptation and put the evil one to flight. "By prayer we support the evils of Jife and gain merit. "By prayer we grow in virtue and grace. "By it we obtain that final grace of perseverance and a blessed eternity, and when we shall stand in the light and vastness of that, our true life, face to face with God, even then we shall pray, though, the manner be changed for, from a need, a duty, a privilege, prayer, contemplation, fruition shall be our occupation and beatitude forever more." |