September 28
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeTenth Saturday after Trinity
Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive in your prayers. Romans 15:30.
PRAYER must make a life of action spiritual, and action must make a life of prayer real. Pray for the spirit of prayer; pray for the power to pray. Prayer is eminently the gift of God. Your very prayer is given you by God; it is His work in you, His before it is yours; the working of His grace within you, without which you could never have prayed. Ask, then, continually from Jesus the power to ask. It is through Him only that you can approach unto the Father; unto that presence you can only enter sprinkled with His Blood. He takes you by the hand and leads you in: He offers up for you the poor earth-bound prayer, which scarcely struggles upward from your heavy heart; but joined to His intercession it mounts at once to God. He bears the golden censer, and much incense is there in it, even the prayers of all Saints. With that prevailing breath your creeping supplications intermingle. Fear not, then, for the intercession of the Eternal Son must lose its power and prevalence before the faintest whisper of the penitent heart can be repulsed or overlooked.
Sweet Jesus! teach me how to prize These tedious hours when I, Foolish and mute before Thy Face, In helpless worship lie.
Prayer was not meant for luxury, Or selfish pastime sweet; It is the prostrate creature's place At his Creator's Feet.