It is for this reason that St. Chrysostom says
that nothing is so important as to keep an exact proportion between
the interior source of virtue and the external practise of it; else,
like the foolish virgins, we shall find that the oil in our lamp is
exhausted when the bridegroom comes.
The necessity we feel that God should bless our labors is another
powerful motive to prayer. It often happens that all human help is
vain. It is God alone that can aid us, and it does not require much
faith to believe that it is less our exertions, our foresight, and our
industry than the blessing of the Almighty that can give success to
our wishes.
Thirdly. Of the manner in which we ought to pray. 1. We must pray with
attention. God listens to the voice of the heart, not to that of the
lips. Our whole heart must be engaged in prayer. It must fasten upon
what it prays for; and every human object must disappear from our
minds. To whom should we speak with attention if not to God? Can He
demand less of us than that we should think of what we say to Him?
Dare we hope that He will listen to us, and think of us, when we
forget ourselves in the midst of our prayers? This attention to
prayer, which it is so just to exact from Christians, may be practised
with less difficulty than we imagine.
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