Then it is the Father listening to the words of His child;
it is He who dwells in our hearts, teaching us to pray. But must we
confess that this filial confidence is wanting in all our prayers? Is
not prayer our resource only when all others have failed us? If we
look into hearts, shall we not find that we ask of God as if we had
never before received benefits from Him? Shall we not discover there
a secret infidelity that renders us unworthy of His goodness? Let us
tremble, lest, when Jesus Christ shall judge us, He pronounce the same
reproach that He did to Peter, "O thou of little faith, wherefore
didst thou doubt?"
3. We must join humility with trust. Great God, said Daniel, when we
prostrate ourselves at Thy feet, we do not place our hopes for the
success of our prayers upon our righteousness, but upon Thy mercy.
Without this disposition in our hearts, all others, however pious they
may be, can not please God. St. Augustine observes that the failure of
Peter should not be attributed to insincerity in his zeal for Jesus
Christ. He loved his Master in good faith; in good faith he would
rather have died than have forsaken Him; but his fault lay in trusting
to his own strength, to do what his own heart dictated.
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