9781644135945

The Light of the World
the life of God which we received in baptism, then we must breathe forth ourselves into God
and inhale the light and the power of God. This we do in prayer. There is no grace without
prayer. Only he who casts himself down in humility, only he who can abandon himself and
his own nothingness, only he who absorbs God — only he can be helped. Only those who
ask shall receive.
“If you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it you” (Gospel). We ask the Father in the
name of Jesus principally when we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the proper spirit. This
we do by taking into our hands His sacred body and His precious blood, the price of our salvation,
and offering them up to the Father. “We Thy servants [the priest], and also Thy holy people, . . .
offer up to Thy most excellent majesty, from among Thy gifts and presents, a pure victim, a holy
victim, a spotless victim, the holy bread of life everlasting and the chalice of eternal salvation”
(Canon). Here His sufferings, His blood, and His death speak for us. Here He acts as our advocate
and makes our needs the object of His priestly prayer, a prayer which is all-powerful with God.
He is our intercessor and intermediary. Now His promise is fulfilled: “Ask and you shall receive,
that your joy may be full.” Then the Lord who was sacrificed for us comes into our hearts at Holy
Communion. Our hearts now become His dwelling place, where He lives and prays. He elevates
our prayers with His own and makes them a part of His adoration, His thanksgiving, His praise.
The small grain of incense which is our prayer He puts into the thurible of His praying heart. Thus
it becomes a part of His own perfect prayer and rises up to the Father like the smoke of incense.
“Through Him and with Him and in Him” the Father receives from us also “all honor and glory.”
“Alleluia, I came forth from the Father and am come into the world; again I leave the world
and I go to the Father, alleluia” (Alleluia verse). He is our advocate with the Father, He has opened
heaven to us again and made our approach to the Father possible. Now since we are children of
the Father, we are free to speak and say, “Our Father.” Christ, who is our elder brother, prays with
us and in us. We pray with Him and in Him and in His name, basing our claims on His merits.
Thus our prayer becomes all-powerful, but only under one condition: “If any man think himself
to be religious, not bridling his tongue but deceiving his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.
Religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father is this: To visit the fatherless and widows
in their tribulation, and to keep one’s self unspotted from this world” (Epistle).
Prayer
O God, from whom all good things proceed, grant to Thy suppliants that by Thy inspiration
we may think what is right and with Thy guidance carry out the same. Through Christ our
Lord. Amen.
Monday, Rogation Day
Today we observe the first of the three rogation days which immediately precede the feast of
the Ascension. In the mind of the liturgy our petitions are to accompany the Lord when He
ascends into heaven. Christ in His Ascension is our emissary, our messenger, our advocate.
With this thought in mind the Church holds her rogation processions. “Arise, O Lord, help us
and redeem us for Thy name’s sake” (Processional antiphon). “Lord have mercy on us. Christ
have mercy on us.” May all the saints pray for us that we may obtain forgiveness and protection
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