Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Thoughts for the Week - Fr. R. Taouk 
29th July 2018

The Five Qualities of Prayer by St. Thomas Aquinas

"Our Father who art in Heaven." Among all other prayers, the Lord's Prayer holds the chief place. It has five excellent qualities which are required in all prayer. A prayer must be confident, ordered, suitable, devout and humble.

It must be confident: That is, it must not be wanting in faith. Moreover, our prayer must be suitable, so that a person asks of God in prayer what is good for him. Many times our prayer is not heard because we seek that which is not good for us. To know, indeed, what one ought to pray for is most difficult; for it is not easy to know what one ought to desire. Those things which we rightly seek in prayer are rightly desired; hence the Apostle says: "For we know not what we should pray for as we ought" (Rom. 8:26). Christ Himself is our Teacher; it is He who teaches us what we ought to pray for, and it was to Him that the disciples said: "Lord, teach us to pray". "Whatsoever words we use in prayer," says St. Augustine, "we cannot but utter that which is contained in our Lord's Prayer, if we pray in a suitable and worthy manner." 

Our prayer ought also to be ordered as our desires should be ordered, for prayer is but the expression of desire. Now, it is the correct order that we prefer spiritual to bodily things, and heavenly things to those merely earthly.

Our prayer must be devout, because a rich measure of piety makes the sacrifice of prayer acceptable to God: "In Thy name I will lift up my hands. Let my soul be filled with marrow and fatness". Many times because of the length of our prayers our devotion grows cool; hence Our Lord taught us to avoid wordiness in our prayers. 

Prayer ought to be humble: "He hath had regard for the prayer of the humble". This is seen in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:9-14), and also in the words of Judith: "The prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased Thee". This same humility is observed in this prayer, for true humility is had when a person does not presume upon his own powers, but from the divine strength expects all that he asks for.

It must be noted that prayer brings about three good effects. First, prayer is an efficacious and useful remedy against evils. In the second place, prayer is efficacious and useful to obtain all that one desires. Thirdly, prayer is profitable because it makes us friends of God: "Let my prayer be directed as incense in Thy sight" (Ps. 140:2).