May 11, 2026
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation
We will, to-morrow, consider the confidence which ought to be associated with our prayers; and we will meditate upon three reasons for having this confidence, that is to say: 1st, the excellence of the divine perfections, which require it; 2d, the precept which God has laid down for it; 3d, the promises which are attached to it. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to address our prayers to God with the confidence of a child speaking to its father; 2d, often to ask God to increase this confidence in us. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the prayer which the apostles addressed to Our Lord, “Increase our faith” (Luke xvii. 5).
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore the infinite goodness of God binding Himself by an oath to answer our prayers if we pray as we ought: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatsoever you shall ask the Father in My name, that will I do” (John xiv. 13). What mercy and love are contained in these words, and how exceedingly just it is to thank Our Lord for them with all our heart and soul!
FIRST POINT
The Consideration of the Divine Perfections ought, in Prayer, to Fill our Hearts with Confidence
In fact, O my God, dost Thou not know all my needs since nothing escapes Thy infinite knowledge? canst not Thou relieve them since Thou art the Almighty? canst not Thou solace them since Thou art the infinitely good God, who so delights to communicate Himself that it might be said that Thou hast, as it were, a need to give Thyself equal to the need we have to receive? “Thou hast,” says St. Augustine, “placed mercy at the door of Thy palace, with the mission to receive all those who present themselves there, and to blame and invite all those who delay to come. You have asked for nothing yet,” Thou dost exclaim to them; “ask and you shall receive; knock and it shall be opened to you. My angels are there, not to close the door against you, but to open it to you; not to repel you, but to bring you in; not to put away your requests, but to present them and give them their support. Come then, knock with confidence; I will not allow the just who is at my door to perish with hunger.” “I believe it, O my God,” the holy doctor says elsewhere; “for Thy door likes to see a crowd of suppliants knocking at it, crying out and being importunate. Thy treasures suffer and are afflicted at not being asked for and being spread abroad.” Also, Thou preferrest to be called by the name of Father, rather than by that of Judge and of Lord, in order to show us that, having the love of a father for us, Thou desirest that we should feel towards Thee the confidence of a child. And why should I not have it, Lord? If men, wicked as they are, do not give their children a stone instead of a piece of bread, a serpent instead of a fish, a scorpion instead of an egg; how couldst Thou, who art the most tender of fathers, refuse us Thy spirit and Thy graces, Thou whose knowledge is acquainted with all things, whose power can do all things, and whose goodness desires to do us so much good? O God my Father, I will henceforth say with David: I have placed my confidence in Thee. I am an orphan who has no other help but Thee (Ps. x. 14). I appeal to Thy heart, and it seems to me that I hear Thee say: Confide in Me, I am the Father of the orphan (Ps. lxvii. 6). Is it with this filial confidence that we speak to God in prayer?
SECOND POINT
Confidence in the Virtue of Prayer is a Divine Precept
God so rigorously demands of us this confidence, which is indeed so perfectly due to His infinite perfections, that without it all prayer is powerless. If any one, says St. James, desires to pray to God, let him address Him with confidence, that is to say, with a firm persuasion that he will be heard, because if he hesitates, if he doubts, his prayer will be cast away on the wind like the waves of the sea tossed by the tempest, and he will not be able to hope for anything from it (James i. 6, 7). Prayer without confidence is a dead and sterile prayer, says St. Augustine. He who doubts the goodness of God in granting his prayer, says St. Cassian (Coll. ix. 34), may be sure that he will not be heard. Thus before giving sight to two blind men who asked Him to cure them, Jesus Christ obliged them to make an act of faith. Have you confidence in My power? He asked them: Yea, Lord, they replied. Then be ye cured; be it done unto you according to your faith (Matt. ix. 29). The reason, then, why our prayers are so seldom heard is because we most frequently pray without confidence, we mistrust God and His word. Let us ask of our consciences if this be not true.
THIRD POINT
Promises Attached to Confidence
Believe, says Jesus Christ, that all which you ask the Father in My name you shall receive (Mark xi. 24). If you can have confidence in Me, He says to an afflicted father who asks Him to cure his son, all is possible to him who believeth (Ibid. 21). With faith, He says also to His apostles, you shall say to this mountain: Cast thyself into the sea, and it will do so (Ibid. 23). Such is the law made by God; He will give His graces in proportion to the confidence with which they are asked for. The saints had full confidence and they obtained miracles. If we had confidence like them, we should like them obtain an answer to our prayers; or if what we asked were contrary either to our own interests, or to the general welfare, or to the aims of Providence, which are higher than ours, God, in place of what we had asked, would give us something better; or if He judges it to be more expedient for us to receive at a later period what we ask, He defers the answer to our prayers from love towards us. God often makes use of these delays: 1st, to render our confidence more heroic in itself, more honorable to Him, and more meritorious for us; 2d, to increase our fervor: He allows us to go on knocking at the door, in order that we may knock all the louder; He allows us to go on crying, that we may cry all the louder; 3d, to force us to persevere in prayer, and thereby to keep ourselves more constantly united to Him. Thus God, even when He refuses or defers, is always love and goodness, always worthy of our confidence. Let us thoroughly understand these truths, and henceforth may the delays inflicted on us by God excite us to pray more and to pray better.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.