May 13, 2026
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation
After having meditated on the qualities of good prayer, we will meditate to-morrow on the defects which vitiate it and render it inefficacious. St. Augustine points them out in these words: We do not ask God what we ought to ask; we ask Him badly; we ask it in a bad frame of mind. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to prepare ourselves better for our prayers, by recollecting ourselves before beginning them, and impressing ourselves with the greatness of the action we are about to perform; 2d, to pray much more for our spiritual and eternal than for our temporal interests. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of our meditation: “We do not ask what we ought to ask for; we ask for it badly; we ask for it in a bad frame of mind.”
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore Jesus Christ in prayer, embracing heaven and earth: heaven, for saints and angels offer their adorations through Him alone; earth, because it presents its prayers and homage through Him alone. It is of a truth He who always asks His Father everything that is best, who asks for it as He ought, and with holy dispositions. Let us thank Him for the great service and the great example we derive from His prayer.
FIRST POINT
We often Ask God what we ought not to Ask of Him
1st. We often ask God for temporal advantages, begging Him to order events in accordance with our pride or our ambition, our vanity or our sensuality, to keep from us all kinds of crosses, all kinds of sicknesses, the death of persons who are dear to us, lastly, all temporal calamities. It is not that these requests are wrong in themselves, provided we add, “My God, not my will be done, but Thine; if Thou seest it is better that my desires should not be granted, do not grant them;” otherwise they would be wrong. For we are no longer under the mosaic law, which had for its sanction earthly blessings and evils; but under the reign of Him whose kingdom is not of this world, under the law of the Gospel, which preaches to us detachment from earthly possessions, and draws up towards heaven and eternal blessings all the aspirations of our heart. 2d. Whilst asking of God spiritual blessings we do not ask what we ought, excepting in so far as we leave to Him the time and manner of granting them to us; for sometimes we are not prepared to receive usefully what we ask; sometimes it is better for us to have time to appreciate our wretchedness, and to ask during a longer period, that our merits may be increased and our desires may be inflamed by delay. To desire to receive too quickly the best things is not to ask as we ought. Do we observe these rules, both as regards the natural and the spiritual order?
SECOND POINT
We often Ask badly what we Ask for
1st. We often, indeed, treat God in prayer in a strange manner. If we speak to the most ordinary of men, we think of what we are saying to him; and in speaking to God, alas! we often do not think of the sense of our words. Now, how could God grant a prayer offered in such a manner? How could He possibly listen to any one who does not listen to himself? “You ask, and you receive not, because you ask amiss,” says the Holy Spirit (James iv. 3). In order that our prayer may be granted, we must be recollected within that portion of ourselves, that inner temple where we confer with God alone, far from all thoughts of this world. It is there that God loves to listen to prayer. If our heart escapes us, spite of ourselves, we must recall the fugitive, and deplore its wanderings, like David, who exclaimed, “My heart hath forsaken me” (Ps. xxxix. 13); and when we have found it again we must rejoice like the holy king, and return to our prayer with our whole soul (II. Kings vii. 27). Lastly, we must imitate St. Hilarion, of whom history tells us that he recited the psalms of the holy office as though he had God present to him, listening to what he said (Lesson of the Office). Alas, how rarely we pray in this manner!
THIRD POINT
Our Bad Frame of Mind often Vitiates our Prayers
To pray to God in a bad frame of mind is to present Him with a heart which has neither any regret for past wrong-doing, nor any real desire to reform, nor any courage for overcoming frivolity and distastes, nor any habit of recollection, nor any energetic efforts to please God. Now, possessing such a frame of mind as this, how can we expect our prayers to be heard? The habit of dissipation of thought, the cowardice and effeminacy which will not allow of any restraint, the attachments which take possession of the heart, are as a cloud placed between God and ourselves, which hinders our prayer from reaching Him (Lam. iii. 44). Let us here enter into ourselves, and see if we do not vitiate our prayers in one or other of these ways.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.