FROM “Perseverance in Good,” by Fr. Francis Hunolt:

God does not wish us to pray to him for the same reason that beggars are forced to ask alms from the rich: namely, to declare their poverty, or to excite pity and commiseration for their needs. No, the all-knowing Lord is better acquainted with our wants than we are ourselves. “Your Father knoweth what is needful for you,” says Christ, “before you ask him” (St. Matthew 6: 8). He knows your miseries before you expose them to him: and he has greater pity for our wretchedness than a good mother has for her sick child. Why, then, is it necessary for us to implore the help of God, if he already knows what we want, if his Fatherly love already inclines him to help us? It is true that God knows already what help and grace we are in need of from him; and that he can give us his grace without our co-operation, if he wishes to do so; but as a general rule, he will not give us any grace, the first alone excepted, unless we humbly ask it of him. God could have caused the fruits of the earth to come forth of themselves; but he does not do so. He requires us to do work, to till the fields, and sow the seed. In the same way he wishes all men to be eternally happy in heaven, and to that end, he is ready to give us all the assistance of his grace in liberal measure, but on the condition that we ask it of him so that we may always humbly acknowledge that he is the sole Lord and Giver of all grace, on whom depends our temporal and spiritual welfare. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you” (St. Matthew 7: 7).

Please follow and like us: