Conferences on the Virtues
By Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd
Number 72
Questions about Prayer…
We return to
our treatment of the Virtue of Religion by addressing the four questions about
praying. Keep in mind that we are
talking about Prayer as an act of Religion.
Who
Are Able to Pray?…
Since prayer is
an act of the intellect (or reason) by means of which we request something from
someone who in some way is superior to us, only those can pray who have
reason and intellect and are also inferior to the someone to whom the
prayer is addressed.
The person to
whom the prayer is addressed is a superior either because he or she has lawful
authority over the one who prays, or because he or she is superior in
some other way, i.e., possessing superior qualities or attributes.
Thus, Christ,
as Man (who often prayed while on earth in His Humanity), the Angels, the
Saints, the Souls in Purgatory, and all of us human beings still living here on
earth, including sinners, are all able to pray.
Since the Three
Divine persons have no one superior to Them, They are not able to pray. Jesus, a Divine person, prays only as True
Man.
To
Whom Can We Pray?…
Prayers can be
addressed to superiors in two distinct ways.
First, to that
superior who, in virtue of having authority over the one who prays, is personally
capable of granting what is requested.
Second, to
someone who is superior in good attributes and qualities to the one who
prays, such that the prayers of the superior person are more capable of
obtaining a favorable answer from a superior common to both.
In this second
sense we pray to the Angels, the Saints (including baptized persons who die in
infancy, i.e., before attaining the use of reason, and hence entered eternity
without any stain of sin on their souls), and in particular, the Blessed Virgin
Mary, whose powers of impetration are second only to that of her Divine
Son. They, in turn, pray to God for us
who have prayed to them.
Whether
directed to God (or any of the Divine persons directly), or to the Angels,
Saints, etc., the Prayers we offer give due honor and reverence to God.
When we direct
our prayer to God as the only one who can give us what we desire, we are
performing an explicit act of the virtue of religion. This kind of prayer is a constituent of worship.
When we direct
our prayers to someone more capable of obtaining for us what only God can give,
we pray to them as intercessors or mediators.
This is not an act of the virtue of Religion, although the request we
address to the intercessor is commanded by the virtue of Religion. This second type of prayer is called an act
of DULIA. Dulia is defined as an
act of religious veneration directed to a creature.
The difference
in the two is manifested in our recitation of our various Litanies.
When, in those
litanies, where the leader invokes God (the Divinity) or the persons of the
Trinity, whether together or individually, we always respond: Have MERCY on us.
When the leader
invokes the Angels or the Saints by name or by some title, we always respond Pray
FOR us.
My textbook has
some interesting things to say about the answer to this question. He states:
Christ,
as Man, although He is our primary Intercessor and Mediator, in virtue of whose
merits all graces are granted, ought not to be prayed to as Mediator only,
but always also as God, the author of all good.
The Church does
not pray [officially] to the souls in Purgatory. Whether one can privately pray to them as intercessors and
mediators is disputed among moral theologians.
St. Thomas says “No!” on the grounds that he knows of no convincing
reason to believe that they are aware of prayers we might address to them. Thus he advises the faithful to abstain from
asking them to intercede for us as the prudent thing to do.
(Alas, am I
being arrogant in saying that I do not agree with St. Thomas Aquinas?) Here are my reasons:
First and
foremost, the PRACTICE of praying to the Souls in Purgatory for the spiritual
help they can obtain for us from God is well established among good, devout,
prudent Catholics. The authentic
Magisterium is aware of this fact, and HAS NOT instructed the Faithful that
this should be avoided.
Secondly, the
Souls in Purgatory possess Charity irrevocably. It is this, which makes them our superiors. Although they do not yet enjoy the Beatific
Vision, they are in the state wherein they cannot lose their union with God in
Love, i.e., their perfect conformity to His Will. But Charity of its very nature rules out SELF-LOVE. Toward which others, then, do the
Souls in Purgatory exercise Charity?
Certainly toward God. But to
love God means to love also all those whom He loves, and also to work and pray
to promote God’s interests. Well, God
loves all human beings, whom He has created to share His Life and Beatitude,
which purpose constitutes His Chief and over-arching INTEREST. Thus, the Souls in Purgatory necessarily
exercise their Charity toward all those of their fellow human beings not yet
safely and permanently in possession of God’s Life and Beatitude. And who are these but ourselves, still in
jeopardy here on earth. They certainly
and very earnestly want all of us on earth to save our souls.
Therefore, they
are not only disposed to pray for all of us on earth in general, but
would certainly pray for us in particular as intercessors if we were to
ask them to.
But do they
know when we address prayers to them? I
do believe that God in His Merciful Goodness would make this known to
them. Certainly HE would not deprive
them of the opportunity to LOVE, since it is in LOVING that He finds His
Beatitude).
We do not pray
to the just on earth [as an act commanded by the virtue of Religion]. Honoring
them as intercessors and mediators.
They are not yet our superiors because they do not as yet permanently
possess (i.e., are not beyond the possibility of losing) the eternal life,
which we are seeking. We may at times
ask them to pray for us.
(Of course,
this does not mean that we cannot ask, not only the just, but even other people
who do not seem saintly, to pray for us. We ask them to do that as a favor to us, as an act of charity on
their part. This indeed does them
honor; it is a form of venerating them, but it is not to be confused with dulia. Veneration for a [rational] creature becomes
dulia (religious veneration) only when that person is permanently and
irrevocably united to God, and thus shares in all His glorious attributes.
For
Whom Can We Pray?…
We can pray
for:
1. Only
rational creatures. If and when
we pray for irrational creatures (that the car does not break down; that the
farm animals do not get a disease), it is only in view of the fact that this is
a benefit the rational creature (person) whom they serve or who derive a
necessary benefit from their good working condition or health. After all, God created the irrational
creatures to serve the physical, psychological and spiritual needs of us human
beings, his rational creatures.
2. And
ONLY for those rational creatures who can still be helped. These include all of us who are pilgrims
here on earth. Thus we can pray for
ourselves and our loved ones, for other human beings, whether believers or
unbelievers, friends or enemies, and for the Souls in Purgatory. We cannot, therefore, pray for the demons or
for damned souls.
Although
we cannot pray for the Saints or Angels in the sense of helping them become
holier still, we can pray for them in the sense that they could become
better known and thus be able better to help the faithful on earth grow
in the love of God.
Praying
for them in this way does not help them grow in holiness; it only
increases their accidental (as opposed to their essential) glory.
What
Things Can We Pray For?…
Since we can
only ask of God those things, which are decent and fitting, it is
perfectly licit to ask for any and all GOOD things, whether in general or in
particular. Among these:
1. Principal
and primary are those Spiritual and eternal good things, whether natural or
supernatural, which are directly conducive to the natural and supernatural
moral perfection of us human beings.
These we can ask for absolutely (as opposed to conditionally),
because, of themselves, they cannot be abused by us. Hence, to ask for these is ALWAYS according to God’s Will for us.
There
is a caveat, however. We must ask for
them in accordance with the ORDER established by God. This means that certain spiritual
supernatural goods we can only ask for conditionally. For example, we could not lawfully ask for extraordinary
graces or spiritual experiences without willingly submitting to God’s Will
in this regard.
2. Subordinate
and secondary are those temporary (perishable) good things by means of which, ordinarily
and in the abstract, our corporal, natural moral and supernatural moral
life is nourished and kept healthy.
These we must ask for conditionally (at least implicitly), that is,
insofar as they are conducive to our eternal salvation, because these things
can be abused and hence could cause us to place our eternal salvation at risk.
Since we cannot ask of God those things which
ARE NOT decent and fitting,
a. It is NOT licit for us to ask for what is a moral
evil. It would constitute grievous
irreverence toward God to ask His help to commit even a slight venial sin,
since this would be directly repugnant to His Holiness.
b. It IS licit for us to ask for a physical
or temporal evil when they can be the cause or occasion of a good of a
higher order.
For
example, we can ask for the trials and tribulations that are the appropriate
means of helping us grow in virtue.
We
can ask to befall a sinner whatever illness or other evil that would be an
appropriate and effective means of recalling him to penance and to a life of
virtue.
Article
2 - The Kinds of Prayer…
This section
has to do chiefly with Vocal Prayer, about which I have made some personal
observations in a previous conference.
Here I will speak of it as it occurs in my textbook.
According to
the manner in which it is done, prayer is subdivided into merely internal
and external.
In the former,
the mind alone is active.
In the latter,
both the mind and some external manifestation are operative. The external manifestation of the internal
operation of the mind is usually through speech. In this case, it is called Vocal Prayer.
Vocal prayer is
necessary for the same reason that Worship, which is to be done in spirit and
in truth, must, at times, be manifested also by external acts or signs.
For authentic
Vocal Prayer, three conditions are required:
1. External:
the uttering of words.
2. Internal:
the attention of the mind (or intellect).
3. Internal:
The intention of the Will.
The words
spoken must constitute true human speech, that is, they must enjoy two attributes, namely,
a. The
words must be actually spoken
b. The words must truly express the desire and intent of
the one praying
Attention is
the application of the mind to a specific object or subject.
Although every
act of the intellect is necessarily internal, that is, occurring within
the soul, from the point of view of its object, attention is both external
and internal.
It is external
when the mind applies itself to the avoidance of activities that are
incompatible with prayer or with the internal attention, such as conversing
with (speaking and listening to) someone, writing, performing an outward action
quickly or intently, etc.
It is internal
when the mind applies itself to some inward train of thought by:
a. Taking
care that the words are pronounced properly (superficial)
b. Paying
strict attention to the meaning of the words (literal)
c. Focusing
the attention on God or on Divine realities (spiritual)
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