We must all confess in our prayers any inadequacies, especially the one concerning the lack of grace. We must learn to accept that God's grace is sufficient enough for us. We know there is an adversary that will continually tell you that you're not enough and the blood on the cross is enough, but the comforter must assure us of the Holy Ghost that God's grace is sufficient. One who begs asks for that to which he has no right. That is grace!
We are beggars by defining our supernatural destiny, which brings us back to the first reason we have to pray. We are creatures made to possess the infinite God, but He will not dwell within except by those who, when they die, are in the grace of God. They will get that grace and retain it only if they obey what the Lord had directed unto them. We need to pray because we have a fallen human nature and the correct word is not "falling" but "fallen." Sure, we have been justified and, please God, restored to God's friendship, but that does not change our nature from having been and being a fallen nature. As a consequence of our fallen state, we have all sorts of unruly desires and fears that we call our passions. We need divine help to cope with these urges, which differ with different people. You might almost say what distinguishes us as persons because each of us has his or her particular unique passions. What turns one person on turns another person off. But, although they differ so much in their variety, they are all fundamentally the same passions. Except for Christ and His Blessed Mother – we are confident they were exempt from the stain of original sin and therefore had no desire; the rest of us must either pray constantly for the grace to overcome our lust, or we shall give in to our irrational fleshly wants.
Anger, pride, lust, covetousness, envy, sloth, and gluttony are not only the names of the seven capital sins, and they are the names of the seven capital drives. They are the seven deadly enemies of our soul synthesized by the Apostle in that one simple word, our "flesh." And these drives, let it be said, are not only in the flesh, though they go by the generic name of the "flesh," because they are in our fallen human natures. These drives, irrational, maddening, unreasonable, persistent, are not only urges of the body; they are also urging of the spirit. It is not only that our bodies are fallen our nature is fallen and that means body and spirit. And there is no conquering these enemies or even controlling their hostility except by the grace of God to be obtained through incessant prayer. Why incessant prayer? Because we have incessant drives! That is why we should not stop praying, pardon the expression, until a moment after we have died. People are not naturally humble.
People are naturally proud. Memorize that! Human nature is naturally proud. When you see humility say to yourself, "that is grace walking," and it is not a woman's name. People are not naturally chaste. They are naturally lustful, or as the expression goes, they are natural. Amen! So, they are! That is what natural means being lustful. They acquire and maintain chastity only if they pray and pray as much as they need to resist the onslaughts of the flesh.
We are not naturally gentle. We are not naturally self-less. We are not naturally generous or industrious or abstemious or honest. We are not. But, supernaturally, with the infusion of God we are all these things all by prayer and the grace of God.
Comments