> [[324-various-forms-of-the-apostolate|← 324. Various Forms of the Apostolate]] | [[-divine-intimacy-toc|TOC]] | [[326-apostolic-immolation|326. Apostolic Immolation →]] # 325. Apostolic Prayer PRESENCE OF GOD - Accept, O Lord, my humble prayer that Your kingdom may come. MEDITATION 1 When Jesus died on the Cross for us, the redemption of mankind became an accomplished fact. Thereafter, every one coming into this world is already redeemed, in the sense that the precious Blood of Jesus has already merited for him all the graces necessary for his salvation and also for his sanctification. What still remains to be done is the application of these graces to each individual soul; and it is for this that God wishes our collaboration. He wants it so much that He has made the granting of certain graces, necessary for our salvation and that of others, dependent upon our prayers. In other words, by the merits of Jesus, grace—God’s infinite mercy—is ready to be poured out abundantly into men’s souls, but it will not be poured out unless there is someone who raises supplicating hands to heaven, asking for it. If prayer-does not ascend to the throne of the Most High, grace will not be granted. This explains the absolute necessity for apostolic prayer and its great efficacy. “This kind [of devil] is not cast out but by prayer and fasting” (Mt 17,20), Jesus has said. There is no substitute for prayer, because prayer draws grace directly from its source, God. Our activity, our words and works can prepare the ground for grace, but if we do not pray, it will not come down to refresh souls. In the light of these truths we can better appreciate the importance of the insistent exhortations of Jesus in respect to prayer: “We ought always to pray and not to faint.... Ask and it shall be given you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you” (Lk 18,1; 11,9). We can never be certain that all our prayers will be answered according to our expectation, for we do not know if what we ask is conformable to God’s will; but when it is a question of apostolic prayer which asks for grace and the salvation of souls, it is a very different matter. In fact, when we pray for the aims of the apostolate, we are fitting into the plan prearranged by God Himself from all eternity, that plan for the salvation of all men which God desires to put into action infinitely more than we do; therefore, we cannot doubt the efficacy of our prayer. Because of this effectiveness, apostolic prayer is one of the most powerful means of furthering the apostolate. 2 If God has willed the distribution of grace in the world to depend upon the prayers of men, and if people today pray so little—many indeed, and perhaps most of them, not at all—it is extremely necessary to have in the Church souls who are totally consecrated to prayer. By their lives of continual prayer, adoration and unceasing praise to the Most High, these souls supply for the negligence and carelessness of many, and thus they re-establish in the world the balance between God’s rights and man’s duty, between action and contemplation. Praying and supplicating for all, they are in Christ’s Mystical Body the hidden but precious organs whose task is to make the sap of divine grace flow to each of its members. In the Church they are “powerhouses” of supernatural energy, energy derived from and accumulated by prayer, and diffused by it to the utmost bounds of the earth. The prayer of contemplatives is the secret and guarantee of victory for those who struggle in the world, even as the prayer of Moses was the secret and guarantee of victory for Israel. “My brothers labor in my stead,” wrote St. Thérése of the Child Jesus, “while I...stay close to the Throne, and love Thee for all those who are in the strife” (St, 13); I love, that is, I pray, suffer and sacrifice for them. The prayer which contemplatives unceasingly send up to God in the name of all Christians does not dispense the rest of the faithful from this great duty. Above all, those who dedicate themselves to the external apostolate should give sufficient place in their lives to prayer. But, unfortunately we often put more trust in our work, our diligence, our technique, than in our prayer; we have not enough faith in its efficacy, in the help which God will surely give those who invoke Him from their heart, and as a result, we consider wasted the time we give to prayer. This basic error springs from a lack of faith and humility; it is an error which explains the sterility of so many works. “Let those, then, who are great actives,” admonishes St. John of the Cross, “that think to girdle the world with their outward works and their preachings, take note here that they would bring far more profit to the Church, and be far more pleasing to God (apart from the good example they would give) if they spent even half of this time with God in prayer” (SC, 29,3). COLLOQUY “O eternal Father, I offer You the Blood shed by Your Son with such deep love and ardent charity for the salvation of men.  “O Jesus, I offer You the innumerable drops of Blood which You shed so freely at Your dreadful scourging, and as You shed it for all Your members, so do I offer it to You for all the members of holy Church, whose Head You are. I offer It to You so that Your “Christs,” your priests, may once again be the light of the world, that Your virgins may not be of the number of the foolish virgins, that infidels and heretics may return to your fold and that all souls may be saved.  “O eternal Word, I want to speak to You as You did to us. In truth, I say to You that I would sacrifice a thousand lives, if I had them, to help save these souls. I do not want to depart from this life until You have enlightened some one of them. But I am not worthy to be heard. Hear not one who is so presumptuous, but answer Your own Blood. You cannot fail Yourself; hear then, O Jesus, the voice of Your Blood.  “O eternal Father, that love which moved You to create men, urges You also to infuse Your light into them. I well know that You do infuse it, but they do not accept it. What is the reason for this? My ingratitude. I know, O my God, my ingratitude, but I have not plumbed its depths. Punish me for their offenses; punish me for their sins. Oh! how wretched I am to be the cause of so much ingratitude and wickedness. “If I could, I would take all men and lead them to the bosom of Your Holy Church, so that she could cleanse them of all their infidelities, regenerate them like a mother, and then nourish them with the sweet milk of the holy Sacraments” ([[mary-magdalen-dei-pazzi-saint|St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi]]). --- ![[bibliography#^biblio-di]] > [[324-various-forms-of-the-apostolate|← 324. Various Forms of the Apostolate]] | [[-divine-intimacy-toc|TOC]] | [[326-apostolic-immolation|326. Apostolic Immolation →]]