hose office it is to arrange.
Hence the Philosopher says[100]: "Reason asks for the best things."

Here, then, we speak of prayer as implying a certain asking or petition,
for, as S. Augustine says[101]: "Prayer is a certain kind of petition";
so, too, S. John Damascene says[102]: "Prayer is the asking of fitting
things from God."

Hence it is clear that the prayer of which we are here speaking is an
act of the reason.

Some, however, think that prayer is an act of the appetitive powers,
thus:

1. The whole object of prayer is to be heard, and the Psalmist says that
it is our desires which are heard: _The Lord hath heard the desire of
the poor._[103] Prayer, then, is desire; but desire is an act of the
appetitive powers.

But the Lord is said to hear the desires of the poor either
because their desire is the reason why they ask--since our
petitions are in a certain sense the outward expression of our
desires; or this may be said in order to show the swiftness with
which He hears them--even while things are only existing in the
poor man's desire; God hears them even before they are expressed
in prayer. And this accords with the words of Isaias: _And it
shall come to pass that before they shall call I will hear, as
they are yet speaking I will hear._[104]

2. Again, Denis the Areopagite says: "But before all things it is good
to begin with prayer, as thereby giving ourselves up to and uniting
ourselves with God."[105] But union with God comes through love, and
love belongs to the appetitive powers; therefore prayer, too, would seem
to belong to the appetitive powers.

But the will moves the reason to its end or object. Hence there
is nothing to prevent the reason, under the direction of the
will, from tending to the goal of charity, which is union with
God. Prayer, however, tends towards God--moved, that is, by the
will, which itself is motived by charity--in two ways: in one
way by reason of that which is asked for, since in prayer we
have particularly to ask that we may be united with God,
according to those words: _One thing I have asked of the Lord,
this will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the
Lord all the days of my life._[106] And in another way prayer
tends towards God--by reason, namely, of the petitioner himself;
for such a one must approach him from whom he asks something,
and this either bodily, as