when he draws nigh to a man, or
mentally, as when he draws nigh to God.

Hence the same Denis says: "When we invoke God in prayer we are
before Him with our minds laid bare." In the same sense S. John
Damascene says: "Prayer is the ascent of the mind towards God."

_Cajetan:_ Prayer demands of the petitioner a twofold union with God:
the one is general--the union, that is, of friendship--and is produced
by charity, so that further on[107] we shall find the friendship arising
from charity enumerated among the conditions for infallibly efficacious
prayer. The second kind of union may be termed substantial union; it is
the effect of prayer itself. It is that union of application by which
the mind offers itself and all it has to God in service--viz., by devout
affections, by meditations, and by external acts. By such union as this
a man who prays is inseparable from God in his worship and service, just
as when one man serves another he is inseparable from him in his service
(_on_ 2. 2. 83. 1).

"And now, O Lord, Thou art our Father, and we are clay: and Thou
art our Maker, and we are all the works of Thy hands. Be not
very angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our iniquity: behold,
see we are all Thy people."[108]

II

Is It Fitting To Pray?

In S. Luke's Gospel we read: _We ought always to pray and not to
faint._[109]

A threefold error regarding prayer existed amongst the ancients; for
some maintained that human affairs were not directed by Divine
Providence; whence it followed that it was altogether vain to pray or to
worship God; of such we read: _You have said, he laboureth in vain that
serveth God_.[110] A second opinion was that all things, even human
affairs, happened of necessity--whether from the immutability of Divine
Providence, or from a necessity imposed by the stars, or from the
connection of causes; and this opinion, of course, excluded all utility
from prayer. A third opinion was that human affairs were indeed directed
by Divine Providence, and that human affairs did not happen of
necessity, but that Divine Providence was changeable, and that
consequently its dispositions were changed by our prayers and by other
acts of religious worship. These views, however, have elsewhere been
shown to be wrong.

Consequently we have so to set forth the utility of prayer as neither to
make things happen of necessity because subject to Divine Providence,
nor to suggest that t