od to us. Hence S.
Chrysostom says: "Reflect what great happiness is bestowed upon
you, what glory is given you, namely, to converse in your
prayers with God, to join in colloquy with Christ, and to beg
for what you wish or desire."[115]

_Cajetan:_ Notice how foolish are some Christians who, when desirous of
reaching certain ends attainable by nature or art, are most careful to
apply such means, and would rightly regard their hopes as vain unless
they applied them; and yet at the same time they have quite false
notions of the fruits to be derived from prayer: as though prayer were
no cause at all, or at least but a remote one! Whence it comes to pass
that, having false ideas about the causes, they fail to reap any fruit
(_on_ 2. 2. 83. 2).

_S. Augustine:_ But some may say: It is not so much a question whether
we are to pray by words or deeds as whether we are to pray at all if God
already knows what is needful for us. Yet the very giving ourselves to
prayer has the effect of soothing our minds and purifying them; it makes
us more fit to receive the Divine gifts which are spiritually poured out
upon us. For God does not hear us because of a display of prayer on our
part; He is always ready, indeed, to give us His light, not, indeed, His
visible light, but the light of the intellect and the spirit. It is we
who are not always prepared to receive it, and this because we are
preoccupied with other things and swallowed up in the darkness resulting
from desire of the things of earth. When we pray, then, our hearts must
turn to God, Who is ever ready to give if only we will take what He
gives. And in so turning to Him we must purify the eye of our mind by
shutting out all thought for the things of time, that so--with
single-minded gaze--we may be able to bear that simple light that shines
divinely, and neither sets nor changes. And not merely to bear it, but
even to abide in it; and this not simply without strain, but with a
certain unspeakable joy. In this joy the life of the Blessed is truly
and really perfected (_On the Sermon on the Mount_, II. iii. 14).

_S. Augustine:_ He could have bestowed these things on us even without
our prayers; but He wished that by our prayers we should be taught from
Whom these benefits come. For from whom do we receive them if not from
Him from Whom we are bidden to ask them? Assuredly in this matter the
Church does not demand laborious disputations; but note Her daily
pra