soul, as though weighed down and unable to
stand firm as it should, replies to our mind: _I will praise the Lord in
my life!_ Why does it say _in my life_? Why? Because now I am in my
death!

Rouse yourself, then, and say: _Praise the Lord, O my soul!_ And your
soul will reply to you: "I praise Him as much as I can, though it is but
weakly, in small measure, and with little strength." But why so? Because
_while we are in the body we are absent from the Lord_.[219] And why do
you thus praise the Lord so imperfectly and with so little fixity of
attention? Ask Holy Scripture: _The corruptible body weigheth down the
soul, and the earthly_ _habitation presseth down the mind that museth
upon many things._[220] O take away, then, my body which weigheth down
the soul, and then will I praise the Lord! Take away my earthly
habitation which presseth down the mind that museth upon many things, so
that, instead of many things I may be occupied with One Thing alone, and
may praise the Lord! But as long as I am as I am, I cannot, for I am
weighed down! What then? Wilt thou be silent? Wilt thou never perfectly
praise the Lord? _I will praise the Lord in my life!_ (_Enarr in Ps._
cxlv. 1).

"My spirit is in anguish within me; my heart within me is
troubled. I remembered the days of old, I meditated on all Thy
works; I meditated upon the works of Thy hands. I stretched
forth my hands to Thee; my soul is as earth without water unto
Thee. Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit hath fainted
away."[221]

_S. Thomas:_ The fruits of prayer are twofold. For first there is the
merit which thereby accrues to a man; and, secondly, there is the
spiritual consolation and devotion which is begotten of prayer. And he
who does not attend to, or does not understand his prayer, loses that
fruit which is spiritual consolation; but we cannot say that he loses
that fruit which is merit, for then we should have to say that very many
prayers were without merit since a man can hardly say the _Lord's
Prayer_ without some distraction of mind. Hence we must rather say that
when a person is praying and is sometimes distracted from what he is
saying, or--more generally--when a person is occupied with some
meritorious work and does not continuously and at every moment reflect
that he is doing it for God, his work does not cease to be meritorious.
And the reason is that in meritorious acts directed to a right end it is
not requisite that our