Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost."[10] So it is the Holy Ghost
Who is to be our guide and protector. Do we pray to the Holy Ghost?
We pray often to the Father; frequently, perhaps, to God the Son, but
how much is prayer to God the Holy Ghost neglected amongst Christians!
And yet He alone is the agent of the Godhead in the Church. His is the
work of sanctification, as the Father's is the work of creation, and
the Son's that of redemption. No grace comes to us save through the
Spirit. Everything that comes into our lives from God, whether by
means of prayer or sacrament, faith or good works, comes through the
personal action of the Holy Ghost.

Therefore in preparing for temptation let us look to Him and pray to
Him in all things; and thus "strengthened by His Spirit in the inner
man,"[11] we can go forth to the day's conflict, knowing that the
assaults of Satan and the occasions of sin can only bring us new
opportunities of victory that will merit us the crown of life which is
promised to them that overcome.

In the midst of this prayer in preparation for {87} temptation we must
expect to find ourselves the objects of Satan's peculiar malice. All
prayer is a challenge to him, but none so much as the prayer by which
we are gaining new force and resource to employ against him.[12]

In this, as in all else, we see how carefully Satan conducts his
warfare. If it were possible to do so, what leader would fail to
attack his enemy when he was in the very act of laying in new supplies
of food and ammunition upon which to subsist, and with which to fight?

Lastly, in the very moment of temptation our prayers must be strong and
unceasing. The more the temptation increases, the more fervently--yea,
desperately--must we pray, crying out as a drowning man might call to
the only one from whom he could expect help.

But, says one, there's the rub. How can I pray when a thousand
distractions are thrust in so powerfully from every side? We are to
find the answer to such questions in our Lord's {88} hour of deepest
temptation in Gethsemane where we are told that "being in an agony, he
prayed more earnestly"[13]--literally, more intensely.

Let the intensity of our prayer keep pace with the intensity of
assault. We can more than defeat Satan if at such times we compel
ourselves to pray with greater care and exactness, framing with
extraordinary care the very words we are speaking to God, and if our
perturbation be