Our Lenten Journey with the Angels and the Saints – 20 February – Tuesday of the First Week in Lent – Ferial Day – Isaias 55:6-11, Matthew 21:10-17 – Scripture search here: https://www.drbo.org/
“Let my prayer come
like incense before You, O Lord”
Psalm 140:2
“He said to them, It is written,
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’”
Matthew 21:13
No Time to Pray!
St Jean-Marie Baptiste Vianney (1786-1859)
“Man has a beautiful office, that of praying and loving.
You pray, you love – that is the happiness of man upon the earth.
Prayer is nothing else than union with God.
I say that prayer is the lifting up of the heart to God.
Or, rather, it should be like a pleasant confidence, such as might exist between a child and his father, or between a friend and a friend. …
What, then, should we think of those lukewarm Christians who say they have no time to pray.
No time to pray!
Poor, deluded beings!
What is of more value – to try to please God and save your soul or to do your daily share of toil.
No time to pray!
Suppose God had let you die during the night, would you do your work today?
Or if God had sent you a protracted sickness, would you then be able to perform your daily labour?
Oh, what blindness! Such people deserve that God should let them perish in their blindness.
We deem it sufficient to devote a few minutes to Him, to thank him for the graces which we receive from Him every moment of our lives.
You say you are too busy but do not forget, my friends that your principal business in life is to please God and save your soul!
If you do not attend to your work yourself, somebody else will take your place and do it but if you lose your soul, who will save it for you?…
But you may ask, “How is it possible to be constantly praying?”
My dear people there is nothing easier than that.
All that is necessary, is to occupy our minds from time to time, while we are working, with God, by making now and then an Act of Charity, to prove to Him that we love Him because He is goodness itself and deserves to be loved; or an Act of Humility, insofar as we deem ourselves unworthy of His graces which He imparts to us unceasingly; or, again, an Act of Confidence, by recalling to our mind that, al though we are laden with sin, He loves us and longs to make us happy.
Or at other times we should think of the Suffering and Passion of Jesus Christ, we should contemplate Him in the Garden of Olives … or some other time of His birth, His flight into Egypt; or again, of death, the Judgement, hell and Heaven.
Or we might say a little prayer in honour of our Guardian Angel and for one thing we should never omit to say – The Angelus, when the bells call …” (Sermons of the Curé d’Ars ).
AnaStpaul 