Deus, in adjutorium meum intende. Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina.
O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.
As he does every week, our pastor dedicates the back page of our weekly church bulletin to
Reflections from the Fathers of the Church. I was re-reading the one he put in a week ago, a sermon of St. Augustine. We are in a period when intense prayer and faith in God is called for. We need to do what God commands us to do. And we need to pray from the heart. Augustine begins with a quote from the psalms.
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I cried with my whole heart: hear me, O Lord; I will seek Thy justifications (Psalm 118:114)
He continues:
The cry to the Lord of those who pray, if made only by the sound of the body's voice, and not by the heart intent on God; who can doubt that it is made in vain? But if it comes from the heart, though the voice of the body be silent, it may remain unkown to men, but not to God. Therefore, when we pray to God with the voice of our body, if there is occasion for this, or when we pray in silence, we must pray from the heart. The cry of the heart is an intense turning of the mind to God, which made in prayer expresses the great longing of the soul, asking and desiring; so that it does not despair of its fulfillment.
And we cry with our whole heart when the mind is not turned elsewhere. Prayer such as this is rare among the many; but frequent with a few. Whether there is anyone whose whole prayer is of this kind, I know not. He who sings this psalm speaks of such a prayer from his own heart. I cried with my whole heart: hear me, Lord. To what end he cries he goes on to say: I will seek Thy justifications.
For this therefore he cries with his whole heart; longing that this may be granted to him by the Lord Who hears his prayer: that he may come to know what is right and just in God's eyes. Let us therefore pray that we may come to know what we are commanded to do.
How far is he who seeks to know from him who does the will of God! For it does not follow that he who seeks shall find; or that finding, he shall do. But he cannot come to do the will of God unless he comes to know it. But the Lord Jesus has given us great hope by saying: Seek, and you shall find. And Wisdom also says (and Who is Wisdom but He?): The wicked shall seek me, and not find me (Prov. 1:28).
....They therefore are not seeking wisdom, even when they seek it: for they do not seek it for its own sake; if they did, they would live by it. They seek to be puffed up by its words; and the more they are inflated with them, the more they are a stranger to it. But the psalmist is imploring this of the Lord, which the Lord commands him to do; that He may work in him what He commands him to do; for it is God Who works in us, so that we both will and do, according to his good pleasure (Phil.2:13).
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What does God command us to do? We are to live by the Word of God, and "do" our duty in our state of life as Christians. Otherwise, our seeking is in vain; and we shall not find God in the end. Pray from the heart, with voice or in silence. But pray. Without prayer we will not be saved.
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