The Necessity of Prayer (Prologue 6)
PROLOGUE OF OUR MOST HOLY FATHER SAINT BENEDICT TO HIS RULE
6 Jan. 7 May. 6 Sept.
Since then, brethren, we have asked of the Lord who is to inhabit His temple, we have heard His commands to those who are to dwell there and if we fulfil those duties, we shall be heirs of the kingdom of heaven. Our hearts, therefore, and our bodies must be made ready to fight under the holy obedience of His commands; and let us ask God to supply by the help of His grace what by nature is not possible to us. And if we would arrive at eternal life, escaping the pains of hell, then – while there is yet time, while we are still in the flesh, and are able to fulfil all these things by the light which is given us, we must hasten to do now what will profit us for all eternity.
6 January 2026
Prologue vv. 39-44
After yesterday’s insistence on the urgency of conversion, Saint Benedict returns today to a theme mentioned earlier in the first half of the Prologue: the indispensable place of prayer in the Christian life if we are to avoid the pains of hell. Near the beginning of the Prologue he told us to ask God with most earnest prayer to perfect whatever good work we begin, so that we may not grieve Him by our evil deeds and be either disinherited as ungrateful sons or consigned to punishment as wicked servants. Now, near the end, he tells us to ask that God may bid His grace to supply the obedience which is not possible for our nature, in order that we may avoid the pains of Gehenna.
The necessity of prayer thus forms a sort of inclusio linking the beginning and end of the Prologue, with all of its insistence on good deeds. Prayer is, as Saint Alphonsus Maria Liguori terms it, ‘the great means of salvation and perfection.’ The saints tell us that he who prays is saved; he who does not pray is lost: or, as a popular song put it when I was very young, ‘We need to pray just to make it today!’
Today there is sometimes a tendency among educated Christians to look down on prayer of petition, as if it is somehow mercenary,immature, or not worthy of a Christian. Our Lord seems to have thought differently, when He clearly instructed His disciples to ask the Father for what they need; Saint Paul similarly tells the Philippians to let their petitions be known to God. God can give His grace in any way He chooses, but He has made it quite clear that in the actual order of Providence that governs creation, He desires to give grace as an answer to prayer. And so, Christians, especially monks, should be people who pray always, for we are always in need of grace. Some early monastic writers envisioned the Divine Office during the day largely in these terms: each of the day hours has as its aim to give thanks for having made it through the last few hours without grave sin, and to ask for continued grace to make it through the next few hours.
Prayer, then, while it aims primarily at the glory of God, can and should be an opportunity to implore constantly the help of God so that we may overcome our own bad habits and prepare our hearts and bodies to fight in obedience. So often we may say to ourselves that something we are asked to do is impossible. But is this really the case, or are we simply stopping at our own estimation of our strength, and not remembering that God stands ready to bid His grace supply what is beyond us? Today, as we join the Magi in finding the Child Jesus with His Mother Mary, let us ask her to help us live by the truth that the Angel told her: that no word shall be impossible with God.