HOW TO PRAY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 847, 16 December 1929, Page 14

HOW TO PRAY

TRY TEN SECONDS FIRST ADDRESS BY FATHER BOWEN The officiating priest at yesterday morning's service at the Northcote and Birkenhead Roman Catholic Church was Father Bowen. After -Mass was celebrated, the prayers of the congregation were asked for the repose of the soul of the late Bishop Cleary. Father Bowen said:—“God gave him to us. and now he has gathered him to Himself. God's holy will be done." The preacher then went on to urge steadfastness to morning and evening prayers. He could promise, in God’s name, that if his hearers were as firm as steel to those prayers, they would not deviate far from the path of righteousness. Such, prayers were likened to an anchor that would keep the hump ship in its place. It might lie tossed about, damaged, battered, but when the storm subsided still remain firmly upright. So with the human soul that was faithful to its prayers. The world, the iiesh, and tlie devil might attack, but could not conquer such a soul. By prayer was meant the raising of the mind and heart to God, to praise and adore Him. and to express sorrow and ask forgiveness for past sins, and to ask liis help for the future. The mere recital of words was useless, if the mind was wandering, and was not raised to contemplate God. The preached suggested that each should, for ten seconds night and morning, raise his mind for contemplation, and by so doing he was satisfied that much good would result. Earthly pleasures did not satisfy. Men became nauseated by continually having them, and pined for somedifTerent kind of worldly pleasure, and so on from one to another, without ever enjoying one for long. Spiritual pleasures, on the other hand, whetted the appetite for more of similar delights. It would be found that the ten seconds of prayer would increase v ithout effort to one minute, and even to ten minutes. Father Bowen’s Christmas wush to bis hearers, if he should never see them again, was that they should be firm as steel to their morning and evening prayers, and thus ensure for themselves their soul’s salvation in the world that was to come.