The Sacrament of Prayer

Extract

Catholic teaching on prayer and methods of prayer seems sometimes to neglect the sacramental system of the Church. Great emphasis is necessarily laid on the personal activities of the Catholic who sets out to lead a life based on communion with God; still greater emphasis is rightly laid on the part played by God directly on the soul in this communion, as the soul grows passive under the divine influence; but little is said of the divine activity through the sacraments in relation to this life of prayer, which after all is the final purpose of every influx of grace. These divinely given means of receiving grace work ex opere operato and do not depend merely on the subjective use made of them by the recipient. Therefore as means of prayer they should contribute to a new power, independent in some manner of the personal spiritual exercises of the individual. If a man desires to pray he adopts a method in addition to the ordinary daily exercises of morning and night prayers.