She was ever holding colloquies with her God within her, pondering things over in her heart, that is, talking them over with Him from Whom she had no secrets and between Whom and her soul she put no obstacles. Her life was spent with Him; whatever her duties might be, everything was done with Him, that is prayer. If duties or conservation demanded all her attention for a while, did it matter? No, for He was there all the same. He, in her, carried on the blessed converse with His Father; there was never any separation between Mary and the Blessed Fruit of her womb, JESUS. She would come back to Him with all the more joy, and tell Him what she had been doing and saying. Oh, blessed life of union between JESUS and Mary! Teach me, my Mother, what prayer is. Thou didst understand it so well. It was prayer that made thy life interior for thou wast ever communing with Him Who was _within_ thee. "O Mother of the Word, despise not my words." POINT III. "LEARN OF ME." When we think of JESUS praying for nine months to His Father, when we think of Mary's nine months' colloquy with JESUS, we begin to think that there is something wrong about our methods of prayer, that they need re-modelling. Let us try to understand something of what His prayer was. We think of Him, and quite rightly, as talking over with His Father all His plans for man's salvation, praying for each individual thing that would be connected with it through all time. We love to think that He prayed particularly for each one of us. But all this was not the _essence_ of His prayer, if it were, we might well be discouraged and feel that we could never copy such a model; our distractions and fatigues, our ignorance and want of memory, to say nothing of our times of dryness and distaste for prayer would make such prayers, except perhaps now and again in times of consolation, impossible for us. Am I to turn away sadly then from Mary this time, saying: It is too hard for me, I cannot copy thy Son here? No, rather let me ask what was the essence of His prayer? What was it which lay behind all? It was the _intention_. And what was that? We have meditated upon it many times: "_Behold I come to do Thy Will, O my God._" The essence of His prayer was: Thy Will be done and I am here to do it. Naturally there are many different ways of doing that Will, and many degrees in the perfection with which it is done; and that is why we are quite safe in picturing to ourselves JESUS in the womb of His Mother forgetting no single detail; or perhaps a truer picture would be a union with His Father so perfect that everything lay open before them both, and that there was no need to talk about what was so evident. Now let me apply all this to myself and I shall find that instead of being discouraging it is most encouraging, instead of making my prayers harder it will make them far easier. What is my intention in my prayers? Is it not to please God and to do His