Reflect upon this touching example of an humble soul, and, when you go to pray, think of the necessity of humility, and of patience and resignation to God's will in all things. Pray! Not in proud self-conceit, for God will despise you, and resist your supplications, and withhold His grace. Without grace you will find yourself falling so repeatedly and grievously into sin that you will lose faith in prayer. When it comes to that, you are on the road to hell. Pray! Not in fear. That is a bad sign. It looks as though you did not love God; and, it such be the case, you cannot expect Him to hearken to you, or grant you any favors. Pray! but not in selfishness. Let God and His holy will be all in all to you. Take what He sends. Learn to trust Him in humility and patience. The Lord does not always tell us the reasons why. {268} Whether He commands us as a Master, chastises us as a Father, or teaches us to imitate Him in some hard lesson of humiliation--as when He Himself washed the Apostles feet--He very often has but the same answer to us that He gave to the astonished Peter: "What I do thou knowest not now; but them shalt know hereafter." Pray in humility, O ye doubting, distrustful souls! God's truth is near enough and plain enough. It is you who are too high-minded to see it, too proud to pray that you may know it. Ask not with Pilate, "What is truth? what is truth?" in the presence of the Infinite Truth, and then, like him, turn away and never hear it. Cease not to pray, though the morn is long in dawning, and the day of redemption be delayed; but cease not to pray humbly, for, says the wise man, "the prayer of him that humbleth himself shall pierce the clouds, and he shall not depart until the Most High behold." [Footnote 102] [Footnote 102: Ecclus. xxxv. 21.] [USCCB: Sirach xxxv. 17.] --------------------- {269} Sermon XVIII. Preparation For A Good Death. (For The Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost.) Isaiah xxxviii. 1. "__Put thy house in order, for thou shall die, and not live__."