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Roman Catechism
Necessity Of This Petition
It cannot be necessary to remind the faithful of the numerous evils and calamities to which we are exposed, and how much we stand in need of the divine assistance. The many and serious miseries of human life have been fully described by sacred and profane writers, and there is hardly any one who has not observed them either in his own life or in that of others.
We are all convinced of the truth of these words of Job, that model of patience: Man, born of woman, and living for a short time, is filled with many miseries. He cometh forth like a flower, and is destroyed, and fleeth as a shadow, and never continueth in the same state. That no day passes without its own trouble or annoyance is proved by these words of Christ the Lord: Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Indeed, the condition of human life is pointed out by the Lord Himself, when He admonishes us that we are to take up our cross daily and follow Him.
Since, therefore, everyone must realise the trials and dangers inseparable from this life, it will not be difficult to convince the faithful that they ought to implore of God deliverance from evil, since no inducement to prayer exercises a more powerful influence over men than a desire and hope of deliverance from those evils which oppress or threaten them. There is in the heart of everyone a natural inclination to have instant recourse to God in the face of danger, as it is written: Fill their faces with shame, and they shall seek thy name, Lord. How this Petition should be Made
If, then, in calamities and dangers the unbidden impulse of nature prompts men to call on God, it surely becomes the duty of those to whose fidelity and prudence their salvation is entrusted to instruct them carefully in the proper performance of this duty.
WE SHOULD SEEK FIRST THE GLORY OF GOD
For there are some who, contrary to the command of Christ, reverse the order of this prayer. He who commands us to have recourse to Him in the day of tribulation, has also prescribed to us the order in which we should pray. It is His will that, before we pray to be delivered from evil, we ask that the name of God be sanctified, that His kingdom come, and so on through the other Petitions, which are, as it were, so many steps by which we reach this last Petition.
Yet there are those who, if their head, their side, or their foot, ache; if they suffer loss of property; if menaces or dangers from an enemy alarm them; if famine, war or pestilence afflict them, omit all the other Petitions of the Lord’s Prayer and ask only to be delivered from these evils. This practice is at variance with the command of Christ the Lord: Seek first the kingdom of God.
To pray, therefore, as we ought, we should have in view the greater glory of God, even when we ask deliverance from calamities, trials and dangers. Thus, when David offered this prayer: Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, he subjoined a reason by which he showed that he was most desirous of God’s glory, saying: For there is no one in death that is mindful of thee, and who shall confess to thee in hell. And again, having implored God to have mercy on him, he added: I will teach the unjust thy ways; and the wicked shall be converted to thee.