Easter Weekday

EVERYTHING IS OBTAINABLE
FOR SOMEONE WHO PRAYS
From “The Commendation of Faith” by Baldwin of Forde6
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The Lord says to his disciples: ‘Truly, truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of
the Father in my name he will give it to you.’ And in the gospel of Mark:
‘Whatever you ask when you pray, believe that you will receive them and they
will come to you.’ In the gospel of Matthew: ‘If two of you on earth agree about
anything, whatever you ask will be given you by my Father who is in heaven.’

From these passages, note that everything is obtainable for someone who
prays, just as it is said that everything is possible for someone who believes.
Faith and prayer are recognized to have similar power, and one helps the other
in turn… The Lord shows the disciples the power of faith and at once adds the
power of prayer, thereby showing that it is conjoined to [faith] by a kind of
similarity: ‘Have faith in God. Truly I tell you: whoever says to this mountain,
“Get up and throw yourself into the sea”, and does not doubt in his heart, but
believes that what he said will be done, will be done for him’… Consider from
these words how powerful faith is in everything that is said without any doubt
that it will be done, and, equally, how powerful prayer is in everything that is
asked for in the faith that it will come to pass…

But what if someone says: ‘Who can say to this mountain without any
doubt: “Get up, and throw yourself into the sea”? Does it not seem just as
impossible not to doubt this as actually to do it? But if these two things – doing it
and not doubting it – are not possible for us, but only for divine power, then it
can seem unworthy of God to make such a promise. How can he promise that a
mountain will be moved by a simple utterance, provided we have said it without
any doubt, when that very doubt, so far as it is in our power, is as immovably
fixed in our heart as this mountain is in its place?’…

For although the Lord promises us his help in all things, and although he
says that not a hair of our head shall perish and thereby says that he will make us
secure, who is there who is firm in faith at all times and secure in all places? Who
can always stand by himself? Who does not sometimes waver? Who never
doubts? Thus it follows that we, who have only a little faith, need to have our
faith increased and are always bound to offer to God our confession of faith and
to beg him unceasingly to help our unbelief, saying: ‘Lord, I believe: help my
unbelief.’… He helps our weakness when he gives us the capacity to be capable of
little. He helps our unbelief when he makes us believe that we believe little…
This is a wonderful dispensation of God by which he allows those he has chosen
to fall for a time so that they may rise up all the stronger, so that they may be
more cautious, so that they trust less in themselves, so that they recognize their
weakness more perfectly, so that they cling to God more firmly, so that they hold
his grace, without which they can do nothing….

6 Baldwin of Forde. The Commendation of Faith. CF 59. Trans. Jane Patricia Freeland
and David N. Bell. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2000. 145-147,151-152, 155