Vigils Reading

The Lord, by His promise, gave those whose hopes were resting on Himself a special ground of confidence, when He said, For I go to the Father; and whatsoever you shall ask in my name, I will do it. His proceeding, therefore, to the Father, was not with any view of abandoning the needy, but of hearing and answering their petitions. But

what is to be made of the words, Whatsoever you shall ask, when we behold His faithful ones so often asking and not receiving? Is it, shall we say, for no other reason but that they ask amiss? For the Apostle James made this a ground of reproach when he said, You ask and receive not, because <you> ask amiss… What one, therefore, wishes to receive, in order to turn to an improper use, God in His mercy rather refuses to bestow…

Do we not see how the Israelites got to their own hurt what their guilty lusting craved? For while it was raining manna on them from heaven, they desired to have flesh to eat. They disdained what they had, and shamelessly sought what they had not… For when evil becomes our delight, and what is good the reverse, we ought to be entreating God rather to win us back to the love of the good, than to grant us the evil… But to let us know that the wrong lies not with any creature of God, but with obstinate disobedience and inordinate desire, it was not in swine’s flesh that the first man found death, but in an apple; and it was not for a fowl, but for a dish of pottage, that Esau lost his birthright.

Accordingly, when we wish Him to do whatsoever we ask, let it not be in any way, but in His name… of the Saviour, that we present our petition… For He who condescends to be the Saviour of the faithful, is also a Judge to condemn the ungodly. Whatsoever, therefore, any one that believes in Him shall ask in that name which He bears to those

who believe in Him, He will do it; for He will do it as the Saviour… On that account, not only as the Saviour, but also as the good Master, He taught us, in the very prayer He gave us, what we should ask, in order that, whatsoever we shall ask, He may do it; and that we, too, might thereby understand that we cannot be asking in the Master’s name anything that is inconsistent with the rule of His own instructions.

In no respect, therefore, does the Son act without the Father, since He so acts for

the very purpose that in Him the Father may be glorified. The Father, therefore, acts in the Son, that the Son may be glorified in the Father: and the Son acts in the Father, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; for the Father and the Son are one.