Vigils Reading – St John Vianney

A reading from

ST JOHN VIANNEY

◊◊◊

My dear brethren, not only is prayer very efficacious, but, even more, it is

of the utmost necessity for overcoming the enemies of our salvation. Look at all

the saints: they were not content with watching and fighting to overcome the

enemies of their salvation and with keeping well away from all that could offer

temptation to them. They passed their whole lives in prayer, not only the day,

but very often the whole night. Yes, my dear children, we will watch over

ourselves and all the motions of our hearts in vain, in vain will we avoid

temptation if we do not pray; if we do not have continual recourse to prayer, all

our other ways will be of no use at all to us and we shall be overcome. We can see

plainly that in the world there are a great many occasions when we cannot run

away; for example, a child cannot run away from the society of his parents

because of their bad example. But he can pray, and his prayer will sustain him.

Even supposing that we could run away from people who give us bad

example, we cannot run away from ourselves, who are our biggest enemy. If our

Lord does not watch over our preservation, all of our efforts will come to

nothing. No, my [brethren], we shall not find any sinner who may be converted

who has not recourse to prayer, not one who will persevere without having very

great recourse to prayer, and we shall never find a Christian damned whose

downfall did not commence with a lack of prayer. We can see too haw much the

Devil fears those who pray, since there is no moment of the day when he tempts

us more than at prayer. He does everything he possibly can to prevent us from

praying. When the Devil wants to make someone lose his soul, he starts out by

inspiring in him a profound distaste for prayer. However good a Christian he

may be, if the Devil succeeds in making him either say his prayers badly or

neglect them altogether, he is certain to have him for himself.

If you wish to understand this even better, consider [the times] when you

have been unable to resist whatever temptations [are] put in your way, and [the

time] when you have left the door of your hearts open to the four winds—is it not

since you began to get careless with your prayers, or have been saying them

from habit, by routine only, or just to get rid of them, and not to please God?

Yes, my dear brethren, from the moment that we neglect them, we move with

big steps towards Hell: we shall never return to God if we do not have recourse

to prayer. Yes, my [brethren], with a prayer well said, we can command Heaven

and earth, and all will obey us.