Hello, I once received the following questions from one of the members of the Catholic Kingdom:

This is a very good question. I hope to explain many points about prayer in the coming months, but I decided to answer this now as a way of starting.

Prayer is necessary for salvation. Many of the Saints have spoken very clearly about this. St. Padre Pio, for example, said: “Those who pray a great deal have a great chance of saving their soul. Those who pray but little have little chance of saving their soul. And those who do not pray have no chance!” The Saints who spoke about prayer all make the same point, and we would be very foolish not to listen to them. They are those few souls who, throughout the history of the Church have arrived at union with God before they died. We will be looking at the Saints to teach us about prayer in the coming months.

We see then how important it is to pray, and to pray well, if we want to go to Heaven when we die. We need to understand exactly what it means to “pray”. There are many deep and even complicated aspects of prayer. But what “prayer” is, can be summed up simply by stating: It is the lifting of our mind and heart to God. There are different kinds of prayers and there are different ways of praying. These will be discussed at a later time. For our purposes today we want to consider what makes our prayer pleasing to God.

The good God has told us very firmly in the Holy Bible that He wants our whole mind, our whole body, our whole heart, and our whole soul given to Him with all our strength. This is the goal of our life. The Catholic Saints are those men, women and even children who have arrived at this wonderful state of union with God. But they were not born this way. They had to struggle with the world, their own flesh and the devil. This means they had to always do what is right even though they were strongly tempted to sin: through bad companions, their own sinful desires, or the fallen angels.

The Saints also struggled under the weight of the crosses God sent them to purify their mind, heart, body and soul. They struggled with being persecuted, lied about, betrayed, misrepresented, misunderstood, rejected and despised. They struggled with giving up. Saint John of the Cross - the Doctor of Mystical Love - explains in his writings that God invites everyone to become a Catholic Saint and many actually begin on the road to holiness. Many of these make little or no progress because, in their pride, they follow only their own will. Others, tragically, have people directing them spiritually who do not truly know the spiritual life and give them bad guidance, causing them much harm. But some fail to make progress in the spiritual life because they understand the price that they must pay and they refuse to pay it - like the wealthy young man in the Holy Gospels.

But the Saints struggled under their burdens until they finally arrived at a peace, and even a joy, of suffering for the love of God whatever He willed them to suffer for their good and the good of others. This is just what Jesus and His most holy Mother Mary did. What then is the difference between the Saints and those who turned away?

Prayer. They simply never stopped praying. Never stopped begging Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary and all of Heaven to help them carry their crosses - to not give up. And it worked. And now these men, women and children are at the summit of Heaven and will live forever in the very palace of the King and Queen of Heaven and earth. Forever. Because they never quit praying. Only God can make us a Saint. And it is primarily through prayer we enable Him to do this.

This was not easy and they all had to struggle to grow step-by-step in holiness, with lots of God’s grace and Heaven’s help. They tried, most of the time, to obey God with all their strength - the strength that they had at the time.

God always wants our best and we should want to give it to Him. But our best today is less than it will be in a month from now (if we try every day to grow closer to God). God knows better than we do what our best is, at any given moment. He always asks for our best, but never tests us beyond what our best is when we are tempted, although it can certainly seem like it is at the time.

What does all this have to do with the question about prayer? Simply this: Yes, when we pray the Saint Gertrude prayers, or any prayers, we really have to “mean it”. To the degree that we do, is the degree that our prayer is pleasing to God. The more pleasing our prayer is to God, the more God will be generous in answering our prayers. But He knows that He cannot expect everyone to pray with the intensity, love and attention of someone who has spent years “denying themselves, carrying their cross, and following Jesus”. He does not ask of us today the level of prayer that the great Saints achieve before they die. But He does expect us to “really mean it”, as much as we can, when we do pray.

In the future, we will be looking at the many different ways to be able to pray more and better. But I will leave you with this for now. We can do no good thing without Jesus Christ - no one can. To pray, and pray well, is a very good thing. Therefore, it is important to say a little prayer at least once a day asking the good God to send us the graces that we need so that we can pray in a manner that will please Him more and better every day.

And since God never gives any graces except through the most holy and loving Heart of His Own Mother, Mary, it only makes sense to ask her to obtain the help you need, and to show you how to use it so that it benefits you the most. Every Catholic Saint had a deep and trustful love and devotion for the Blessed Virgin Mary. We would be foolish not to follow their perfect example.

Until we speak again …

May Our Lord and Our Lady fill you, and all those you love, with every true peace, blessing and grace … now and forever.

Yours in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary,