3d. A cry to the infinite for the satisfaction of this aspiration.
4th. A firm and unshaken reliance of being satisfied in this aspiration, founded both on the intrinsic goodness and on the personal promises of the infinite.
These four elements on the part of the finite are absolutely necessary to constitute a prayer in its deprecatory sense; and they are either implicitly or explicitly to be found in every prayer. The spirit who bows before the infinite must acknowledge theoretically and practically that God is the Master and Lord of all things, the infinite eternal source of all being and all perfection; he must acknowledge and be conscious freely and deliberately that his being comes from God, and that that same divine action which created and elevated it must maintain it in existence, aid it in the development of its faculties, and bring it to its final completion. He must freely and deliberately yearn after all this, and have firm reliance that the infinite will maintain his being, aid it in its growth, and bring it to its full bloom in the palingenesia.
On the part of the infinite, prayer in this same deprecatory sense implies an action of God existing and aiding the finite in producing the aforesaid four acts necessary to constitute a prayer.
If we regard prayer in its life-giving moment, it implies two elements: one on the part of the infinite, the other on the part of the finite. On the part of the infinite, it implies a real actual and personal communication, a giving of himself by a personal intercourse to the finite; and, on the part of the latter, a personal apprehension of the infinite, and an assimilation of and transformation into the infinite. We cannot refrain here from quoting a beautiful page of a French writer in explanation of this last element: "When man's will, lifted by an ardent desire, succeeds in putting itself in contact with the supreme will, the miracle of the divine intervention is accomplished. Prayer, which renders God present to us,[141] is a kind of communion by which man feeds on grace, and assimilates to himself that celestial aliment of the soul. In that ineffable communication, the divine will penetrates our will, its action is mingled with our action to produce but one and the same indivisible work, which belongs whole and entire to both; wonderful union of grandeur and of lowliness, of a power eternally fecund, and of a created activity which is exhausted by its very duration, of an incorruptible and regenerating element with the infirm and corruptible elements of our being; union, which believed in invariably, though conceived in different manner by the savage tribes as well as by the most civilized nations, has been under different forms, and in spite of the errors which have obscured it, the immortal belief of humanity."[142]
Now, we maintain that prayer, understood in all its comprehension, besides the effect which it produces in its own natural sphere, is also the hierarchical superior of the action of the whole substantial creation; and that, consequently, the latter must yield to the former, whenever they should happen to come in conflict with each other; and thus, under this respect, it may be said that prayer governs the world.
This may be proven by two sorts of argument; one as it were exterior, the other intrinsic to the subject.
The first is drawn from the properties of the supernatural moment. For, if this moment is superior to substantial creation, if it is the end and type of it, every one can see that the mode of acting of elevated spirits—spirits in whom the supernatural moment is realized and concreted—must necessarily precede and be superior to the mode of action of substantial creation, and that the latter must necessarily be subject to the former—unless we abolish and deny the universal law of hierarchy presiding and ruling over all the moments of the exterior action of God, and founded on the intrinsic and respective value of beings. Actio sequitur esse is the old axiom of ontology. If the being of the supernatural moment is superior to the being of substantial creation, the mode of action of the first must also, in force of that axiom, be superior to the mode of action of the latter. When, therefore, a natural law, a law of substantial creation, comes in opposition with a true prayer, a prayer made with all the conditions which its nature requires, the natural law must yield and give way to prayer.
The second argument is drawn from the essence of prayer as a life-giving agent. What is prayer in this sense? It is an actual communication of the finite with the infinite, an actual participation of the infinite and his attributes; it is a possession which the finite takes of the infinite, the appropriation, the assimilation of the infinite. It is the finite transported and transformed into the infinite. For in it the mind of the finite takes hold of the mind of the infinite, and is, as it were, transformed into it; the will and energy of the finite grasps the will and the almighty power of the infinite, and is changed, as it were, into it; the person of the finite is united to the person of the infinite, and is assimilated to him. Now, it is evident that prayer understood in this sense is no longer an act of the finite alone, but an act of both the finite and the infinite; it is the result of the energy of both. Its efficacy and energy therefore must be as superior to the energy of all substantial creation as the infinite is superior to the finite. Consequently, it is evident that when a natural law pregnant with finite energy comes in conflict with a prayer impregnated, so to speak, with infinite energy, the former must yield to the superior force of the latter.
Prayer governs the world also in a sense more general than the one we have hitherto indicated for it. The sum of all the actions of substantial creation has been so disposed, and is so ruled and governed, as to be always subject to the sum of all the actions of the supernatural moment, and this for the same reasons developed above.