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THESE four kinds of supplication the Lord Himself by His own example
vouchsafed to originate for us, so that in this too He might fulfil that
which was said of Him: "which Jesus began both to do and to teach." For
He made use of the class of supplication when He said: "Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me;" or this which is chanted in His
Person in the Psalm: "My God, My God, look upon Me, why hast Thou forsaken
me," and others like it. It is prayer where He says: "I have magnified
Thee upon the earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do,"
and this: "And for their sakes I sanctify Myself that they also may be
sanctified in the truth." It is intercession when He says: "Father,
those Whom Thou hast given me, I will that they also may be with Me that
they may see My glory which Thou hast given Me;" or at any rate when He
says: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." It is
thanksgiving when He says: "I confess to Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy
sight:" or at least when He says: "Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast
heard Me. But I knew that Thou hearest Me always." But though our Lord
made a distinction between these four kinds of prayers as to be offered
separately and one by one according to the scheme which we know of, yet
that they can all be embraced in a perfect prayer at one and the same time
He showed by His own example in that prayer which at the close of S. John's
gospel we read that He offered up with such fulness. From the words of
which (as it is too long to repeat it all) the careful inquirer can
discover by the order of the passage that this is so. And the Apostle also
in his Epistle to the Philippians has expressed the same meaning, by
putting these four kinds of prayers in a slightly different order, and has
shown that they ought sometimes to be offered together in the fervour of a
single prayer, saying as follows: "But in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto
God." And by this he wanted us especially to understand that in prayer
and supplication thanksgiving ought to be mingled with our requests.
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