OR, THE CHRISTIAN PRAYING IN THE SPIRIT OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BY THE REVEREND PRINCE ALEXANDER OF HOHENLOHE, CATHOLIC PRIEST, KNIGHT OF The order oF SAINT JOHN, Translated from the German. FOURTH EDITION, Revised and Corrected, with considerable Additions. DUBLIN: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY RICHARD GRACE, 3, MARY-STREET, THE Prayer-book, drawn up under the title of The Christian Praying in the Spirit of the Catholic Church, contains nothing contrary to Catholic Faith and Morality, but is calculated to excite pious affections and religious sentiments, receives hereby the approbation of the Episcopal General Vicariat. General Vicariat of the See of Bamberg. BARON VON GROSS, President. F. A. FREY, Secretary. Bamberg, 12th November, 1818. THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. I HAVE ventured to compose a Prayer-book -may our good God in his love give a blessing to my feeble undertaking!-May we gladly and often pray, and with heartfelt joy lift up our eyes and hands, our heart and understanding to God! How gladly should we converse with God, and fall prostrate in the dust before his infinite holiness! Sometimes in our prayers, joyfully embrace very affectionately his fatherly grace and mercy, and sometimes implore his almighty goodness for a blessing on ourselves and others. Pour out our hearts before God, as children before their father, and invite all heaven and earth to praise his magnificence! Penetrated also with a deep sense of his justice, tremble with filial fear, and be convinced in our hearts, that He is the most high and holy Being, before whom the Angels and the Cherubims are as nothing! How ought we to re flect, when we appear before him, that God is a father of mercy, a helper in time of need, a giver of all good gifts, a rewarder of the good, and a punisher of the wicked! But that many of us are not penetrated with these sentiments, every one's experience too unhappily teaches. How often are our prayers cold and forced, spiritless, full of distractions, and mere service of the lips; because-in many of us the Faith in HIM, in whom, before whom, and to whom we pray, is feeble and impotent. O may the pious soul who makes use of this book, be excited to prayer by a true, holy, life-giving Faith; then will the praise of our Lord be proclaimed in a worthy manner, and we shall pray in the Spirit of the Catholic Church; and though we are still pilgrims on this perishable earth, we shall unite with the holy and perfect company in heaven, in one common praise to God and the Lamb. We will follow him with all eager◄ ness, and having once learned the true art of praying well, we shall have learned too, according to the saying of St. Augustin, the true art of living well-and he who knows how to live well, will be full of consolation in death. All Saint's day, 1818. HOHENLOHE. |