This was sent to me by Sister Cecelia, TOSF:

The following  is at the end of the dedication of the prayer book, “With God,” by Father Lasance, Benziger Brother, 1911.  (This prayer book belonged to my Aunt Cecelia, described as “a book for Frequent Communicants and for Fervent Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament”). Father Lasance is the author of many wonderful, wonderful prayer books.

 

 

“Believe me, my dear friends, believe an experience ripened by thirty years in the sacred ministry.  I do here affirm that all deceptions, all spiritual deficiencies, all miseries, all falls, all faults, and even the most serious wanderings out of the right path, all proceed from this single source – a want of constancy in prayer!   Live the life of prayer; learn to bring everything, to change everything into prayer – pains and trials and temptations of all kinds.

 

        Pray in the calm, pray in the storm.

        Pray on awakening, pray during the daytime,

        Going and coming, pray

        Tired out and distracted, pray,

        Whatsoever your repugnance may be, pray,

        Pray, that you may learn to pray,

        Teach us, O Lord, to pray,

        But I cannot pray. That is heresy.  Yes, you can always pray.

        If you feel a disgust, even a horror, of prayer, pray on,

        Pray in spite of yourself, against yourself.

        Beg for the courage in prayer which our agonizing Saviour

        Merited for you by His pangs in Gethsemane and upon Calvary.

        Pray, for prayer is our salvation.”

 

 

He completes his dedication in these words: 

 

“Most reverently we dedicate this little work to Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament, with the prayer that our august Queen and tender Mother may inflame the hearts of our readers with a greater love of Jesus in the Sacrament of His Love, and that in prayer, especially before the Tabernacle, they may enjoy even on earth the presence of God, and through prayer, may by His grace be received into the heavenly kingdom where the Saints dwell in the fullness of joy eternally “with God.” 

 

Francis X. Lasance

 

Cincinnati Ohio

Feast of Corpus Christi, 1910