Disputation III: On Prayer

RATIO here signifies one thing according to the sense of the Church; another according to forensic usage: for the Church always understands by Prayer that act by which we implore something from God, or obtain it: but Rhetoricians indicate by the word every kind of speech, as D. Jerome notes, epist. 139. to Cyprian, cited by Suarez tom. 2. lib. 1 de oratione cap. 1. where he also cites D. Bonaventure in 4. dist. 15. art. 1. quaest. 4. according to whose mind he divides Prayer thus, that one sense is taken most commonly, another commonly, and another properly; he rejects the first acceptation, lest we consent to the heretics, who divide Prayer into Mental, Vocal, and Vital, as in Vvaldensis tom. 3. cap. 1. and 2.; by vital prayer, however, the same sectaries understand the same thing as the Glossa Ordinaria on that text 1. ad Thessal. 5. pray without ceasing, that is, live always justly; for the just man never ceases to pray, unless he ceases to be just. But although there could be the same agreement of both in that sense, in that by pray there is understood there always to act well; yet there is full and complete dissent from the Heretics, who, with Wycliffe as leader, so despise every other Prayer that they trust only in works alone: and since that act is rightly called prayer, by which something is obtained from God, I do not see why at least in that most common sense acting well may not be called praying. Other divisions of Prayer drawn from the Seraphic Doctor I shall indicate below, but first his various definitions must be assigned.