The Fathers on Prayer

“THOSE prayers quickly ascend to God which the merits of our works urge upon God.”
(St. Cyprian: On the Lord’s Prayer, 33.) 

“OUR Father, Who hast exhorted us to pray, Who also bringest about What Thou hast asked of us; since we live better when we pray to Thee and are better: hear me as I tremble in this darkness and reach out Thy hand to me. Hold Thy light before me and recall me from my strayings, that with Thee as my guide I may return to myself and to Thee.  Amen.”
(St. Augustine: Soliloquies, 2, 6, 9.)

“NOR should we imagine, as some do, that prolonged prayer is the same thing as ‘much-speaking’; many words are one thing; long-continued feelings of devotion quite another.”
(St. Augustine: Letters 130. (To Proba on prayer))

“HE who asks of God in faith things needful for this life is sometimes mercifully heard and sometimes mercifully not heard. For the Physician knows better than the patient what will avail for the sick man.”
(St. Prosper of Aquitaine: Sententiae ex Augustino delibatae, 212.)

“IN a single day I have prayed as many as a hundred times, and in the night almost as often.”
(St. Patrick: Confessio.)

“BUT before all things it is good to begin with prayer, as thereby giving ourselves up to and uniting ourselves with God.”
(Pseudo-Dionysius: On the Divine Names, 6, 1.)

“MEN by petitioning may merit to receive what almighty God arranged before the ages to give them.”
(Pope St. Gregory I: Morals, 35, 21.)

Ambrose: "Abide in the Lord"

“We must needs abide in the Lord and not depart from Him. For, if the Lord be our protector and helper, we are able firmly to endure every contest; but if we neglect and forsake the Lord, we make our adversary stronger.”

~St. Ambrose: In Ps. 43 Enarr. 94.

Cyril of Alexandria: Mary as Mediatrix

I salute you, O Mary, Theotókos: through you the prophets speak out and the shepherds sing God’s praises . . . , the angels dance and the archangels sing tremendous hymns . . . , the Magi prostrate themselves in adoration . . . , the dignity of the twelve apostles . . . , John exulted while still in his mother’s womb, and the lamp adored the everlasting light . . . , grace ineffable came forth . . . , the true light came into the world, our Lord Jesus Christ . . . , light shone on those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death . . . .

Because of you the Gospels proclaim, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Lk 19:38); through you, the churches of those who possess the orthodox faith have been founded in the cities, in the villages, in the isles . . . , the Conqueror of death and Destroyer of hell has come forth. . . . He has come, the Maker of the first creation, and he has repaired the first man’s falsehood, he who governs the heavenly kingdom. . . .

Through you, the beauty of the Resurrection flowered, and its brilliance shone out . . . , the tremendous baptism of holiness in the Jordan has shone out . . . , John and the river Jordan are made holy, and the devil is cast out. . . .

Through you, every faithful soul achieves salvation.

~St. Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444): Homily 11

Augustine: "The authority of the Catholic Church”

“BUT SHOULD you meet with a person not yet believing the Gospel, how would you reply to him were he to say, I do not believe? For my part, I should not believe the Gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.”

~St. Augustine: Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental, Chap. 5.

Vincent of Lérins: The Tradition of the Catholic Church

“I HAVE often then inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: That whether I or any one else should wish to detect the frauds and avoid the snares of heretics as they rise, and to continue sound and complete in the Catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways: first, by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of the Catholic Church.

“But here someone perhaps will ask, Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join it with the authority of the Church’s interpretation? For this reason—because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another. . . . Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation.

“Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense ‘Catholic’ which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all things universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, and consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in nowise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at least of almost all priests and doctors.”

~St. Vincent of Lérins: Commonitory, Chap. 2


“HE IS the true and genuine Catholic who loves the truth of God, who loves the Church, who loves the Body of Christ, who esteems divine religion and the Catholic Faith, above every thing, above the authority, above the regard, above the genius, above the eloquence, above the philosophy, of every man whatsoever; who sets light by all of these, and continuing steadfast and established in the faith, resolves that he will believe that, and that only, which he is sure the Catholic Church has held universally and from ancient time.”

~St. Vincent of Lérins: Commonitory, Chap. 20