Cain and Abel and Prayer

Ex Tractátu sancti Ambrósii epíscopi De Cain et Abel (Lib. 1, 9, 34. 38-39: CSEL 32, 369. 371-372)

Orandum præcipue pro toto corpore Ecclesiæ

Immola Deo sacrifícium laudis et redde Altíssimo vota tua. Laudáre Deum commendáre est votum et sólvere. Unde et Samaritánus ille áliis antefértur, qui, cum leprósis áliis novem secúndum præcéptum Dómini mundátus a lepra, solus regréssus ad Christum amplificábat Deum et agébat grátias. De quo Iesus ait: Non fuit ex illis qui redíret et grátias ágeret Deo, nisi hic alienígena. Et ait illi: Surge et vade; quia fides tua te salvum fecit.

  Divíne autem Dóminus Iesus et bonitátem te dócuit Patris, qui bona nóverit dare, ut quæ bona sunt a bono poscas; et impénse et frequénter mónuit orándum, non ut fastidiósa continuétur orátio, sed assídua frequénter. Offundúntur plerúmque enim inánia longæ precatióni, intermíssæ autem prorsus obrépit incúria.

  Deínde monet ut cum ipse véniam tibi poscis, tum máxime áliis largiéndam nóveris, quo precem tuam óperis tui voce comméndes. Apóstolus quoque docet orándum sine ira et disceptatióne, ut non turbétur, non interpolétur orátio tua. Docet étiam orándum in omni loco, cum Salvátor dicat: Intra in cubículum tuum.

  Sed intéllege non cubículum conclúsum pariétibus, quo tua membra claudántur, sed cubículum quod in te est, in quo includúntur cogitatiónes tuæ, in quo versántur sensus tui. Hoc oratiónis tuæ cubículum ubíque tecum est, et ubíque secrétum est, cuius árbiter nullus est nisi solus Deus.

  Orándum autem præcípue et pro pópulo docéris, hoc est, pro toto córpore, pro membris ómnibus matris tuæ, in quo mútuæ caritátis insígne est. Si enim pro te roges, tantúmmodo pro te rogábis. Et si pro se tantum sínguli orent, minor peccatóris quam intercedéntis est grátia. Nunc autem quia sínguli orant pro ómnibus, étiam omnes orant pro síngulis.

  Ergo ut concludámus, si pro te roges tantum, solus, ut díximus, pro te rogábis. Si autem pro ómnibus roges, omnes pro te rogábunt. Síquidem et tu in ómnibus es. Ita magna remunerátio est, ut oratiónibus singulórum acquirántur síngulis totíus plebis suffrágia. In quo arrogántia nulla, sed humílitas maior est et fructus ubérior.

St Ambrose on Cain and Abel

Above all, we should pray for the whole body of the Church

Offer to God a sacrifice of praise and pay your vows to the Most High. To praise God is both to make your vow and to fulfil it. That is why the Samaritan in the story is placed above his companions: with nine other lepers he was cured of his leprosy by the command of the Lord, but he alone came back to Christ, praised the greatness of God and gave thanks. Jesus said of him: There was none of these who returned and thanked God, except this foreigner. And he said to him: Rise up and go on your way, for your faith has made you whole.

  

The Lord Jesus also taught you about the goodness of the Father, who knows how to give good things: and so you should ask for good things from the One who is good. Jesus told us to pray urgently and often, so that our prayers should not be long and tedious but short, earnest and frequent. Long elaborate prayers overflow with pointless phrases, and long gaps between prayers eventually stretch out into complete neglect.

  

Next he advises that when you ask forgiveness for yourself then you must take special care to grant it also to others. In that way your action can add its voice to yours as you pray. The apostle also teaches that when you pray you must be free from anger and from disagreement with anyone, so that your prayer is not disturbed or broken into.

  

The apostle teaches us to pray anywhere, while the Savior says Go into your room – but you must understand that this “room” is not the room with four walls that confines your body when you are in it, but the secret space within you in which your thoughts are enclosed and where your sensations arrive. That is your prayer-room, always with you wherever you are, always secret wherever you are, with your only witness being God.

  Above all, you must pray for the whole people: that is, for the whole body, for every part of your mother the Church, whose distinguishing feature is mutual love. If you ask for something for yourself then you will be praying for yourself only – and you must remember that more grace comes to one who prays for others than to any ordinary sinner. If each person prays for all people, then all people are effectively praying for each.

  

In conclusion, if you ask for something for yourself alone, you will be the only one asking for it; but if you ask for benefits for all, all in their turn will be asking for them for you. For you are in fact one of the “all.” Thus it is a great reward, as each person’s prayers acquire the weight of the prayers of everyone. There is nothing presumptuous about thinking like this: on the contrary, it is a sign of greater humility and more abundant fruitfulness.

One might wonder exactly how Ambrose' s teaching on prayer is related to Cain and Abel. The answer is given earlier in chpt. I:

‘In addition she bore his brother Abel’ (Gen. 4:2).

[…] When…Abel is born in addition, Cain is eliminated.

This can be understood better if we examine the signification of their names.

Cain means ‘getting’ because he got everything for himself, Abel, on the other hand, did not, like his brother before him, refer everything to himself.

Devotedly and piously, he attributed everything to God, ascribing to his Creator everything that he had received from Him.

There are two schools of thought, therefore, totally in opposition one to the other, implied in the story of the two brothers.

One of these schools attributes to the mind itself the original creative source of all our thoughts, sensations, and emotions. In a word, it ascribes all our productions to man’s own mind.

The other school is that which recognizes God to be the Artificer and Creator of all things and submits everything to His guidance and direction.

Cain is a pattern for the first school and Abel of the second.

One living being gave birth to these two schools of thought. Hence, they are related as brothers because they come from one and the same womb.

At the same time, they are opposites and should be divided and separated, once they have been animated with the life of the spirit.

Those who are by nature contraries cannot abide for long in one and the same habitation.

Hence, Rebecca, when she gave birth to two individuals of dissimilar nature, the one good and the other evil, and when she felt them leap in her womb (Esau was the type of wickedness, Jacob the pattern of what is good), marveled at the reason for the discord which she perceived within her.

She appealed to God to make known the reason for her suffering and to grant a remedy. This was the response given to her prayer: ‘Two nations are in your womb; two peoples shall stem from your body’ (Gen. 25:23).

Interpreted spiritually, this can mean the same generation of good and evil, both of which emanate from the same source in the soul.

The former is likely to be the fruit of sound judgment whereby evil is repudiated and goodness is fostered and strengthened.

Prior to giving birth to what is good, that is to say, to giving complete reverence and deference owed to God Himself, the soul shows preference to its own creation.

When…the soul is generated with faith and trust in God, relief comes at the time of parturition.

Thus God, in applying the beneficial lesson of Abel to the soul of man, makes ineffective the impious lesson of Cain.

Ambrose of Milan (c. 337-397): Cain and Abel, book 1, chapter 1, 3-4, in St Ambrose: Hexameron, Paradise, and Cain and Abel, tr. John J. Savage, Catholic Univeristy of America Press, 1961, pp. 360-361.