In this petition we do not ask to be freed from spiritual evils alone. God, who knows the nature that He has created, encourages us to ask to be delivered from physical and temporal evils also. Our Lord Himself sets us the example of such a prayer. The Church in her public prayers begs for deliverance from earthquakes, pestilence, sickness, and other physical evils. We always do well when we turn to God in our temporal troubles. He wishes us to rely on Him for help and deliverance.

So too in sorrow, anxiety, sadness, and despondency we should pray. If it is right to ask God to free us from bodily sufferings, we have much more reason to beg to be delivered from mental sufferings, if it is His holy will. We cannot do better than to repeat often Our Lord's own words, "O My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me." For both bodily and mental pain are in themselves calculated to interfere with and impair our ability to serve God, though He brings good out of evil, and suffering is often the road to holiness.

In our most earnest entreaty to be delivered from pain of body or mind, we must always implicitly, if not explicitly, insert a condition in our prayer that we may be relieved of our suffering only so far as God sees that the relief will be an advantage to our soul. "Not My will, but Thine be done!" This condition must be virtually, if not actually, present to our minds. We must be prepared to submit humbly, whether God grant our prayer or not. This will transform every evil into good.