Pray Always

Pray Always

Why does God, who is love, keep us waiting? Because he is love, and seeks love. Love that does not know how to wait is not love. To love is to give ourselves. Not only for a fraction of a lifetime, nor with a part of its strength: love is, and seeks, the total gift of self.

Love is based on esteem. We love only what we value and admire. We love only the “good.” What is too easily and too quickly come by does not attract deep souls. It becomes a superficial good, which cannot satisfy the rich capacity of their nature…. It is a law that real treasures are deeply buried and carefully hidden; that serious acquisitions call for proportionate efforts….

God is the treasure beyond price. Were he to give himself too easily, even the best would turn their backs upon him. Saint John Climacus gives a similar reason, but with an interesting difference. “Prayer,” he says, “is an activity that develops and enriches enormously. It is a source of merit and satisfaction, and of spiritual progress of every kind.” God imposes repetitions and a certain persistence in prayer in order to increase our merit. Delays in union are not time lost; far from it. God sees very far ahead; he makes wonderful use of what we call evil—of our wanderings, our hesitations and detours, although he does not love them or want them. It is at these moments, above all, that we need confidence and perseverance. The prayer, whether for ourselves or for others, that is not discouraged, which persists and besieges heaven, touches God’s heart; and that is why he tells us to persevere.

Dom Augustin Guillerand, O. Cart.

Dom Augustin Guillerand († 1945) was a French Carthusian monk and a revered spiritual author.