Quotes Worth Contemplating for August 28
St. Joachim and St. Ann before the conception of Our Lady; France before the Advent of St. Joan of Arc; the prophets of the Israelite nation before the coming of the Messias. They waited. They prayed hard. They wondered that God was taking so long to answer.
But they never doubted that He would.
Today’s saint and Doctor of the Church teaches us a most consoling lesson, one that is key to finding joy in unanswered prayers: “When God delays in giving,” St. Augustine says, “He does not deny the gifts but makes them more agreeable. Things long desired are sweeter; those that are quickly given, spoil. By asking and seeking, the desire of attaining grows.”
This idea could not be more exquisitely expressed than in the following passage from St. John Eudes, especially apropos in light of the upcoming Nativity of the Blessed Virgin on September 8:
God deferred for twenty years to hear the prayers of St. Joachim and St. Ann. In the end He accorded them more than they had asked of Him. For they prayed only to be delivered from the confusion caused by their barrenness; and He honored them with the most glorious fecundity ever known upon earth. … They sought of God a child who would comfort and sustain their declining years; and He gave them a daughter who would be the honor, the joy, the love, and delight of all Heaven and earth. They asked for a child like unto all other children of Adam; and He granted them a daughter like unto the angels in purity and sanctity, one who, from the first moment of Her life, should be more ardent in Her love for God than the highest seraph. They asked of God a child to bring up in His holy fear, that might become a worthy servant of the Most High; and they received a daughter who would be Mother of the Son of God and Queen of all creation (The Wondrous Childhood of the Mother of God, 198).
What a joy to know that God always answers our prayers: He either gives us what we ask for…or something better. Of course, that “something better” is sometimes a No.
St. Augustine would have us rejoice even in this.
Unlike happiness, which, being in the intellect, is the product of our thinking with delight upon the good things in our lives, joy is a movement of the will, which, when faced with an evil, even if it be “only” a disappointment, a frustration, or a contradiction, chooses to look beyond the hurt, dwelling instead upon the good disguised within it. What is this hidden good? It is this: God knows best, and everything He does is for our benefit. Everything. “We ought to be persuaded,” says the Doctor of Grace, “that what God refuses to our prayer, He grants to our salvation.”
Children do not always ask for what is actually beneficial to them — and we are children. Ergo…? Happily, we are children of an omnipotent Father Who delights not only in providing for all our needs, but even in spoiling us beyond all our deserts. No matter how hard we have been praying or how reasonable, even supernatural, our intention seems to be — for instance, finding a good job; being admitted into a good college; the conversion of a loved one; the cure of an illness; the success of an apostolate — we can, through faith, rejoice in whatever answer we receive from our Father. Taking to heart the words of St. Augustine, himself “the child of so many tears,” we can choose to be glad and rejoice in his assurance that, “The Lord often denies what we wish for, that He may give us what we would prefer.”
St. Augustine, pray for us!
