A Hard Prayer - A Tough Act

The more we pray, the more we please God, the more we obtain. I do not ask for those sweetnesses in prayer which God grants to certain souls. I am not worthy of them. I do not have enough strength to bear them. Extraordinary graces are not good for me. To give them to me would be to build upon the sand. It would be to pour a costly liqueur into a leaking cask which could hold nothing. I ask of God a prayer that is solid, simple, that will glorify Him and not puff me up. Dryness and desolation, accompanied with God's grace, are very good for me, I think.

St. Claude de La Colombiere

I will often, if not always, start my workdays with a prayer or reading holy words. While I am don't read the bible, something I am not proud of, I make sure I do not neglect to find something of similarly remarkable. I ask for forgiveness if I neglected to be as pious during weekends, I ask to be blessed and graced, along with others to also be showered with His love.

Today I stumbled upon the prayer / reflection above. A total turnaround of what I will often pray daily. As I read the words slowly, my eyes grew wider and my amazement at the fortitude of St. Claude! To ask not for the good and to be so humble that he eschew what many of us pray for. The Christian Catholic in me can see his foundational philosophy, we Catholics are good with guilt and embracing suffering. It's a fundamental concept to see suffering as a testament to how we can glorify God.

Yet the man in me, I find myself without the courage to explore further this line of thought. I do not want to abide by more suffering yet the prayer shamed me in my weakness. I have always felt that I am a man with little fear. Death and dying does not scare me nor violence or the usual things. But the prayer, St Claude, his courage, they do scare me. It makes me think and doubt my own worth as a Christian and if my afterlife is as secured as I once thought.

I can imagine being compared to men and women such as them, once in front of the gates of Heaven. I suddenly find myself truly afraid the saints have set a really tough act to follow.