God does not delay to hear our prayers because He has no mind to give; but that, by enlarging our desires, He may give us the more largely.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that God's delays in answering prayers are purposeful, meant to broaden our desires for greater blessings.
Anselm of Canterbury suggests that the perceived delays in God's response to our prayers are not due to a lack of willingness to provide, but rather a divine strategy to expand our understanding and desires. By taking time to fulfill our requests, God encourages us to seek deeper and more meaningful blessings, ultimately leading to a greater fulfillment of our hopes and aspirations.
In practice
In a sermon discussing the nature of faith and prayer.
A Prayer of Anselm My God, I pray that I may so know you and love you that I may rejoice in you. And if I may not do so fully in this life let me go steadily on to the day when I come to that fullness . . . Let me receive That which you promised through your truth, that my joy may be full.
For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For I believe this: unless I believe, I will not understand.
Spare me through your mercy, do not punish me through your justice.
Remove grace, and you have nothing whereby to be saved. Remove free will and you have nothing that could be saved.
I believe in order that I may understand.
A single Mass offered for oneself during life may be worth more than a thousand celebrated for the same intention after death.
An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell? No, said the priest, not if you did not know. Then why, asked the Inuit earnestly, did you tell me?
To remove warfare from a spiritual life is to render it unspiritual. Life in the spirit is a suffering way, filled with watching and laboring, burdened by weariness and trial, punctuated by heartbreak and conflict. It is a life utterly outpoured for the kingdom of God and lived in complete disregard for one's personal happiness.
As many arrows, loosed several ways, come to one mark...so many a thousand actions, once afoot, end in one purpose.
The most distressing thing that can happen to a prophet is to be proved wrong. The next most distressing thing is to be proved right.
Would a soul continually eye His everlasting tenderness and compassion...[then] it could not bear an hour's absence from Him; whereas now, perhaps, it cannot watch with him one hour.
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown
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