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.
Fundamentalist s live life with an exclamation point. I prefer to live my life with a question mark.
The cultivation - even celebration - of victimhood by intellectuals, tort lawyers, politicians and the media is both cause and effect of today's culture of complaint.
Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of 'our institutions' unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don't protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.
There's never any time I think I'm a real journalist, because I don't have any of the qualifications or the intentions for that.
Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.
We've all been brought up with the view that religion has some kind of special privileged status. You're not allowed to criticise it.
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