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.
Listening to a news broadcast is like smoking a cigarette and crushing the butt in the ashtray.
I am not made for politics because I am incapable of wanting or accepting the death of the adversary.
Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
[in the]..curious way that my idealism has been mixed with my fatalism, so that I can possess the soul of a dreamer and that of a cynic at the same time......I possess a power of magic...[to] destroy the balance of a well-designed destiny with my diabolical mind.
A nation without means of reform is without means of survival.
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the Ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.
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