Acquiescence to prayer,

— You almost always imagine that what you ask for in prayer must be accomplished by a kind of miracle. This erroneous belief is the source of an immensity of superstitious practices and of many disappointments. It also leads to the denial of the efficacy of prayer. Because your request is not granted in the way you understand it, you conclude that it was useless, and then, at times, you murmur against the justice of God. Others think that, since God established eternal laws to which all beings are subject, He cannot derogate from them in order to consent to the requests that are made to Him. It is to forearm you against the error, or rather against the exaggeration of these two ideas, that I propose to give you some explanations concerning the manner of acquiescence to prayer. There is one incontestable truth: God neither alters nor suspends for anyone the course of the laws that govern the Universe. Without this, the order of Nature would be ceaselessly disturbed by the caprice of the first comer. It is therefore certain that any prayer that could be answered only by a derogation from these laws would remain without effect. Such would be, for example, the prayer whose object was the return to life of a man who is really dead, or the restoration of health when the disorder of the organism is irremediable.

It is no less certain that no attention is given to futile or inconsiderate requests. But rest assured that every pure and disinterested prayer is heard, and that the intention is always taken into account, even when God, in His wisdom, deems it fitting not to grant it; it is above all then that you must give proof of humility and of submission to His will, saying to yourselves that better than you He knows what may be useful to you.

There are, no doubt, general laws to which man is inevitably subject; but it is an error to believe that the smallest circumstances of life are fixed beforehand in an irrevocable manner; if it were so, man would be a machine without initiative and, consequently, without responsibility. Free will is one of the prerogatives of man; since he is free to go to the right or to the left, to act according to circumstances, his movements are not regulated like those of a machine. According to whether he does or does not do a thing, and according to whether he does it in one way or another, the events that depend on it follow a different course; since they are subordinate to the decision of man, they are not subject to fatality. Those that are fatal are those that are independent of his will; but, every time that man can react by virtue of his free will, there is no fatality. Man has, then, a circle within which he can move freely. This freedom of action has for its limits the laws of Nature, which no one can transgress; or, better said, this freedom, in the sphere of activity in which it is exercised, forms part of these laws; it is necessary, and it is through it that man is called to contribute to the general march of things; and since he does so freely, he has the merit of the good he has done and the demerit of the evil he has done, of his indolence, of his negligence, of his inactivity. The fluctuations that his will can impress upon the events of life in no way disturb universal harmony, for these very fluctuations formed part of the trials that fall to man on Earth. Within the limit of the things that depend on the will of man, God can, then, without derogating from His laws, consent to a prayer when it is just and whose realization may be useful; but it often happens that He judges its usefulness and its opportuneness differently from us, which is why He does not always acquiesce. If it pleases Him to grant it, it is not by modifying His sovereign decrees that He will do so, but by means that do not depart from the general order, if we may so express ourselves. The Spirits, executors of His will, are then charged with bringing about the circumstances that must lead to the desired result. Almost always this result requires the concurrence of some incarnate person; it is, then, this concurrence that the Spirits prepare, inspiring in those who are to cooperate in it the thought of an action, prompting them to go to one place and not to another, bringing about favorable encounters that appear to be due to chance. Now, chance exists neither in the assistance one receives nor in the misfortunes one experiences. In afflictions, prayer is not only a proof of confidence and of submission to the will of God, who hears it if it is pure and disinterested, but it also has the effect, as you know, of establishing a fluidic current that carries far, into space, the thought of the afflicted one, as the air carries the accents of his voice. This thought reverberates in hearts sympathetic to suffering, and these, by an unconscious movement and as if drawn by a magnetic power, direct themselves toward the place where their presence can be useful. God, who wishes to succor the one who implores Him, could no doubt do so by Himself, instantaneously, but, as I said, He does not perform miracles, and things must follow their natural course; He wishes that men practice charity, helping one another. Through His messengers, the lament that finds an echo is carried up to Him, and there the good Spirits breathe in a benevolent thought. Although prompted, this thought leaves to man all his freedom, by the very fact that its source is unknown; nothing constrains him; he has, consequently, all the merit of spontaneity if he yields to the inner voice that appeals within him to the sentiment of duty, and all the demerit if he resists, because dominated by a selfish indifference.

— Q. There are cases, as in an imminent danger, in which the assistance must be immediate. How can it arrive in due time, if one must wait for the goodwill of a man, and if that goodwill suddenly fails by force of free will?

Answer. – You must not forget that the guardian angels, the protecting Spirits, whose mission is to watch over those entrusted to them, follow them, so to speak, step by step. They cannot spare them the apprehensions of dangers, which form part of their trials; but if the consequences of the danger can be avoided, since they foresaw it beforehand, they do not wait for the last moment to prepare the rescue. If, at times, they address themselves to men of ill will, it is with a view to seeking to awaken good sentiments in them, but they do not count on them.

When, in a critical position, a person happens to be there, as if on purpose, to assist you, and you exclaim that "it is Providence that sends him," you speak a truth far greater than you often suppose.

If there are pressing cases, others that are less so require a certain time to bring about a concurrence of favorable circumstances, especially when it is necessary that the Spirits triumph, through inspiration, over the apathy of the persons whose cooperation is necessary for the result to be obtained. These delays in the realization of the desire are trials for patience and resignation; then, when the realization of what was desired arrives, it is almost always through a chain of circumstances so natural that absolutely nothing betrays a hidden intervention, nothing affects the slightest appearance of the marvelous; things seem to arrange themselves by themselves.

This must be so for the twofold reason that the means of action do not depart from the general laws and, secondly, that if the assistance of the Spirits were too evident, man would rely on them and would grow accustomed not to count on himself. This assistance must be understood by him through thought, through the moral sense, and not through the material senses; his belief must be the result of his faith and of his confidence in the goodness of God. Unfortunately, because he has not seen the finger of God perform a miracle for him, he often forgets the one to whom he owes his salvation, in order to glorify chance.

A protecting Spirit.