When prayer seems most hopeless, it may well be most fruitful; when the search for God and the attempt to love God seem most futile and barren, they may well be most creative. Why? Because if then we turn to God in humility, knowing our failure, we make it possible for Him to work in us, and under His creative touch, the soul comes to life, the flame is kindled, even though we remain unconscious of it. At other times, our efforts may, in fact, be egotistic and self-reliant, or greedy of reward, and then we fail, however convinced we may be of our success.

“A man” writes Thomas Merton, “who is not stripped and poor and naked within his own soul will always unconsciously do the works he has to do for his own sake rather than for the glory of God. He will be virtuous not because he loves God’s will but because he wants to admire his own virtues. But every moment of the day will bring him some frustrations that will make him bitter and impatient, and in his impatience he will be discovered…  –Father Gerald Vann ‘Mary’s Answer for Our Troubled Times’