"Often we experience the inability to pray because of too many distractions. As much as we try to return to meditation and let the buzzing mosquitoes buzz by, our minds keep following them. Perhaps at that moment, instead of forcing ourselves to meditate or feeling guilty because we cannot, it would be better to offer to God, so to speak , the "prayer of our distractions." This offering may be seen as a sign of accepting our limits, of realizing in this dry prayer, full of distractions, how dependent we are upon God. This attitude seems far better than that of applying to ourselves the whip of harsh criticism or the sting of envious comparison -both indications that we have not accepted our limits.
Encounter with the living word is thus blocked by our unwillingness to accept the frail, vulnerable, limited benings that we are. So often this obstacle is accompanied by a sense of discouragement. Then our failures in spiritual living loom up out of proportion. We feel too far away from our goal ever to make it. We dub ourselves failures before we even start. Such negative attitudes not only breed discouragement and despair; they violate the virtue of hope. They seem to imply that sin is greater than God's power to forgive. Such presumption is a close sister to pride - that prideful wanting to be where we are not yet, that impatient refusal to let God lead us there in his own good time."
Taken from A Practical Guide to Spiritual Reading by Susan A. Muto
Posted by Carlos J. Medina, Novice
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