(Saints Peter and Paul Church in Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland)

Oh, to pray like Mary Magdalen, with intense concentration and great love! But do you ever feel when you pray as if God couldn't possibly be pleased with your prayer because you were so distracted, and interrupted so many times?

Father Hubert Van Zeller of the Benedictines suggests a scenario in which the devil is telling God what a terrible job we've done at our morning prayer and meditation...going something like this:

"'See this dilapidated prayer,' says the devil, 'and tell me, Lord, whether You don't think it has been a waste of time. Those yawns, for instance, and those furtive glances at the watch -- they must certainly score heavily in my favor. And what about that lengthy digression on the subject of his health? Then there was that argument which would have been so convincing if it had in fact taken place instead of being a fanned-up piece of self-justification existing only in the mind. And those plans for August. Followed by at least ten minutes when nothing seems to have gone on at all. Surely, Lord, You got very little out of that prayer today -- especially if You take into consideration those memories and imaginations which I suggested to his muddy mind: memories which would be unsuitable anywhere but which are especially so at prayer. Even the attempts at returning to Your Presence, Lord, can be counted as winning points to me: they were so half-hearted and infrequent. Add to the total that confessedly bored attitude of mind in which the whole thing was conducted and You will admit that I have won hands down.'"

Oh dear...I'm afraid this sounds all too familiar to most of us. And if the devil were to say this about us, what would Our Lord reply?

"It would surely be reasonable to think of God as countering Satan with the all-important question: 'But Whom was he doing it for?' That's the point....'It's all very well for you to cite the distractions in My friend's prayer' -- so we would have the Lord defending His own -- 'but though he many not have made a very good thing of it, at least he has not gone back to bed or picked up a novel. He did, you notice, go on. Discouraged as he is about the result of his effort (unreasonably discouraged in point of fact) he will be at it again, you will find, tomorrow morning. His object all along has been -- and still is -- to please Me, and though he imagines he isn't doing this, he has no intention of pleasing you, [Satan]. While certainly he isn't, poor man, pleasing himself.'"

So as long as we keep trying -- even though we're discouraged with the results, we keep making the supreme effort, Our Lord is pleased. And we may even say He is more pleased when we struggle on through the mud and the muck, than when we had the perfect feel-good prayer, flying along, and weren't even distracted once.

These quotes are from Dom Hubert Van Zeller, OSB, in his We Die Standing Up, imprimatur 1948.