What do I say to a friend who says their prayers aren’t being answered?

Some of the greatest saints have acknowledged bewilderment at the seeming slowness or lack of response to particular requests. I would first acknowledge your friend is not alone in wrestling with this problem. I would own up to the fact of my own wonderment by sharing a personal example, then share from the lives of the saints, and conclude with words from Jesus himself in the Gospels.

One example of a seemingly unanswered prayer is the recent tragic loss of a young man who went missing when the weather turned bad on a difficult mountain trail in Colorado. Our entire Christian community joined in prayer vigils for his safe return. Our parish offered rosaries and Masses for his intention. He has yet to be found after over three weeks, so he is presumed dead. The lack of closure in this case is agonizing. When and how will we receive an answer to our pleas? 

Our readers may each think of similarly agonizing situations in which our fervent prayers seem to be unheard, the response long delayed, or we’re unsatisfied with the answer we received. This is the unfortunate lot of a fragile and mortal humanity. God will not step in to heal every illness or prevent every tragic loss. We may look for immediate answers, but answers may come further down the road. While we wait, we are growing in the grace of patient endurance, a fruit of the Holy Spirit. We learn the way of persistent prayer and never giving up.

St. Monica serves as one of our best examples in the lives of the saints. Her fervent and unrelenting prayer of many years led finally to the conversion of her son Augustine, who became one of our greatest writers on matters of Christian doctrine and spiritual life. We may not see results immediately, but we can be sure God is at work in the life of the person for whom we are praying. The answer may surprise us, but we can be sure God will never turn a deaf ear to our prayers of intercession. 

Think of the causes for which we pray on Sundays, for everything from world peace to vocations, to the strengthening of family life and the healing of our suffering members. We may never see the particular response in our own backyard, but we can trust our heavenly Father listens lovingly to the entire Body of Christ joined in common prayer through Christ our intercessor. The saints will join with us, collectively interceding for the needs of the world. God is hearing my prayers when I open my heart to join in our prayers for the greater needs of the entire Mystical Body.

Jesus Christ, from the cross on Calvary, cried out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me” (Matt. 27:46)? In these words, the opening verse of Psalm 22, Jesus is actually praying during his hour of deepest abandonment. Fulton Sheen wrote of this word from the cross, “Christ’s cry was of abandonment which he felt standing in a sinner’s place, but it was not of despair. The soul that despairs never cries to God” (Life of Christ). 

Encourage your friend to pray the Psalms regularly, as part of a daily prayer discipline. The Liturgy of Hours, available in text or online, provides just such a daily prayer pattern. Reading the Scriptures prayerfully and meditating upon them can open us up to a more enriching life of prayer and greater sense of God’s presence. Listening to the voice of God within will open the ears of our soul to hear his answer to our prayers of intercession.

Jesus tells us to persist, to ask, to seek, and to knock. “If you, who are wicked, know how to give your children good things, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (cf Luke 11:9–13). God will not give us a scorpion when we ask for an egg. We may often feel as if we have been handed a scorpion during our roughest moments in times of loss or natural disasters. Our grief at the death of loved ones can certainly feel like a scorpion sting. Therein lies the age-old question, “Was this God’s will?”

Death itself, a seeming scorpion sting to those of us left behind, is really the “egg of life,” our beginning of everlasting life with Christ in the Resurrection. We can trust that our beloved now join with the saints of heaven, begging God to hear our prayers.