If you want God to hear your prayers, hear the voice of the poor. If you wish God to anticipate your wants, provide those of the needy without waiting for them to ask you. Especially anticipate the needs of those who are ashamed to beg. To make them ask for alms is to make them buy it.
–Saint Thomas of Villanova (1488-1555)
God does not delay to hear our prayers because He has no mind to give; but that, by enlarging our desires, He may give us the more largely.
–Saint Anselm (1033-1109)
We should not bear it with bad grace if the answer to our prayer is long delayed. Rather, let us, because of this, show great patience and resignation. For He delays for this reason: that we may offer Him a fitting occasion of honoring us through His divine providence.
–Saint John Chrysostom (347-407)
God will not hear our prayers unless we acknowledge ourselves to be sinners. We do this when we ponder on our own sins alone, and not on those of our neighbor.
–Abba Moses (330-405)
If God is slow in answering your request, and you ask but do not promptly receive anything, do not be upset, for you are not wiser than God. When you remain as you were before, without anything happening, it is either because your behavior is not worthy of your request, or because the paths in which your heart was traveling were far removed from the aim of your prayer, or because your interior condition is far too childish, when compared with the magnitude of the thing for which you have asked.
–Saint Isaac of Syria (Seventh Century
