Ah, dear Reader, we thought that headline would get your attention! Distractions in prayer, the enemy of the Covid-19 Retreat! Distractions in prayer, or "spiritual distractions," are not new. In the form of images or ideas, they parade through even the most pious minds. Is there a cure to rid ourselves of them? Yes, do not give them too much importance, and interpret them as an opportunity to turn back to the Lord; an opportunity for “conversion”. We are very grateful to the international Catholic news-site Aleteia, and to the author, Élisabeth de Baudöuin, for this article, to whom all credit.
Distractions touch all forms of prayer (Holy Mass, communal prayer, holy rosary, private prayer, adoration). They vary according to one's temperament, state of life, and circumstances: the philosopher reasons, the parents think of their children, the resentful harks back, the ambitious man builds his future... Their nature informs the person about himself: his worries, affections, passions, temptations. Who escapes distractions in prayer? No one, not even the saints! Saint Teresa of Avila speaks of it as a true "infirmity", as much painful as unavoidable. She recounts that sometimes, even in solitude, she could have "no fixed and settled thought, neither of God nor of any good thing", and that her spirit resembled "a madman that nobody can chain". She admits that she was thinking "of nothing bad, but only of pointless things". One day, she found herself counting the nails in the shoe of the nun who was praying before her. Nothing serious, if we consider some of our less bright distractions. But how are we to understand this "infirmity"?
“Prayer Disorders” That Prevent Concentration
Spiritual distractions are inherent in our condition as bodily beings. The explanation is simple: man is not merely a spirit. And as the spirit seeks to reach God, its efforts are thwarted by the weight of the "matter" which holds it down. The "matter"? First of all the five senses, constantly in activity, which grasp, despite themselves, "everything that passes": this or that noise (the ringing of the mobile phone that one’s neighbour forgot to turn off), some image (our new neighbour's hairstyle), some smell. True “prayer-disturbers”, the senses constantly provide food for the mind with what they capture, thus preventing it from concentrating on the supernatural truths that it is nevertheless seeking.
But the action of the senses does not explain everything: with earplugs, a blindfold and a clothes-peg on the nose, there are still distractions. Why? Saint Teresa of Avila replies: "The natural powers, that is to say, memory, imagination (the “madwoman of the house”) and understanding (the faculty of reason), which never cease to wander, divert the will from its objective: to settle on God”.
Faced with the often painful and disconcerting experience of distractions, one may be tempted to be discouraged. Indeed, when you have too many distractions, you can say to yourself: "I am not made to pray". The temptation may then be to abandon everything. This is what you certainly should not do. If we stopped praying because we have distractions, we would never pray! Distractions only reach the peripheral part of our being. But God gives himself to us in the depths of the soul, where distractions do not enter, where the bodily senses have no access. They therefore do not prevent prayer from working within the soul and transforming it.
Distractions are an opportunity to choose the Lord again
So what should we do? Persevere, of course! And don't pay distractions too much attention, much less dramatize them. But do not take pleasure in them. That temptation nevertheless exists, and can be strong. As long as one does not dwell on them voluntarily, spiritual distractions are not a sin. “They are even a grace!” says one priest loud and clear. Because they are an opportunity to turn back to the Lord, to actively chose him, whom we had temporarily abandoned. To come back to him in the form of the prayer which we were making before.
“To abandon a distraction that pleases us to return to Christ is to perform an act of love.” “They teach us to live on dry, black bread in the house of God”, so we read from the pen of Fenelon. Interest on such a modest allowance, on such a pittance? Yes, by making prayer difficult, distractions allow man to seek God for himself, and not for the consolations of the senses he can give. Likewise, because of the effort they involve to rid oneself from them, they strengthen the will to find Him and stir up the desire to unite ourselves with Him.
Yet more graces: this concerns also our very poverty. Now, "the poorer we are […], the more we are fit for the operations of consuming and transforming love", writes Thérèse de Lisieux. The young doctor of the Church, however, poses two conditions: choosing to remain poor; and love of this poverty. Saint Paul says a similar thing: “So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” (2 Cor. 12:9)
And so here is the unexpected consequence: to live in praise, submission and thanksgiving; spiritual distractions allow God to establish his reign in the heart of man. They become then a pathway, far more than an obstacle, to come to God in humility.
Elisabeth de Baudöuin
Translation Grand Priory of England
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