My prayer life has grown significantly lately. I keep it hidden even from those closest to me. In this regard, I ask for your advice.

Dear Father Angelo,

I hope that you are well.

I don’t know if you remember me: I’m the doctoral student of … who came to visit you in … last November.

I’m writing to you again because I’ve been struggling for a long time with a practical problem regarding my spiritual life.

Over the past year, I’ve begun to cultivate more diligently certain practices, such as almost daily Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours recited privately throughout the day, the recitation of the Rosary, and similar things. Needless to say, I find them greatly beneficial and feel a strong need to persevere.

However, I’ve chosen to live this growth in religious life essentially in secret, even with those closest to me (family, girlfriend, friends, colleagues; some of whom are believers and practicing, others are not, but they certainly all respect my faith even if they don’t share it). And even with those priests I turn to, if not for true spiritual direction, then for advice on the matter.

This is due, on the one hand, to a feeling of humility, which makes me feel like I’m showing off and trying to build merit for myself, even though I don’t have the strength to back up this effort; and on the other, I won’t deny it, to the fear of appearing a little too devout, especially in the eyes of those who are very lukewarm.

Now, generally this isn’t difficult for me because I leave early in the morning and often spend the whole day away from home for work or study, but in other circumstances I have to purposely go out for these activities, and in those cases I try to hide it as much as possible, perhaps taking advantage of an errand to run or simply saying I’m going for a walk.

The situation doesn’t leave me completely at peace, because on the one hand, I feel like I’m failing to give proper testimony to something that isn’t negative, and on the other, acting differently would cause me great embarrassment. I’ve said this a few times in confession, but I don’t know if I’d want to act differently.

I would therefore ask you for advice on how to behave and also for clarification on how far it is permissible to be deceptive regarding one’s spiritual life, out of humility but also out of a very human shyness.

I apologize for the long email.

To thank you as much as I can, I will remember you in my prayers, adding to this intention a prayer for the entire Order of Preachers. I hope you can say a prayer for me.

Warmest regards and sincere thanks in advance,

…

Priest’s answer

Dear friend,

1. I remember you well and am happy, indeed, very happy, with your life of prayer, of union with the Lord.

I think I can say that you have begun to drink of that water the Lord spoke of to the Samaritan woman when He said to her: “The water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:14).

I am certain that by now you can no longer do without this water, which is the source of your inner freshness, the breath of your life, the life of your life.

2. Why is it the source of your inner freshness, the breath of your life, the life of your life?

Because it “wells up to eternal life.”

And since eternal life consists in the possession of God and Jesus Christ, as Our Lord said: “This is eternal life: that they should know (that is, possess) you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ” (John 17:3), this water unites you to God, unites you to Jesus Christ.

Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, 

Now God is the life of the soul, according to the beautiful statement of St. Augustine: “For my body lives by my soul, and my soul lives by You” (Confessions, X, 1).

This is so true for you that you too can say with David: “(God)Do not be silent toward me,

so that I join those who go down to the pit” (Ps 28:1).

In prayer (almost daily Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, recitation of the Rosary, and the like), God speaks to you continually.

3. When you seize the various opportunities life offers you to perform the practices you described, you resemble Jesus, who responded to the apostles who said, “Rabbi, eat” (Jn 4:31): “I have food to eat of wich you do not know” (Jn 4:32).

The food Christ was to eat consisted in doing the will of the Father: “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work” (Jn 4:34), that is, the salvation of mankind.

So too, when you nourish yourself with this food, you are performing an action that gives life not only to yourself, but to many, according to the beautiful expression of Elizabeth Leseur, a Dominican tertiary: “When a soul elevates itself, it elevates not only itself, but with it elevates the entire Church, the entire world.” T-N.

It’s beautiful to think that when you seek out those spaces of prayer, you are doing good not only to yourself, but also to the Church, to the entire world.

4. Guard the priceless grace of the prayer you have received as a precious treasure.

Because it unites you to Christ, it is a hidden treasure.

Therefore, at least for now, keep it hidden.

The Holy Spirit who inspired Raphael to say: “A king’s secret it is prudent to keep” (Tob 12:7) is also moving you in the same direction. Some would not understand, others would even misunderstand and call what is grace an illness.

This was the response of the psychologist who had been placed on André Frossard’s trail after his conversion, when his parents saw his attraction to the things of God. This young man, raised in the strictest atheism by his father, secretary of the French Communist Party, after his sudden and instantaneous conversion felt a profound need to be filled with God.

His parents didn’t understand, and so, without his knowledge, they placed a psychologist at his side to understand the illness—as they called it—that had struck him.

And here’s the psychologist’s response to his parents: “Your son is perfectly healthy. What you call illness, Christians call grace.” T-N.

This is what you read in that beautiful book that sold like hotcakes in its time: “God Exists, I Have Met Him.”

5. With others, who would certainly understand, like priests and even your own confessor, it’s good for you to maintain confidentiality.

There are things about one’s spiritual life that cannot be shared, not even with one’s confessor. It would seem as if one were showing oneself off as a saint, as if one had reached who knows what level of spiritual life, when one knows full well that this is not the case.

6. So, for now, keep doing it.

Once you’re married, it may no longer be possible to keep this secret completely hidden.

But your wife will be able to understand it and will discover the deepest secret of the singular attraction she felt for you, unlike many others.

7. I thank the Lord who continues to give life to his people.

Perhaps other visitors to ours, reading what you wrote, will be happy to find themselves sharing your same experience.

Others will feel more vividly the meaning of what Jesus said after the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves: “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life” (John 6:27).

May you never deviate from the path the Lord has led you on, and as I thank you for the precious prayer you raise to God for me and for the Order of Preachers to which I belong, I bless you and gladly assure you of my own.

Father Angelo

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