Regret for Answered Prayers
The 16th century nun Saint Teresa of Avila is purported to have said: “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.”
How profound. What a commentary on our human condition, and no reflection on God’s answering of prayers. If we are careless in our wishes, we can’t blame God or fate for the outcome.
Our problem as a species is that we view the role of our deity to be some kind of vending machine in the sky, ready to dispense generously if we just push the right buttons. Whether it’s a rain dance or a complex Latin invocation, the notion is that if we can say “Pretty please!” just so, our prayers will be answered. Or perhaps, more accurately, our wishes will be granted.
Genies in magic lanterns, horseshoes over doorways, and rabbit-foot keychains. Even the most agnostic among us will kiss the dice before we roll them.
Saint Teresa’s point is that we are notoriously unwise in our supplications. Our wish-lives and our prayer-lives are mostly selfish and to-the-point shopping lists, not unlike letters to Santa. Sometimes even those implorations which seem altruistic are not so much for the benefit of the person prayed for as for our own gratification. “Lord, please help my brother see the error of his ways!”
Of course we know this. One of the oldest proverbs is to “be careful what you wish for”, as is the converse, “sometimes the best luck is not getting what you wished”. It’s no secret that we all play fast and loose with our desires and our asks.
Shedding tears for answered prayers is our way of shifting the blame for bad outcomes, of saying that it wasn’t our fault for begging for the wrong thing, but God’s for granting it.
We are indeed a funny race.