Supplication

My dear God, Supplication. This is the only one of the four* I am competent in. It takes no supernatural grace to ask for what one wants and I have asked you bountifully, oh Lord. I believe it is right to ask You too and to ask our Mother to ask You, but I don't want to overemphasize this angle of my prayers. Help me to ask You, oh Lord, for what is good for me to have, for what I can have and do your service by having.

I have been reading Mr Kafka and I feel his problem of getting grace. But I see it doesn't have to be that way for the Catholic who can go to Communion every day. The [Monsignor] today said it was the business of reason, not emotion - the love of God. The emotion would be a help. I realized last time that it would be a selfish one. Oh dear God, the reason is very empty. I suppose mine is also lazy. But I want to get near You. Yet is seems almost a sin to suggest such a thing even. Perhaps Communion doesn't give the nearness I mean. The nearness I mean comes after death perhaps. It is what we are struggling for and if I found it either I would be dead or I would have seen it for a second and life would be intolerable. I don't know about this or anything. It sounds puerile my saying anything so obvious.

*Adoration, contrition, thanksgiving and supplication. 

From A Prayer Journal, by Flannery O'Connor, pages 13/14