Suscipe: A beautiful prayer when Jesus is silent

I was meeting with a man in the middle of an ugly divorce. All he wanted—desperately—was reconciliation with his wife. Each attempt to reach out, however well-intentioned, was reported as a violation of a restraining order. More than once, it landed him in jail.

In our first few meetings, his focus was singular: How do I get her back? Periodically, I would interrupt the strategizing and gently say, “Let’s see what the Lord has to say.” We would sit in silence. He heard nothing. I heard nothing. The strategizing resumed.

Sometimes we met in the church itself. We sat quietly before the Lord. Normally, in that space, I sense something—a nudge, a word, a movement of grace. But again, there was only silence.

Then, during our last meeting, something shifted. Almost as an aside, he said, “I might have to reset my life.”

It was the first time he had allowed an alternative to enter the room.

I followed that opening. “What would it feel like if you had to reset your life?”

“It would feel like crawling under a rock.”

“What’s it like underneath that rock?”

“It’s scary. It’s dark. I’d be alone. I wouldn’t know who I am.”

And then it dawned on me.

Jesus had been silent about his plans for reunification—but Jesus was more than willing to enter into this darkness. “What would it be like,” I asked, “if the Lord were with you there?”

The silence suddenly made sense.

Sometimes Jesus says nothing because we already know exactly what we want him to bless. We come to prayer with a proposal, not an offering. But Christ did not come primarily to endorse our plans; he came to heal our deepest wounds (cf. Luke 4:18). That kind of healing requires openness—sometimes even the surrender of the future we were clinging to.

This is why I return often to the Suscipe of St. Ignatius of Loyola:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.

If the Lord feels silent in your prayer, it may not be abandonment. It may be invitation. An invitation to loosen your grip, to surrender your agenda, and to receive—perhaps for the first time—only his love and his grace. And that, Ignatius reminds us, is enough.