Theme
Witnesses on doubt
Believers who doubted, sometimes for years, and prayed anyway.
A few words
I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand.
Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me.
Dear God, I cannot love Thee the way I want to. You are the slim crescent of a moon that I see, and my self is the earth's shadow that keeps me from seeing all the moon.
I am well aware, Lord God almighty, that I owe You this before all else: that my every word and thought should speak of You.
Take great care of the service of the poor, and above all of living together in great union and cordiality, loving one another in imitation of the union and life of our Lord.
What you scream in your heart does not become a prayer until you have said your Pater noster without deceit.
All 36 witnesses on doubt
- Anselme de Cantorbéry Faith seeking understanding, and the mind that prays as it seeks to understand.
- Antoine Bloom Beginning to pray where God seems absent, and standing at the door without forcing the meeting.
- Augustin d’Hippone Conversion as the belated welcome of a presence that had always been waiting.
- Blaise Pascal The heart that knows God where reason alone cannot reach, and the smallness of man before the infinite.
- Boèce The search for truth held fast in the night, and the mind that rises in prayer at the heart of misfortune.
- C. S. Lewis Faith regained through reason and friendship, and the prayer that dares raw truth before God.
- Charlotte Elliott Coming without having arranged anything about oneself, with the conflict and the fear still intact.
- Édith Stein The search for truth that leads to God, and solidarity held with one's people to the end.
- Emily Dickinson Prayer held at arm's length, and held all the same.
- Etty Hillesum Prayer in the midst of darkness. Keeping the heart large.
- Évagre le Pontique Attention as work: what goes on in the head while one prays.
- Fiodor Dostoïevski Faith that has passed through doubt and bears its scars, without ceasing to choose Christ.
- Flannery O'Connor Praying with what one is (ambition, dryness, doubt) and letting faith deepen there.
- Francis Thompson God pursuing the one who runs, and reaching him at the end of the running.
- Georges Bernanos Hope as a risk to be run, receiving everything as grace.
- Gerard Manley Hopkins Praise wrung from an exhausted body, and prayer that dares to complain.
- Grégoire de Narek Offering God one's very groans, lament turned into prayer.
- Héloïse du Paraclet The prayer that refuses to lie to itself about what it feels.
- Hilaire de Poitiers Faith seeking to understand, without shrinking the mystery it adores.
- Hugues de Saint-Victor Order and love of study, patient formation of the mind, discipline of attention as a spiritual path. Everything he touches becomes a staircase toward God.
- Jean de la Croix Poetry forged in the dark, a map of the soul's darkest nights toward union with God, fidelity to reform even when it cost him everything.
- Jean Racine Willingness to abandon fame for conscience, a return to childhood faith after years of glittering distance, mastery of language turned finally toward humbler ends.
- Lakshmibai Tilak Faith won slowly through doubt and fury rather than handed down, honesty about the cost a conversion exacts on those not consulted, a memoir that refused to simplify a painful passage.
- Léonie Martin The hope of new beginnings: when nothing works the first time, trust ends up opening a way.
- Louise de Marillac Concrete service of the poor as a place of encounter with God, and gentleness toward oneself in times of anxiety.
- Madre Castillo Making of bitterness a nest you can live in.
- Margery Kempe The prayer of tears: to bring before God a weeping heart, neither justifying it nor silencing it.
- Raïssa Maritain The demand for truth pushed to its limit, and hidden contemplation in the midst of a life of conversations.
- Salomon ibn Gabirol Praise that knows it will not reach its object, and complaint that dares be spoken inside the prayer.
- Sarah Copia Sullam Answering for oneself, when others have spoken in one's place.
- Sigrid Undset The long search for truth through one's work, unto prayer without deceit.
- Søren Kierkegaard Prayer that listens: to fall silent long enough to stop speaking and hear God.
- Teresa de Calcutta Service of the poorest as an encounter with Christ, and fidelity held through the night of faith.
- Tiyo Soga Standing straight between two worlds that each claim all of you.
- Wang Mingdao Denial passed through and not hidden, and a faithfulness that gets up again after giving way.
- William Cowper Faith held by a man who cannot feel it, and friendship keeping alive what the darkness would put out.