You are expected

However, if a joyful face welcomes us, if hands reach out towards us, we are immediately reassured and freed from the cruel impression of being disoriented or lost. The customs, the language, all of this large and disconcerting city no longer matter. We put up with being a stranger to everyone easily, just as long as we are someone’s friend.

How reassuring it is also to discover that our hosts were expecting us. Parents and children do not need to say too much for us to guess at it. The way they greet each other and a certain enthusiasm suffice. And in our room, a bunch of flowers or an art book (because they know our tastes) convinces us completely.

Dear friend, I would like you to believe that when you go to pray privately you are expected: expected by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, expected by the Trinity. Your place is ready for you. Remember what Jesus said, “I am going to prepare a place.” You will say that he was referring to heaven and it is true. But private prayer is precisely heaven, at least in its essential reality, because God is present, because God’s love is present and because God is expecting and waiting for his child.

The Lord always waits for us.

Even better, we only have to take a couple of steps and he comes towards us. Remember the parable, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms round him and kissed him.” And yet, as you will remember, the son had seriously offended his father. But he still was expected, impatiently.

Henri Caffarel, Cahiers sur l’oraison, No. 13