Persistence and prayer are inexorably linked to a disciple’s life. Fr. Jan Walgrave was a teacher, scholar, monk, priest, theologian, linguist, writer, poet, friend of many, enjoyer of life, and, as Fr. Rolheiser attests, a gentleman always. He once commented that our present culture constitutes a virtual conspiracy against the interior life. He wasn’t suggesting that somewhere, there is a deliberate force that is consciously scheming to keep us from interiority and prayer, but rather that an accidental flowing of forces and circumstances in history makes it difficult for us to live the examined life. The first problem we have with prayer is that we’re too busy and too- preoccupied to make time for it. There’s never, it seems, a good time for prayer. But we’re not just too busy to pray, but we are also too restless. There’s a congenital disquiet inside us. It’s hard to pray when we are restless, and mostly, we are. Henri Nouwen puts this well: “I want to pray,” he says, “but I also don’t want to miss out on anything – television, movies, socializing with friends, drinking in the world.” Finally, beyond the headaches and restlessness is the ambiguity of prayer itself. Simply put, prayer isn’t easy because we don’t understand it, don’t know how to do it, and don’t understand how the experience should feel. Relating to God demands something else, and it’s easy to find ourselves bored, doubting, distracted, and anxious to get on to something else when we try to pray. Because prayer can seem unreal, we often stop doing it, but it will only seem real if we persevere in it long enough and do it deeply enough. We often give up too soon. Prayer isn’t easy. Fr. Walgrave was right – there’s a certain conspiracy against the interior life today. But prayer beckons us beyond, asking us to lift even this up to God.