Possession of Specificity or Pilgrimage of Desire
Prayer, desire, and the long journey toward knowing
“The answer found in prayer is not a possession, but a knowing and a pilgrimage.”
—Sr. Barbara Ann, All Saints Sisters of the Poor Convent
I sat on my bed in the small cell of a convent just outside Baltimore, on a silent personal retreat, and recalled the neatly calligraphed card I’d seen the night before while walking through the Sisters’ card shop. The words from it had settled into me, and I sensed they would stay with me, becoming a kind of legend for my own life of prayer.
I wrote this in my journal:
Is the specificity of my prayers an act of honest naming of desire, or a superstitious attempt at control?
I love Sister Barbara Ann’s every word choice. Possession suggests that answers in prayer are limited or bound by scarcity, as if they could be owned or controlled. But knowing is active—not a static fact, but thrumming with aliveness. And pilgrimage, too—it's not a mere petition or transaction but a journey, an unfolding. Prayer becomes a pathway, not just a way to make requests, but a space to walk in, to move deeper into our lived relationship with God, and to be present with ourselves.
Earlier that same week, I shared with a friend a particular request I’d been praying for. She offered gently, almost offhand, “Oh, I don’t think you need to limit God.” I found it a curious statement. I knew what she meant, but how was I limiting God by being specific in prayer? I thought I was simply being honest about what I longed for.
The Gospel lesson at the convent’s morning Mass, was the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32, NRSV). It was the father’s response to the older brother that held me:
“Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours,” the father says.
But the older brother is salty—grumbling that he’s never even been given a goat to celebrate with his friends. And I sat in the chapel thinking: Did he even ask? The text doesn’t say.
Maybe the older brother’s problem is not that he wasn’t given anything beyond his daily needs and the promise of inheritance, but that he didn’t know what he truly wanted, so he never asked for anything more. I suspect his father would have gladly given it. And maybe the younger brother’s boldness was not misguided, but incomplete—a desire without true knowing. Both brothers, in their own ways, are shaped by desire, but neither recognized the fuller invitation—to see beyond what they thought they wanted and discover the abundance that was already theirs.
The father’s response reveals that there is no scarcity. He had already divided the inheritance, giving the younger son his share, which he squanders. And still, the father has an overabundance to welcome him home with robe, sandals, ring, a feast, and to restore him as son. His inheritance reset.
I wondered:
How am I like the older brother—unaware and afraid to name what I want, and so I don’t ask?
Or like the younger—asking boldly, but with malformed desire?
Sometimes the specificity of my prayer is a kind of hedging—an attempt to manage the risk of disappointment by narrowing the ways I can see God respond. This specificity isn’t always about sincerity; sometimes, it’s about self-protection, dressed up as clarity.
I think of Gideon. When God calls him to lead Israel to victory, he asks for a sign. Then another. He lays out a fleece—twice—asking God to bend the laws of nature to confirm what had already been spoken. (Judges 6:36–40, NRSV)
As a child, I liked this story because God answers in a material way (I may have even tried a version myself). Gideon already knew what God had promised, but he wanted assurance on his own terms. Maybe the fleece wasn’t to test God, but a quiet bid for confirmation—a way of asking, Are you sure you mean me?
He saw himself as small, unqualified, unready. Not disobedient—just afraid.
And still, God responds. Not with impatience or punishment, but with tenderness.
God honors Gideon’s fear, meets him inside it, and says yes—again and again.
There’s something deeply comforting in this.
We may come to God with our own tests, our own narrowed hopes, and we are still met.
Not always with the outcome we imagined, but with presence.
With patience.
With love.
I’ve done the same. I’ve prayed very specific prayers—not always because I trusted God to respond, but because I wanted something tangible.
A yes or no I could hold on to.
A measurable outcome to quiet my fear.
As the rhythm of Lent continues, I’m learning how to enter this third space—not just a place of asking, but of unfolding. In this space, prayer becomes an act of discernment. A space where I can honestly name my material needs and desires. Not to grasp at outcomes, but to uncover what animates them. This shifts answers from becoming possessions—something to cling to, prove, or protect—into a process of genuine becoming. It’s not about the answer on the surface, but about the knowing—the transformation that comes as I place my desires, raw, unformed, and sometimes contradictory, into God’s loving care.
To name a desire is not to demand or test, but to begin the work of discernment.
To ask:
What is underneath this desire?
What is the deeper hunger here?
The younger brother’s request is specific, but his truest longing is hidden and malformed, leading to destitution.
The older brother’s desire is buried, vague, and he is embittered.
Both are possessed by their longing, rather than transformed by it.
And maybe that is the deceitfulness of the heart—not in its capacity for evil, but in its confusion. The heart doesn’t always know what it wants. It can name a thing—an outcome, a relationship, a resolution—but that desire may only be a projection. A golden calf fashioned from fear or fantasy. A stand-in for the deeper hunger beneath: not for the thing itself, but for what the thing promises—belonging, safety, love.
When I examined my own specific prayer—a request for a particular kind of provision—I realized that what I truly long for isn’t the exact materiality named. What I long for is stability. Surplus. A deep knowing that I will be cared for. That my needs—seen and unseen—are already being attended to. That I won’t have to strive or scramble or bargain for them to be met.
The specificity of my prayer wasn’t the problem—but it wasn’t the whole truth either. It closed down the possibility of my need being met in any number of creative, unanticipated ways.
Not because I limited God
—but because I limited my desire.
And I think of the times when we pray very specific prayers and do not receive the outcome we hoped for. The disappointment can be deep and disorienting. We are in danger of losing our sense of God’s nearness and care—not because God failed us, but because we came to believe, or were taught, that God’s love and provision are revealed in the fulfillment of a specific request, rather than in the tender excavation of what that request was really about.
When the answer doesn’t come the way we hoped, we may begin to feel abandoned. Sometimes, we reach for familiar reassurances—about timing, about growth, about God’s bigger plan—but what if they don’t reach deep enough? What if the real invitation isn’t to explain away the disappointment, but to ask what it’s uncovering?
What if naming a desire—specifically—isn’t about controlling the outcome, but about holding it up to the light? Letting it be seen, examined, and held in the care of Divine Love?
And what if the answer isn’t the goat, the party, or even the provision—but the unearthing itself, the journey beneath desire?
May we have the courage to name our desires honestly,
the wisdom to release the answers we try to possess,
and the faith to trust that what is truest will be held,
even when we cannot yet name it.
Lauren Shea Little, TnS
Shuttles for the Journey
I learned the term shuttles through the work of Francis Weller, who describes them as prompts or questions that can carry us into deeper interiority. I’ve adopted the image here.
If something in this reflection stirred you, here are a few shuttles you might climb into:
A prayer I’ve been holding…
Underneath I hunger for…
I am kept from naming it by...
Let these questions move with you—not to be answered quickly, but to be lived into, opening the conversation.
An Invitation
As I reflect on these deep questions of prayer and desire, I wonder if others are walking with similar thoughts and questions. The invitation here is for a shared journey—not a destination to be arrived at, but a process of becoming. If this resonates with you, I’m considering offering a small, guided retreat focused on these themes—an opportunity to dive deeper into discerning desires in the care of Divine Love. If you’re interested in being a part of this, I’d love to hear from you.
Perhaps, like me, you’re also finding that the answers to your deepest questions are not possessions to be grasped but a pilgrimage to be walked. Let’s walk together.
Triduum Creative Attention
The next Creative Attention is coming up on Wednesday, April 16th at 12pm, EST. We will be exploring themes of sorrow, desolation, and silence. You can sign up below. If you’re navigating job loss and would like to join, I’d love to offer you a spot—just send me a message.