Competing Desires

June 1, 2025

Amid the anxieties of life, the Lord invites us to seek him in the stillness of our heart

By Supreme Chaplain Archbishop William E. Lori

June 1, 2025

Supreme Chaplain Archbishop William E. Lori

I have to admit it: I felt some anxiety during last month’s papal election. Perhaps I had listened to too many pundits and the election seemed unpredictable. When I heard there was “white smoke,” I turned on my TV. Sitting alone and waiting to learn the result, I realized that I needed to be with others. So I walked across the street to my office building where, before long, 40 or 50 people gathered to watch and wait.

When the announcement was made, my anxiety dissipated, and I rejoiced. Pope Leo was an inspired choice. But there was still much to do — drafting a public statement, doing media interviews, celebrating a Mass of thanksgiving, and more. In the meantime, calls and emails from friends and coworkers came pouring in.

By day’s end, I was tired and thought I’d sleep soundly. But after a few hours, I awakened, still keyed up. I knew I had to center myself. I knew I needed my daily Holy Hour more than ever. There were just too many competing thoughts, questions and desires welling up in my mind and heart. I needed to be quiet and calm.

The next morning, sitting in the chapel of my residence, I was tempted to check out what was being said about Pope Leo. Meanwhile, I continued to receive many email and text messages. But with God’s grace, I put it all aside. It was high time to shut it all down and enter into the Lord’s presence. Sitting there in silence, I understood that competing worries and desires were overwhelming the one thing I should desire the most — to enter into the Lord’s presence, to place myself, my ministry, my life, and my Church in the hands of the One who loves us most and loves us best. In a word, I needed solitude and prayer.

Quiet prayer is not merely a technique for overcoming anxiety, nor a way to acquire a stiff upper lip that masks one’s true feelings. In prayer, we lay at God’s feet all that roils us and all the desires that compete for our attention. Even while at prayer, we may often find ourselves fighting distractions and the same desires that beguile us all day long. When that happens, I find it helpful to repeat a simple phrase from Psalm 62: “My soul, be at rest in God alone.”

When a hurricane or tornado is approaching, we’re told to go to a safe place in the house, like a small interior room or hallway. Our inner self should be like that: a place where we can shelter, if only briefly, from life’s stormy weather.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus teaches us to go into our “inner room” to pray (6:6). The room Jesus refers to is our heart and soul, that place where we are alone with God (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 16). While warning us against making a public display of our piety, Jesus urges us to pray in secret because he also knows we need a sanctuary, a place of refuge. When a hurricane or tornado is approaching, we’re told to go to a safe place in the house, like a small interior room or hallway. Our inner self should be like that: a place where we can shelter, if only briefly, from life’s stormy weather — the storms that hit us from the outside and the ones we ourselves generate.

To be clear, retreating into our inner room, quieting our soul and resting in the Lord, is not an avoidance technique — a way of hiding out or shirking responsibility. Rather, when we quiet our souls and ask for the grace to desire God alone, then we gain the wisdom to evaluate those competing desires that come our way, to sort out which are of God and which are not. As the peace of Christ takes root in us and our trust in God’s love and compassion increases, we find the courage to take a good, honest look at ourselves. We begin to see ourselves as God sees us and others may see us.

My former seminary rector, the late Archbishop Harry J. Flynn, used to say: “Give me an hour before the Blessed Sacrament and eight hours of sleep, and I’ll do anything the Church asks of me.” That’s good advice, don’t you think?

Metal bucket at draw-well in European village.

Competing Desires

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