“Let us persevere in prayer,” the Rev. Greg Luger wrote in an essay on why we should continue to pray even when our prayers are not answered.

When your prayers do not seem to be working, continue to pray anyway, Luger told the Diocese of Bismarck, North Dakota. He cites the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas. “...Our Lord does not just look at one’s desire, but rather the helpfulness of what is desired. For the good Lord often denies what we ask in order to give us what we should prefer (Aquinas, Commentary on John),” Luger writes. 

Luger said that even when you are praying for something good, what you are praying for may not be useful for your salvation. The Lord may not give it to you. Luger refers to St. Paul’s letters (2 Corinthians 12:8). In the passage, St. Paul asks three times for the Lord to take away a thorn from his side. God does not always do what we ask, but, like St. Paul, we can trust that we are in the Lord's care, Luger told the diocese. 

Sometimes we pray for a loved one who has gone astray, Luger said.

“Jesus ‘sometimes postpones what we ask so that our desire for it will increase and so that he can grant it at the right time,’” Luger quote Aquinas in his letter to the diocese.

Luger urged the faithful to continue to pray and trust in the Lord even when it does not seem that the Lord is answering our prayers.