If you have never had any distractions you don't know how to pray. For the secret of prayer is a hunger for God and for the vision of God, a hunger that lies far deeper than the level of language or affection And a man whose memory and imagination are persecuting him with a crowd of useless or even evil thoughts and images may sometimes be forced to pray far better, in the depths of his murdered heart, than one whose mind is swimming with clear concepts and brilliant purposes and easy acts of love...
It is the will to pray that is the essence of prayer, and the desire to find God, to see him and to love Him is the one thing that matters. If you have desired to know Him and love Him, you have already done what was expected of you...
No matter how distracted you may be, pray by peaceful, even perhaps inarticulate, efforts to center your heart upon God, who is present in you in spite of all that may be going through your mind. His presence does not depend on your thoughts of Him. He is unfailingly there; if He were not, you could not even exist. The memory of His unfailing presence is the surest anchor for our minds and hearts in the storm of distraction and temptation by which we must be purified.
-Thomas Merton
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