THERE’s a line in the Letter of St James that can read like a smack across the face. We are told: “Why you don’t have what you want is because you don’t pray for it; when you do pray and don’t get it, it is because you have not prayed properly.”

Is that really so? I received a letter recently from an American friend. It was a long time since I had heard from her, although her husband had kept me abreast of their news. In 1988 she was in a car accident and since then has never been free of pain, intense and focused, accompanied by flu-like aches and fever. She has fought against it, but nothing has helped. Now she is being told that she has an autoimmune disease which is not yet identifiable.

In her letter she writes: “I just don’t know what to pray for any more. It seems none of my prayers have been heard, much less answered. . . . Spiritually, I feel little but emptiness. I’ve tried to keep my faith, but I can find no solace in it, no joy in it.”

She continues: “In an effort to understand and accept this suffering, I’ve begged God to show me why this is happening, not just to me, but to my family. I beg for a way to overcome this condition, or at least cope with it better.” And she adds: “I keep thinking about God’s reassurance that He will allow no more suffering than we can stand, but I have to say that I don’t much believe that encouragement any more.”

Is she not getting what she wants because she isn’t praying properly? And when we pray in time of crisis to avert disaster and our prayer goes unanswered, is it our fault? Are we, too, not praying properly?

We must be fair to St James. He was not laying down some general principle, but calling to order people who had become slack and thought they could use prayer as a quick fix for their shallow desires. Their prayers went unanswered because they were not serious. But is there any help or hope that can be offered to those like my friend whose honest prayers go unanswered?

No glib reply will do, but perhaps we need not be struck dumb altogether. And one clue to a response may indeed be found in her letter (which I am using with her permission). She begins like this: “I’m almost ashamed to write after so long, but I’ve decided I must pull myself out of my self-imposed isolation. Contacting old friends is my best first step.”

So often, when afflicted by pain, crisis, or tragedy, we do what she has done, we turn in on ourselves. Our suffering absorbs us, which is entirely understandable. But if that attitude prevails it can lead to a kind of entombment. We become buried, sinking into a sort of grave. Somehow, although it may take a long time, that attitude must be overcome. Like my friend we have to shift our disposition and break free from self-imposed isolation. When we do so, we may begin to discover, not perhaps the answer we had expected, but one of another kind.

Close to where I live there is a dramatic symbol of that, the monastery at Tre Fontane, the three fountains, where it is believed that St Paul was put to death.

The place acquired its name because, according to legend, when Paul was martyred, his severed head bounced, striking the ground three times, and from each spot a spring of water sprang — and so the three fountains. Whatever we may think of the legend, the lesson is full of power: there are no wounds, however incurable they may seem, which cannot become fountains, sources, of new life.

To acknowledge that truth and cling to it is not like balm, soothing and eliminating suffering. If only it could. But it can draw the sting. We may still feel the pain, but it no longer enslaves us, we are no longer its victims. Little by little, as our disposition shifts, our wounds become fountains and we find, not perhaps the answer we had hoped for, but another one which can still refresh and renew us.

Monsignor Roderick Strange is the Rector of the Pontifical Beda College, Rome