«You don't watch television or look at things going on around you while praying; such things are the
causes of unanswered prayers,» he said.
The most common barriers to prayer are found in personal attitudes, in the social environment, in nervous tension and «spiritual dryness,» in lack of knowledge of how to pray, in intellectual doubts, and in the
frustration of unanswered prayer.
Most of the
bitterness of unanswered prayer comes from the assumption that God will juggle his universe to give us what we plead for if we plead long enough.
As in «The Island,» the continuity of people's efforts in the face of their environment and the unremitting
constancy of their unanswered prayer allow at least the possibility of apprehending God and knowing oneself.
Heaviest of all is the silence of the title — the awful
void of unanswered prayers that overtakes Jesuit priest Father Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) as his faith is tested time and time again.