“Oh, my sisters in Christ! Help me to entreat this of the Lord, Who has brought you together here for that very purpose. This is your vocation; this must be your business; these must be your desires; these your tears; these your petitions.
Let us not pray for worldly things, my sisters. It makes me laugh, and yet it makes me sad, when I hear of the things which people come here to beg us to pray to God for; we are to ask His Majesty to give them money and to provide them with incomes – I wish that some of these people would entreat God to enable them to trample all such things beneath their feet.
Their intentions are quite good, and I do as they ask because I see that they are really devout people, though I do not myself believe that God ever hears me when I pay for such things. The world is on fire. Men try to condemn Christ once again, as it were, for they bring a thousand false witness against Him.
They would raise His Church to the ground – and are we to waste our time upon things which, if God were to grant them, would perhaps bring one soul less to Heaven? No, my sisters, this is no time to treat with God for things of little importance.
Were it not necessary to consider human frailty, which finds satisfaction in every kind of help – and it is always a good thing if we can be of any help to people – I should like it to be understood that it is not for things like these that God should be importuned with such anxiety.”
From the book: The Way of Perfection Saint Teresa Of Avila
Reality Meets Faith 