“Somehow the notion of putting specific requests to God strikes me as unseemly, if not absurd. I squirm when I hear trendy clergymen asking God to attend to our balance of payments, or to adjust the terms of trade more in accordance with the interests of under-developed countries, or to ensure, in a forthcoming general election, that the best man wins. Also, when old-style evangelicals, with, I am sure, utter sincerity, recount how in response to their prayers God made their businesses prosper, or brought them into contact with a particularly lucrative client. In all this field of our material well-being, individual or collective, I can never find anything to say to God except: Thy will be done. If it is true, as St. Paul tells us–and it surely is–that all things work together for good to them that love God, then all that is required of us is that we should love God, and in loving him, fall in with his purposes.”

–From Malcolm Muggeridge’s “Something Beautiful for God: Mother Teresa of Calcutta.”

NOTE: I’ve been reading Muggeridge to my 91-year-old father lately since we both fondly remember the days when William F. Buckley regularly featured author/broadcaster Muggeridge on “Firing Line.” Buckley once described Muggeridge as “perhaps the most eloquent English-speaking lay apostle of Christianity.” I’d argue that Buckley’s conversations with Muggeridge rank among his greatest contributions to public television.