Dryness in spiritual life - Part 2

DRYNESS IN SPIRITUAL LIFE – PART 2

Cl. Mario D’Couto SDB

            In the reflection ‘Dryness in spiritual life,’ (please check the old posts) I had spoken about the experiences of no consolation in prayer and how we need to remain steadfast despite all that. This reflection is a further elaboration about that particular theme.

            There may be times that when we pray we may not experience ‘good feelings.’ We may feel as if God has withdrawn from us and is far away. This is the time when we need ‘pure faith’ – the kind of faith that believes in God’s constant loving presence, even when there is no consolation or no sensible sign of His nearness.

            Spiritual masters like St. John of the Cross assure us that through such a ‘dark night of the soul’ God is preparing us to experience deeper, more contemplative forms of prayer. In fact the dark night seems to be a necessary period of purification for a more mature relationship with God, just as the endurance of physical separation from his mother prepares the child for a more mature relationship with her.

            Our loving Father is asking us to trust Him even in darkness and lack of consolation. He is making us to identify with His Son on the Cross, who in His dark night of suffering prayed, “My, God, my God why have You deserted me?” (Matthew 27: 47). If we can pray these words with faith then God will help us to gently surrender ourselves to Him as Jesus did while praying, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” (Luke 23: 46)

            The fact of not being able to see and to control the situation is at the heart of every dark night experience. We do not choose it. It falls upon us, with all its heaviness, its meaninglessness, its boredom. We do not see anymore, we do not know anymore. We are no longer in control of the situation. We do have a choice, however, which is either to let go in faith or to become more and more frustrated. In a dark night experience, there is no way out. There is only a way through and that is the way of “letting go.”  Yet that is the most difficult thing to do. We find it hard to let go, we fight a great deal in order to defend our possessions; we refuse to be stripped of our holdings and left alone in the nakedness of our small and limited beings. But, nevertheless, we have to! For it is in such situations that the Father in His tender love gives us an opportunity to face our human condition and to discover on a level of deep intimacy the mercifulness of His love.

            As we grow in wisdom and age before God and people, we also grow in the awareness of our own limitations. We no longer have illusions of unlimited strength, endurance or potential. Our world becomes smaller, but it also becomes more real. Ideally speaking, we have a better awareness of who we are and what we can do. Especially in the beginning phase, this awareness can be painful. We feel a dull emptiness in the face of all the things we are not and all the things we have not done. We may feel little or no consolation from spiritual exercises, the Mass and Sacraments, meditation and spiritual reading. Our faith and trust in God is all that we have and even this has become a kind of darkness, lacking consolation. There is a chastening, a purification taking place in our life of faith.

            Trust in God and patient endurance is the way through the dryness and emptiness of the dark night. This night that we undergo is a normal part in spiritual crisis. We need to know that or we may add guilt and self blame to the difficulties that we are already experiencing. We must surrender ourselves to God and His will for us, believing with all our strength that His grace will be sufficient for us in the midst of the trials that we are enduring. We must attempt to the best of our ability, to see the pain of emptiness not as abandonment or loss but as a time of purification and growth. The faith to which we cling in the midst of the darkness is itself God’s most gracious gift to us. The words of St. Paul to the Corinthians come to mind in this regard, “The trials that you have had to bear are no more than what people normally have. You can trust God not to let you be tried beyond your strength and with any trial He will give a way out of it and the strength to bear it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)




      


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