By Susan Brinkmann
CS&T Correspondent
Sooner or later, it happens to all of us. Sweet, consoling prayer gives
way to a dry, distracted emptiness. Suddenly, we find no solace in prayer,
no warm feelings, no divine revelations, no comfort.
The great mystical Doctor of the Church, Teresa of ávila, reassures
us that what might feel like a waste of time may actually be prayer at
its finest moment.
Assuming that the pray-er has not deliberately fallen into mediocrity
and is striving to practice Christian virtue, dry and distracted prayer
may be a sign of growth.
“Sometimes the ability to pray is taken from us by the mercy of
God; and, for many reasons,” the saint once wrote to her brother,
Lorenzo. “I would say that it is almost as great a mercy when He
takes it away as when He gives it in abundant measure.”
For starters, being deprived of the feeling of closeness to God can increase
our yearning for Him.
“Desolation in prayer sharpens the yearning in an earnest person,
and this can only be a blessing, for the Lord fills the hungry with good
things,” writes Father Thomas Dubay in his book, “Fire Within,”
which is based on the writing of St. Teresa of ávila and her contemporary,
St. John of the Cross.
A second reason is that “fidelity in the midst of aridity proves
that we are seeking God and not merely our own satisfaction,” Father
Dubay writes. “Difficult prayer distinguishes the spiritually mature
from the immature.”
A third reason is that dryness in devotion “offers a vivid experience
of our ineptness, our finitude,” he writes. “We learn concretely
what we may have thus far understood only in theory, namely, that without
the Lord we can do nothing at all.”
Thus, we are further grounded in humility, he says, which will protect
us when divine favors return and threaten to “puff us up.”
In addition, he tells us, “When one remains faithful despite desolation,
the theological virtues are deepened.”
When we are stripped of supports such as consolations and spiritual favors,
we tend to cling to the Trinity more out of faith, hope and love than
out of mere habit: “(T)his person is advancing rapidly, even though
feelings may be as absent as moisture on desert sand,” he writes.
Finally, empty prayer is indispensable because it burns away many imperfections
such as impatience, worldly inclinations, vanities and laxness.
Distractions are another factor in difficult prayer. As St. Teresa observed,
some minds are more unruly than others, most notably her own.
“On the vigil of St. Lawrence, just after receiving Communion, my
mental faculties were so scattered and distracted I couldn’t help
myself,” she wrote, “and I began to envy those who live in
deserts and to think that since they don’t hear or see anything
they are free of this wandering of mind. I heard: ‘You are greatly
mistaken, daughter; rather, the temptations of the devil there are stronger;
be patient, for as long as you live, a wandering mind cannot be avoided.’”
In fact, distractions at prayer “are a necessary consequence of
the woundedness of our human nature,” Father Dubay writes.
Unfortunately, many of us have not yet come to grips with just how wounded
we really are, and we expect to be what we are not. “We suffer terrible
trials because we do not understand ourselves,” St. Teresa writes,”
and we worry over what is not bad at all, but good, and think it very
wrong.”
As Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen teaches in his book, “Union
with God,” we need to learn “that our sanctification is not
just the result of our own activity, but is principally the Lord’s
work, work that we have to endure, accept, and further. . . . (I)t should
not surprise us that the Lord comes to meet us not with sweetness but
with trial.”
The closer we come to God, the more purification we need, particularly
from self-love — which is often too subtle for us to detect. Father
Gabriel gives a good example: “We want to pray, yes, to please God;
but when everything goes well, it is so easy for us to seek ourselves
a little also, desiring consolations and comforts in which we find satisfaction
and pleasure.”
God wants to free us from these weaknesses, especially if He sees that
a soul is truly determined to love Him and is willing to prove it by their
practice of renunciation and fidelity to mental prayer.
“These souls are generous with the Lord, and He who is never lacking
in generosity will come to meet them to introduce them to a higher plane
of spiritual life,” Father Gabriel says. “Precisely for this
reason does He have them fall into aridity.”
Great benefits await those souls who persevere at prayer during the dry
times. They will begin to “know God in a new way that gives it a
higher and more exact concept of Him,” Father Gabriel writes.
We will also come to know ourselves in a more realistic manner, which
then makes us more sympathetic toward the faults of our neighbors.
“The knowledge of its own indigence and poverty also renders the
soul more indulgent in its judgements of its neighbor, and it is thus
that its fraternal charity becomes more delicate,” Father Gabriel
writes. “Particularly, the soul learns to do good works no longer
for the enjoyment that it finds in them as it did at first, which was
the basis of many imperfections: It remains deprived of these sensitive
comforts [and] learns to act by pure will, and this is a big step for
it in the spiritual life.”
Letting go of an attachment to comfort in prayer usually means letting
go of other attachments as well, he says: “Most often it is also
attached to many external things: to goods of fortune, to health, to its
good name, to the favor of others . . .”
The result is that, little by little, the soul “is freed from the
influence of sensible impressions, which render life unstable like the
impressions themselves. The soul becomes much more stable,” he addes.
Many spiritual masters refer to aridity in prayer as the “crusty
bread,” while consolations are the “milk” of children.
The “milk” is certainly necessary because it’s the proper
food for the infant. “But obviously there is great progress when
one can leave the milk aside and take more solid food,” Father Gabriel
writes.
“This more solid food is contemplation that has begun to take the
place of meditation,” he says. “It is only a matter of the
beginning of this great grace . . . but this is already precious for the
soul, and puts it on the way of contemplative union with God. So there
is reason to give thanks to the Lord for this.”
The ways of the Lord are mysterious, he concludes. “It would seem
that aridity should deprive the soul of its spiritual treasure and instead
it enriches it immensely. . . . What a benefit for us to be able to understand
it!”
Contact
Susan Brinkmann at fiat723@aol.com or (215) 965-4615