Dryness of Spirit.
By - Saint Alphonsus De Liguori
St. Francis de Sales said that true devotion and the
true love of God do not consist in the receiving of spiritual
consolations in prayer and other devout exercises,
but in the possession of a resolute will to desire and to
do nothing but what God wills. This is the one end for
which we should apply ourselves to prayer, to Communion,
to mortification, and to every other thing that is pleasing to
God; even though we experience in them no sweet flavor,
and continue in the midst of temptations, and in a desolateness
of spirit. "With dryness of mind and temptations," said St. Teresa,
"the Lord makes trial of those who love him." Even if this
dryness last for the whole of life, let not the soul leave off
prayer; the time will come when all will be abundantly rewarded.
As all masters of the spiritual life recommend, in time
of desolation we ought especially to exercise ourselves
in acts of humility and resignation. There is no better
time for learning our own helplessness and our misery
than when we are barren in prayer, wearied, distracted,
and desolate, without any perceptible fervor, and even
without perceptible desires for making progress in divine
love. At such times let the soul say, " Lord, have mercy
upon me; behold how powerless I am to do a single good
deed." We must besides resign ourselves to the will of
God, and say, " O my God, it is Thy will to keep me
thus in darkness, thus in affliction; may Thy holy will
be ever done. I desire not to be comforted; it is enough
for me to abide solitary to give Thee pleasure." And
thus we ought to persevere in prayer during all its
duration.
The greatest trouble, however, which any one surfers
in prayer is not so much a dryness as a darkness, in
which he finds himself stripped of every good wish, and
tempted to give up faith and hope. Sometimes, in addition,
he experiences violent attacks of temptations, and
such distrust that lie continues in grievous fear of having
even lost the grace of God, and that for his sins God had
driven him from Him, and had abandoned him ; so that lie
looks upon himself as abhorred by God; and therefore at
such times solitude torments him, and meditation seems
to him like a kind of hell. Then must he take courage,
and recollect that this dread of having yielded to temptation
or to despair is simply the dread and the torment of
the soul, but not a voluntary act, and therefore he is
free from sin. At such a time a person really resists
temptation with his will, though, through the darkness
which enshrouds him, he is not able distinctly to perceive
it. And the proof of this is the experience which he has,
that if he were to be tempted knowingly to commit a
single venial sin, his soul, which loves God, would rather
accept death a thousand times.
On this account, we must not trouble ourselves at such
times to attain a certainty that we are in the grace of
God, and that there is no sin in what we are doing.
Thou wouldst then know and be sure that God loves
thee; but at such a time God does not choose to let thee
know it; he wills that thou shouldst only strive to humble
thyself, and trust in his goodness, and resign thyself to
his will. Thou wouldst see that God does not will that
thou shouldst see. For the rest, St. Francis de Sales
says that the resolution which thou hast (at least in thy
will) to love God, and not to cause him deliberately the
slightest displeasure, is an assurance that thou art in the
grace of God. Abandon thyself, therefore, at such times,
to the divine mercy; declare to God that thou desirest
nothing but him and his will, and fear not. Oh, how
dear to the Lord are these acts of confidence and resignation,
accomplished in the midst of this terrible darkness.
For forty-one years, St. Jane Frances of Chantal suffered
these internal pains, accompanied by terrible
temptations, and by fears that she was in a state of sin,
and was abandoned by God. Her pangs were so great
that she was accustomed to say that the thought of death
was the only thing that gave her relief. She was wont
to say, " Sometimes it seems to me that my patience is
exhausted, and that I am on the point of giving up every
thing, and of abandoning myself to perdition." For the
last eight or nine years of her life, her temptations, in
stead of diminishing, became fiercer; so that whether
she was praying or in any occupation, her inward martyrdom
was such as to call forth the compassion of every
one who associated with her. It seemed to her some
times that God had driven her from him, so that to
relieve herself, she turned her thoughts away from God;
but not finding the relief she sought, she turned again to
the contemplation of God, even though he seemed wroth
against her. In meditations, in communions, and other
devout exercises, she experienced nothing but weariness
and torment. She seemed to herself to be like a sick
person overwhelmed with complaints, unable to turn
herself from side to side; dumb, so as not to be able to
explain her sufferings; and blind, so that she could see
no way of escaping from the depths. She seemed to
have lost love, hope, and faith; and, for the rest, she kept
her eyes fixed upon God, resting upon the arm of the
divine will. In a word, St. Francis de Sales used to say
to her that that blessed soul was like a deaf musician
who could sing most admirably, but had no pleasure in
his voice, because he could not hear it.
The soul, therefore, which finds itself tried with dryness,
however it may be oppressed with gloom, must not
lose courage, but trust in the blood of Jesus Christ, and
resign itself to the divine will, and say: "O Jesus, my
hope, and my soul s only love! I deserve no consolations;
give them to those who have always loved Thee; I have
deserved hell, and to be ever abandoned there by Thee,
without hope of ever being able to love Thee. But no,
my Saviour, I accept every pain; punish me as Thou
wilt, but deprive me not of the power of loving Thee.
Take from me everything, except Thyself. Miserable as
I am, I love Thee more than myself, and I give myself
wholly to Thee; I desire to live no more for myself.
Give me strength to be faithful to Thee. O holy Virgin,
hope of sinners! I trust in thy intercession; make me
love my God, who has created and redeemed me."