Archive

One does not die carrying the cross. And yet to pass completely through the night, the man of sin has to die. He can abandon himself to crucifixion, but he cannot crucify himself. That is why the operation has to be brought to completion by God himself.

Jesus prefers leaving me in darkness to giving me a false light which would not be Himself.

Sometimes when I am in such a state of spiritual dryness that not a single good thought occurs to me, I say very slowly the "Our Father," or the "Hail Mary," and these prayers suffice to take me out of myself.

Through this humility acquired by means of self-knowledge, individuals are purged of all those imperfections of the vice of pride into which they fell in the time of their prosperity. Aware of their own dryness and wretchedness, the thought of their being more advanced than others does not even occur in its first movements, as it did before; on the contrary, they realize that others are better.

But God also, by means of this dark and dry night of contemplation, supernaturally instructs in his divine wisdom the soul that is empty and unhindered.

Oh, how powerful over souls is the apostle who remains always at the Spring of living waters; then he can overflow without his soul becoming empty, since he lives in communion with the Infinite!

As to the aridity you are suffering from, it seems to me our Lord is treating you like someone He considers strong: He wants to test you and see if you love Him as much at times of aridity as when He sends you consolations. I think this is a very great favor for God to show you.

For, however dark a night may be, something can always be seen, but in true darkness nothing can be seen; and thus in the night of sense there still remains some light, for the understanding and reason remain, and are not blinded. But this spiritual night, which is faith, deprives the soul of everything, both as to understanding and as to sense. And for this cause the soul in this night says that it was journeying ‘in darkness and secure,’ which it said not in the other.

It's an amusing thing that even though we still have a thousand impediments and imperfections and our virtues have hardly begun to grow -and please, God, they might have begun- we are yet not ashamed to seek spiritual delights in prayer or to complain about dryness.

The most holy, the most general and most necessary practice in the spiritual life is the practice of the presence of God, whereby the soul finds her joy and contentment in His companionship, talking humbly and lovingly to Him always and at all times, without rule or system, but particularly in moments of temptation, of trouble, or spiritual dryness, or revulsion, and especially when we fall into unfaithfulness and sin.