aeternus

Yeah!  We made it to the festival day!  

Thank you St.Teresa who has helped to get me through the past few days of trial.  I kept thinking about her during this time especially her advice on determination in prayer. In her book, The Interior Castle (a must read)  Teresa gives excellent advice on the goal of contemplative prayer and the way to spiritual perfection. 

One paragraph which I thought of today on her feast day is when Teresa writes on those beginning prayer.  I think it is good advice to all who pray because there are times when a soul must re-remind itself about the importance of determination in prayer and determination to unite their little will with God’s perfect Will!  

This advice Teresa writes early on in her book in Chapter 2. I hope you enjoy her “symbolisms” where she compares the attacks we must face against our own will as to those of “poisonous little reptiles!”  what a hoot!

      “The whole aim of any person who is beginning prayer - and don’t forget this, because it’s very important - should be that he work and prepare himself with determination and every possible effort to bring his will into conformity with God’s will.  Be certain that, as I shall say later, the greatest perfection attainable along the spiritual path lies in this conformity.  It is the person who lives in more perfect conformity who will receive more from the Lord and be more advanced on this road.  Don’t think that in what concerns perfection these is some mystery or things unknown or still to be understood, for in perfect conformity to God’s will lies all our good.  Now then, if we err in the beginning, desiring that the Lord do our will at once and lead us according to what we imagine, what kind of stability will this edifice have?  Let us strive to do what lies in our power and guard ourselves against these poisonous little reptiles, for the Lord often desires that dryness and bad thoughts afflict and pursue us without our being able to get rid of them.  Sometimes He even permits these reptiles to bite us so that afterward we may know how to guard ourselves better and that He may prove whether we are greatly grieved by having offended Him.”

This advice Teresa gives us to “conform” our wills as being the way to spiritual perfection really hits home with me as a mother.  I remember my children being  2 years old and teaching them to “conform their wills to mine (as a mother that is…) and letting them fall (when it wasn’t too dangerous) just to prove to them how what I was trying to teach them was best.  As a mother I was not trying to be mean only to teach.  As our most heavenly perfect Lord, He obviously only wants us to learn.  He only wants to help us conform and unite our wills, our souls and our love in a perfect union of Father and child.

At the end of Chapter 2 Teresa sums up her advice regarding the “war of the faculties”  we wage against our own will and within our own person as we strive to grow in prayer and spiritual perfection.  MInd you she is using symbolism again here when she talks of “attacks by wild animals” she is referring to how difficult it is to learn to purge ourselves of imperfection. Teresa says:

      “What hope can we have of finding rest outside of ourselves if we cannot be at rest within.  We have so many great and true friends and relatives (which are our faculties) with whom we must always live, even though we may not want to.  But from what we feel, these seem to be warring against us because what our vices have done to them.  Peace, peace, the Lord said my Sisters; and He urged His apostle so many times.  Well, believe me , if we don’t obtain and have peace in our own house well not find it outside.  Let this war be ended.  Through the blood He shed for us I ask those who have not begun, not to let the war make them turn back.  Let these latter reflect that a relapse is worse than a fall;  they already see their loss.  Let them trust in the mercy of God and not at all in themselves, and they will see ho His Majesty brings them from the dwelling places of one stage to those of another and settles them in a land where these wild animals cannot touch or tire them, but where they themselves will bring all these animals into subjection and scoff at them.  And they shall enjoy many more blessing than one can desire - blessing even in this life, I mean.”

Teresa’s words are so helpful to me, she has a way of putting my mind at ease and being able to keep up the battle of conforming my will.  I believe totally in her direction and I trust that one day I will be able to scatter these snakes, wild animals and vile reptiles to all the distant corners of my mind where I will look upon them easily and without fear.  

Thank you Teresa for your great service to the church by teaching those who seek prayer and endeavor to walk the difficult road of the spiritual life.  Praise be your goodness and love as you teach us to navigate towards out eternity through determination and perseverance of spirit!  

Praise be Jesus Christ, now and forever!

The time of spiritual desolation is also a time for being resigned. When a soul begins to cultivate the spiritual life, God usually showers his consolations upon her to wean her away from the world; but when he sees her making solid progress, he withdraws his hand to test her and to see if she will love and serve him without the reward of sensible consolations. “In this life,” as St. Teresa used to say, “our lot is not to enjoy God, but to do his holy will.” And again, “Love of God does not consist in experiencing his tendernesses, but in serving him with resolution and humility.” And in yet another place, “God’s true lovers are discovered in times of aridity and temptation.”

Let the soul thank God when she experiences his loving endearments, but let her not repine when she finds herself left in desolation. It is important to lay great stress on this point, because some souls, beginners in the spiritual life, finding themselves in spiritual aridity, think God has abandoned them, or that the spiritual life is not for them; thus they give up the practice of prayer and lose what they have previously gained. The time of aridity is the best time to practice resignation to God’s holy will. I do not say you will feel no pain in seeing yourself deprived of the sensible presence of God; it is impossible for the soul not to feel it and lament over it, when even our Lord cried out on the cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me[3]?” In her sufferings, however, the soul should always be resigned to God’s will.

The saints have all experienced desolations and abandonment of soul. “How impervious to things spiritual, my heart!” cries a St. Bernard. “No savor in pious reading, no pleasure in meditation nor in prayer!” For the most part it has been the common lot of the saints to encounter aridities; sensible consolations were the exceptions. Such things are rare occurrences granted to untried souls so that they may not halt on the road to sanctity; the real delights and happiness that will constitute their reward are reserved for heaven. This earth is a place of merit which is acquired by suffering; heaven is a place of reward and happiness. Hence, in this life the saints neither desired nor sought the joys of sensible fervor, but rather the fervor of the spirit toughened in the crucible of suffering. “O how much better it is,” says St. John of Avila, “to endure aridity and temptation by God’s will than to be raised to the heights of contemplation without God’s will!”

But you say you would gladly endure desolation if you were certain that it comes from God, but you are tortured by the anxiety that your desolation comes by your own fault and is a punishment for your tepidity. Very well, let us suppose you are right; then get rid of your tepidity and exercise more diligence in the affairs of your soul. But because you are possibly experiencing spiritual darkness, are you going to get all wrought up, give up prayer, and thus make things twice as bad as they are?

Let us assume that this aridity is a punishment for your tepidity. Was it not God who sent it? Accept your desolation, as your just desserts and unite yourself to God’s holy will. Did you not say that you merited hell? And now you are complaining? Perhaps you think God should send you consolations! Away with such ideas and be patient under God’s hand. Take up your prayers again and continue to walk in the way you have entered upon; for the future, fear lest such laments come from too little humility and too little resignation to the will of God. Therefore be resigned and say: “Lord, I accept this punishment from thy hands, and I accept it for as long as it pleases thee; if it be thy will that I should be thus afflicted for all eternity, I am satisfied.” Such a prayer, though hard to make, will be far more advantageous to you than the sweetest sensible consolations.

It is well to remember, however, that aridity is not always a chastisement; at times it is a disposition of divine providence for our greater spiritual profit and to keep us humble. Lest St. Paul become vain on account of the spiritual gifts he had received, the Lord permitted him to be tempted to impurity: “And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me, there was given me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me[4].”

Prayer made amid sensible devotion is not much of an achievement: “There is a friend, a companion at the table, and he will not abide in the day of distress[5].” You would not consider the casual guest at your table a friend, but only him who assists you in your need without thought of benefit to himself. When God sends spiritual darkness and desolation, his true friends are known.

More tomorrow…

Uniformity With God’s Will

Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri Chapter 6 — Spiritual Desolation.

“Perfection is founded entirely on the love of God: ‘Charity is the bond of perfection;’ and perfect love of God means the complete union of our will with God’s.”

– St. Alphonsus

Translated by Thomas W. Tobin, C.SS.R

• [3] Matt. 27:46.

  [4] 2 Cor. 12:7.