Spiritual director: Topic- aridity, dark night of soul

People continue to discuss the decades long, extensive spiritual aridity experienced by Mother Theresa of Calcutta as revealed in her recently published letters. I’ve blogged on this before, pointing out that prayer life and communion with God requires time and, yes, leisure, lest it be stifled by a one hundred percent absorption in the suffering of humanity. People say they want to be like Jesus, yet forget that he spent a rich amount of his time in prayer, teaching and ministry to those other than the most afflicted. Like compassion fatigue, experienced by social workers, law enforcement, rescue workers and so forth, one cannot and should not think they are able to be 100 percent immersed in the deepest suffering of humanity. A wise, loving and concerned spiritual director (as I am) would gently help such a person to explore their real motivations to relentlessly immerse in the most unmitigated suffering at the total expense of some of the spiritual compensations of the pleasure of life. It is almost like trying to “out do Jesus Christ at being Jesus Christ.” Even the great Prophets of old did not spend 100 percent of their time screaming at and cursing out the incredibly vile sinners of the day. They prophesied when ordered to by God, but also spent time being husbands, fathers and members of their community and enjoying the extent of life so much as the circumstances of the time allowed. I myself tire of what seems like the constant scolding I seem to be delivering in my blogs. While they take only a small percentage of my actual average day’s time, they take a vast amount of my spiritual resources, which could be spent teaching and preaching the love of the Lord and the attendant mysteries and joys. However, when there is exceptional risk of the direst consequences, as there are nowadays, after decades of people who should have known better who soft shoe the consequences of depravity and sin, then one finds oneself shouting quite a bit. So Mother Theresa was sucked into the quagmire of 100 percent immersion in the deepest suffering of humankind. As spiritual director to her I would have questioned why she felt that she was superhuman in that regard.

Today, though, I want to advise my readers about another reason for her spiritual aridity and indeed for the often quoted “dark nights of the soul” that certain saints documented. First, remember, that just because someone is a saint does not mean they never made a mistake and that their example is 100 percent accurate to follow. Christians who seek to be holy-and who seek a personal relationship with Jesus Christ-are vulnerable to a particular temptation. They frequently fall into the temptation of not only expecting an “answer” from Jesus (a sign, dialogue, or better yet, a miracle) but they fall into the temptation of trying to force or trigger a dialogue. Now I’m saying this kindly, but with concern because people do not realize they are doing this. Temptation is always a very subtle thing, and it is often wrapped in the garb of “good intentions” and “spirituality.” Everyone knows that the devil is the master of warping and twisting good intentions. But people are quite good at doing it all on their own, and it all comes back to that problem of pride instead of humility. For example, most Muslims I know would never dream of hoping to “hear” from Allah when they pray. It has become a peculiarly Christian temptation to expect a personal relationship and dialogue with Jesus or the Holy Spirit. Catholics seem to suffer from it because of their understandable joy in reading about the lives of saints who did receive communion of communication with the Lord. Evangelicals Protestants, Pentecostals, and certain denominations suffer from it when they have an expectation of dialogue based on acceptance of Jesus (and or the Holy Spirit) into their lives. Someone who is in your life talks to you, no, especially if you have dedicated your life to Jesus? So there is an unreasonable expectation by many Christians that they will have communication interaction with the Lord. They then miss where there is the true communion with God, which does not take the form they may expect. I think the passage from the Bible I have to most frequently remind people of is this one:

The He said [to Elijah], “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind was an earthquake: but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire: but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. .. Then the Lord said to him… (1 Kings 11-12, 15).

Even to Elijah the Lord spoke to him in “a still small voice.” Conversation, in general, cannot be had with the Lord, and it certainly cannot be cajoled or forced. Focusing on expectations of the grand certainty of messages from God causes one to miss the still small voice when it does occur. One expects being slain in the spirit, or a clear sign from God, or Jesus’ voice in one’s head or a miracle (wind, earthquake, or fire) and then misses the still small voice that is the authentic communion with the Lord.

And there is a worse risk than “just” missing out on perceiving the still small voice that is the authentic communion with the Lord. When one tries to force prayer fruitfulness and communion, one opens one’s soul in an unedited and unguarded way, by straining to contact “out there” with the Lord. And this is when the dark spiritual attacks take place. God is not “sending” or “allowing” the devil to torment or “purify through suffering” the saint. The saint has allowed entry by bad spirits into his or her soul by straining to receive an entitlement feeling communication with God. Everyone knows, for example, that playing with a device like an Ouija board allows unedited communication with one’s own dark tendencies and the thoughts of others. Saints and also plain good folk who too avidly seek a verifiable and on demand communication with God, are inadvertently reaching out in the same unedited and unprotected way as the Ouija board user risks. When one prays with an expectation tinged with desperation and some forcing/testing of God one opens the channel in one’s own soul that courts temptation of thought. This is why such holy people have had some incredibly depraved visions and temptations of sacrilege and desecration and called them “satanic attack” and “dark night of the soul.” All humans have that wiring, that problem with custody of the eyes, and custody of thoughts. That is the fallen, broken, woundedness of the human spirit. That is why Jesus taught people how to pray to God. Jesus taught the “Our Father” so that one would always have a perfect way to communicate to God. Jesus did not say you would get a response. When one prays in expectation of a response, one is opening up the channels to anything that is supernatural in feeling. One’s own human wiring and base temptations take a very supernatural feeling and form with very little effort, especially if one is tremendously stressed (either through self deprivation, scruples, excessive religiosity, or tremendous secular stress, such as Mother Theresa type of vocation). The last thing God wants is for wounded people to be in “on mode” all of the time for supernatural communication.

So I hope these further thoughts on this important topic serve as helpful spiritual direction. I’m concerned that there is too much Catholic spin out of a defensive posture without discerning the points I’ve made here. I’m hearing a little too much of “well, we should not be surprised that Mother Theresa had this spiritual aridity, since the saints told us this would happen and we should offer our suffering up to God.” Well, it is true that suffering can be offered up beneficially to God, but that is not the point. The point is that like a doctor with symptoms, rather than saying, “Oh yes, these saints had the same symptoms so it is all good” people should be saying, “Uh oh. Some saints really suffered from this and what might be the problem with what they were trying to do, and what we are trying to do today.” Shared symptoms are not a confirmation of correct action. It is a great tribute to saints and laity who persevere in faith through adversity, suffering, and spiritual aridity. But that does not mean that a good spiritual director should not diagnose the cause of the spiritual attack and alleviate it. The Catholic faith is not so weak that it must never admit that saints sometimes over did it and sometimes pushed too hard. That is why we have a structured set of prayers, such as the Our Father, the Rosary, the liturgy, and a wealth of prayer by the Early Fathers and saints to draw us in communion toward God; not to try to force God in conversation. It really is as simple as it was for Elijah who recognized the still small voice.