Dark Night Of The Soul And Dryness Support Group

[tinytherese]

Thought that this thread would be helpful. Some us here need it. I'm going to talk to my parish priest when I go home for break but any advice from the phamily?

[Lilllabettt]

Don't give in to the temptation to give up on your spiritual life. At some point you may say to yourself, I'm so tired, I can let this stuff slide this once.

I know I told myself, well, I'm still doing the essentials (sunday Mass/Confession) so its okay, just while I'm in such a bad way. But it led to some serious backsliding. And in the end, when things are tough, that's when you need "this stuff" the most.

[puellapaschalis]

I've no clue. I manage Vespers most days but Lauds doesn't seem to get done, and once I'm home from work I'm so exhausted Vespers is a struggle. Sunday Mass is a half-hour rush job with a priest who really doesn't want to be there.

My director is often the only thing keeping me from just jacking it all in sometimes. Thank God for directors!

[Noel's angel]

Don't worry about whether the priest wants to be there or not. That's on his conscience.

I'd repeat the sentiments of lilllabettt's post. Keep struggling on. If you feel like you have nothing to give God, give Him your nothingness. I find that reading books about the Saints and their struggles often helps put things into perspective.

[puellapaschalis]

[quote name='Noel's angel' post='1722312' date='Dec 8 2008, 01:11 PM']Don't worry about whether the priest wants to be there or not. That's on his conscience.[/quote]

True, but when there aren't many people there anyway and you're seen as one of the "organisers" then you feel a certain responsibility to try and make the Mass "right" for others. And then the priest gets shirty with me for scampering off to Mass in a different city every now and then: I wonder if he understands that I need to "escape" because the priests there are more focused on the Mass and what's going on than on how many people are in the church, or how loudly he can read his homily out to us, or how quick he can get the whole thing done and dusted. It sounds horrible but we (I'm not the only one) really get the impression that he sees it as a waste of time

[quote name='Noel's angel' post='1722312' date='Dec 8 2008, 01:11 PM']I'd repeat the sentiments of lilllabettt's post. Keep struggling on. If you feel like you have nothing to give God, give Him your nothingness. I find that reading books about the Saints and their struggles often helps put things into perspective.[/quote]

Thanks, I'll try. My Godson gave me a copy of "Come, be my light" (the Dutch translation) for my birthday: I've only read a bit of it but that little is quite amazing.

[philothea]

I'm sorry to hear about your troubles... I'll definitely be praying for you. You haven't said what you're going through, or how you've tried to deal with it, so I can't offer any specific suggestions. I'd be happy to hear more and offer what help I can.

In any case, this book: [url="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0898702631?ie=UTF8&tag=amberdine-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0898702631"]Fire Within[/url], by Fr. Thomas Dubay, about contemplative prayer, is immensely helpful for anyone devoted to prayer. And the new edition has a much prettier cover than my old copy, too...

[Noel's angel]

Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but are you possibly focusing too much on the priest and not enough on the Mass? It's easily done, especially if the priest isn't doing what we think he should be....but, well, you know...

[tinytherese]

[quote name='philothea' post='1722494' date='Dec 8 2008, 12:44 PM']I'm sorry to hear about your troubles... I'll definitely be praying for you. You haven't said what you're going through, or how you've tried to deal with it, so I can't offer any specific suggestions. I'd be happy to hear more and offer what help I can.

In any case, this book: [url="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0898702631?ie=UTF8&tag=amberdine-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0898702631"]Fire Within[/url], by Fr. Thomas Dubay, about contemplative prayer, is immensely helpful for anyone devoted to prayer. And the new edition has a much prettier cover than my old copy, too... [/quote]

Yes I've read that book but its been a while. I'll elaborate more or what I've been through and am still going through later on though since the next week and half or so are going to be crazy with the semester ending and all of the work that our professors are giving us.

Thank you for the prayers.

[puellapaschalis]

[quote name='Noel's angel' post='1722635' date='Dec 9 2008, 12:24 AM']Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but are you possibly focusing too much on the priest and not enough on the Mass? It's easily done, especially if the priest isn't doing what we think he should be....but, well, you know...[/quote]

Quite possibly, although for the others who have the same thing I don't know if it would be quite so possible (if that makes sense). What I see as being the problem - blame the TLM and all the brilliant [i]ad orientem[/i] Masses I went to in Toronto, I suppose? - is that I find it hard to look at the altar and [i]not[/i] miss the very present priest there glowering at me.

He does everything that he has to - nothing more, nothing less - but he clearly wants to get it over with as soon as possible. Nothing like feeling you're a waste of the priest's time to give you a kick-start to the week

(I didn't want to hijack the thread, sorry )

[tinytherese]

[Fr. Antony Maria OSB]

I haven't experienced the Dark Night or very intense spiritual dryness, but to echo what Noel's Angel said, reading works of the saints might be a great help. Perhaps try the Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila: I read that last year, and it goes through many of the struggles a soul goes through in its journey to God, and she speaks extensively about the Dark Night.

[Lilllabettt]

I personally recommend:

[url="http://www.amazon.com/Believe-Love-Personal-Retreat-Teaching/dp/1928832288/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229046557&sr=8-1"]I Believe in Love[/url]

This one uses St. Therese and St. Francis de Sales and is TRULY excellent in explaining how to trust God, and not be depressed by failure

and

[url="http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Interior-Life-Luis-Martinez/dp/1928832873/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229046606&sr=1-1"]Secrets of the Interior Life[/url]

This one is a fairly simple straightforward explaination of how the dark night of the soul is a spiritually fertile environment ... if any book could teach how to (enjoy? relish? appreciate? seaching for the right word ..) the dark night, this would be it. It relies on St. John of the Cross (St. Therese is in there, too.)

[tinytherese]

Sorry for taking so long. An extensive post will follow. So get ready.

[tinytherese]

Thank you for your patience. A lot of time was put into this and there were some distractionis along the way.

It started when I ignorantly got involved in a schismatic group (which I am no longer apart of) in the later part of summer 2006. This led to me to seriously believe that the novus ordo mass was not a valid one after some research (from the wrong souces actually.) I stopped receiving communion and later on quit attending mass. This may be hard to believe but I wasn't doing this out of a sense of pride but I thought that I was acting out of love for Our Lord. The idea that so many masses would be invalid horrified me and I didn't want to hurt my Beloved by receiving a false eucharist. I endured misunderstanding from some of my family and interrogations about it from my lawyer mom, which isn't easy for someone with my temperament to do deal with that sort of thing. I felt like a kitten against a full grown lion. All of this conflict and confusion was to be born out of love for the one that I loved the most. I could not in good conscience receive communion from that new mass. Since there was no traditional latin mass in my area i got talked into not attending the new mass which meant that I didn't go to any mass for weeks. Fortunately, I converted, repented, confessed, and did penance for all of this.

Not long before I came to my senses and seeing the error of my misguided thinking or perhaps that was just afterwards, I started having difficulty praying the rosary. Meditating on the mysteries became much harder and I had been praying them daily for over three years. I was seventeen at the time.

My senior year of high school was stressful what with trying to find a traditional religious community that was in full union with Rome. I became more aware of what I would be giving up by becoming a nun. For the years that I had already been discerning, particularly desiring to be a discalced carmelite I thought that the wait for finally answering the call was already too long. I wanted to be with my Beloved for good. Oh, how deeply in love with Our Lord I was at the time!
We had been through so much together whether it was spiritually or emotionally. I had this enduring hope that no matter what happened, I knew that we would get through whatever it was and that it was all a test. That's how it had been between us ever since my conversion from being a half-hearted catholic to a full hearted one. I think of my conversion as a beautiful love story. Now things seemed different. I was getting cold feet but kept walking onward despite feeling that answering my call may not even be right or at least not be the right time for doing so. I recalled how in the Pride and Prejudice movie that came out in 2005 that at one point when one of the ladies was proposed to that she said, "Yes, a thousand times yes!" Could I say the same in regards to my own engagement? I visited the Benedictines of Mary Queen of Ephesus, but it didn't work out with them.

So I got into college but the summer before the start of the semester, my spiritual problems increased. Prayer was even [i]more[/i] difficult. It was harder to concentrate on the rosary and spontaneous prayer where my heart was lifted up to heaven wasn't happening anymore. I knew that love was far more than simply romantic feelings. I had wanted to stay with the Lord through both the good times and the bad even if I didn't have a vocation to the religious life. As I said earlier, we had been through difficult times before but not like this. This felt more intense then dry spells that I had had in the past. I felt dead inside. No I didn't have depression, because apart from my spiritual troubles there wasn't so much else that was bad. Besides I wasn't suicidal and I did find enjoyment in doing other activities.

I felt as if Our Lord was either very far from me or...hmm how do I put this? Have you ever had an experience where someone that you love is right by you but it feels as if they're heart, mind, and spirit are off somewhere else? That's how it felt a lot with Jesus. Right there with me yet distant. I was feeling so much pain. The love between us was cold instead of on fire like before. I didin't want to whine or complain to Him because I had read that even this experience was supposed to be a gift from my Beloved and to love whatever He sent to me. Loving the gift for the sake of the Beloved and to be willing to endure even more suffering for Him. As I've heard it before, if I really was to become a Bride of Christ then I would need to carry His cross with Him. I would have to suffer out of love for Him. I needed to lose everything in order to gain far more. I felt guilty for not living up any of this. I wished that it was all over but I would dare not ask Him for it because I didn't want to hurt Him. I had the feeling that if I did ask to even relieve some of the pain that He would be sad and say, "Can't you do this for me? You say that you love me but do you really?" So I just passively surrendered to what was going on around me and cried at least once that summer.

Later on though I had this thought that Christ suffered and died for me and I should suffer and "die" to for Him. It would be my own sorrowful passion. So I resolve to try to do it for love of Him with this thought in my mind. It didn't last though. It still was difficult and I struggled a lot. It was so painful.

Starting college at a secular school was quite the experience for me. I had gone to Catholic schools since preschool and this was a different world. Unfortunately, there is no Newman Center at my school or a F.O.C.U.S. group. I did volunteer to assist with CCD classes at the only catholic parish in town, mainly to keep the third and fourth graders in line, help them with the activities that the teacher gave to them, and taught two lessons myself. My allegiance to Rome was challenged and strengthened and I grew to have a missionary spirit about me, but the relationship that I had with Our Lord was still not good.

People around me didn't know this but I secretly just broke down during the fall of last year spiritually. I couldn't take the passivity anymore. "That's it! I will no longer be the victim!" I said nasty things to Our Lord. I verbally abused Him because I wanted to make Him suffer after all of the pain that He was putting me through. I had held back my feelings before, but then errupted like a volcano that had supressed itself for a long time. I saw Jesus as very cruel person who was intentionally hurting me. I didn't trust Him anymore and when you can't trust God who can you trust?

I kept ruminating on songs that I thought was related to my situation. Avril Lavine's "You were everything, everything that I wanted. We were meant to be, supposed to be but we lost it...So much for my happy ending." Or that Because of You song that Kelly Clarkson sings. "Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk. Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt. Because of you I find it hard to trust not only me but everyone around me. Because of you I am afraid." I felt so numb and broken. He had been my life. I had been willing to give Him everything, all of me in the religious life. "And this was how He was repaying me?" I thought. I have been known to be a person that perseveres and doesn't give up. I do everything possible to stick it out. I had been waiting and trying and trying to make this work but our relationship still wasn't working. I was very hurt and angry about that.

I read this book by C.S. Lewis called "The Great Divorce" that was actually of good help to me. It was his own account of him grieving over the death of his beloved wife and his tremendous struggle of faith--his anger at God for lettinig it happen. I grew so much from reading it because throughout the short book he learns to forgive God and to see that God is not a sadistic torturer in the lives of human beings afterall. In my english composition class, we were supposed to write a paper about a problem either in our own lives or a problem in the world and how to solve that problem. My composition was about learning to trust in God again or how to trust in Him for the first time. I wrote it more for my own healing than anything else. I cited "The Great Divorce," a booklet called "Pure Womanhood," scripture, and maybe other sources as well throughout the work. Writing this did help me and the verbal abusing and hurtful lashes out at Our Lord went down. Unfortunately though, it didn't last.

Weeks later I was at it again and I even grew to hate Jesus one day. Hatred feels awful physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Years ago, I was told that you have to love someone before you can hate them, and it was then that I saw the truth in that statement. During this time I didin't think that Jesus loved me anymore. Do you know how that feels? To feel that JESUS doens't love you? Is there a worst feeling in the world? Very deep down I knew that He really did love me, so I pictured Him comforting me in my mind. I had the image of Him holding me in His arms, stroking my back, and gently reassuring me that He really did love me. Yet I still faced an inward struggle in my soul. I wanted to trust in Him again but I didn't want to put everything into Him again only to get my heart broken again.

Fortunately, I got better. No longer blaming Our Lord for my spiritual problems as if He was a great villain. I still struggled praying the rosary and feelings of piety were rare and short. Last May I decided to only pray one mystery of the rosary a day. I thought of making the mysteries more meaningful and less about cramming five rosary decades in a day. So I said the same mystery everyday for a week and that was the charism for the week. I would reflect on it in a different way for seven days. Then I would move onto the next one. I did this for twenty weeks for each of the mysteries in order to deepen my prayer life. It did improve it slightly, but not as much as I hoped that it would. After the twenty weeks were up I started not saying the same mystery for a week but the first mystery of that week. Monday the Annunciation, tuesday the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, etc. Then moved onto the second mystery that next week and so on. After those five weeks were over I started just saying whatever mystery that I felt like meditating on for that day. These months of meditating though really weren't satisfying to me though. Meditating just seemed so predictable, or boring, or just plain hard to focus on. So I haven't prayed the rosary in weeks because of how uninteresting it now is. "The Third Mystery, Pentecost...Oh, like I haven't reflected on that loads of times before. Sigh."

During Advent this year I looked up the daily readings at mass and decided to practice lectio divina. It was mmm, nice but really didn't lift me up so much. Just another way to meditate. Yawn. So gave that up after a while. I thought of doing the liturgy of the hours but I'm so confident that that'll work. I'm not one that likes reading prayers from a book or online. I'd like to just talk to Our Lord. It's too bad that eucharistic adoration in the town of my school is extremely rare. They've only done it once over the course of the three semesters that I've been there, maybe twice at the most.



I'd like to just do as that one anonymous prayer says to do and "Come to Jesus" but I struggle with doing that. I really don't know what to talk to Him about most of the time. I don't want to whine to Him or just sit there in awkward silence. It's times like this where I wish that I could interact with Jesus like anybody else. Hear His voice, see His facial expressions and body movement, talk with Him face to face like my friends and family, and be able to touch Him-hold His hand and hug Him. Yet I don't have those luxuries. I have to discern whatever the Heck He's asking or not asking me to do, or if He's saying anything at all. I just don't know how to communicate with Him anymore. I've been praying to Our Lady asking her for help with communicating with her Son and loving Him the way that I should but it still is hard. Right now, my prayer life is more petitions for other people and for myself to get better.



I've been assisting the priest at this catholic parish with RCIA, doing a little teaching and answering questions about the catholic faith. It's been a blessing helping out, but I hope that no one inquires about my personal relatioinship with Our Lord. I've been such a book worm in regards to reading about the faith, spiritual matters, and the saints but over the past month or so I've been growing tired of it and don't do as much of it as I used to. So I'm not sure what to do about my relationship with Our Lord. I know that these trials are for the good of my soul but it still is hard and frustrating.

[philothea]

Thank you for explaining further. It sounds like you've had some very hard years. I have experienced similar, and... yes, I don't think there's anything worse than feeling like you've been rejected by God.

However, reading has led me to understand that this is a normal phase, which comes and goes as we mature spiritually. It's actually kind of a sign of favor -- God thinks you're advanced enough to stand on your own without consolation, and is going to let you give it a try for a while.

My advice -- for whatever it's worth -- would be to stop forcing yourself to meditate and just (as you say) sit in awkward silence with Jesus for a set time every day. I suspect after a while it would stop being so awkward. The definition of the "Dark Night" is that you can't meditate, and God wants to lead you in wordless infused contemplation. If that is indeed what is happening, and you keep resisting it by forcing meditation or avoiding silence, you can't make progress.

In any case, I will continue to pray for you, and hope that you find your joy again.