DEVOTION AND CONSOLATION Devotion

Devotion is easily confused with emotion or some other sensitive element. Devotion certainly does contain some emotional elements but, in essence, it is altogether something else.

readies us for good works. At times, it is the result of a "visit" by God that arises out of prayer and supports us.

Devotion makes us strong enough to overcome hard­ ships, to heat what is lukewarm, filling us with generosity and courage, clearing the mind, maturing the enthusiasm for God, quieting the worldly passions, overcoming temp­ tations with ease and happiness and, finally, placing readi­ ness, decision, and joy in the heart.

The essence of devotion, then, is not sentiment but readiness. Jesus felt ill in Gethsemane; however, He had the filial devotion to fulfill the will of the Father.

Nevertheless, devotion does contain a certain amount of emotion that sometimes depends on our temperament; but this kind of emotion is not necessarily in proportion to authentic love, the exact thermometer of which is the willingness to comply with the will of God.

In her Way

of Perfection,

Teresa of Avila writes:

The body experiences the greatest delight and the soul is conscious of a deep satisfaction. So glad is it merely to find itself near the fountain that, even before it has begun to drink, it has had its fill. There seems to be nothing left for it to desire. The faculties are stilled ... It is the will that is in captivity now ...

This is a supernatural state, and, however hard we try, we cannot reach it for ourselves; for it is a state in which the soul enters into peace, or rather in which the Lord gives it peace through his presence ... In this state all the faculties are stilled.

The soul... realizes that it is now very close to God, and that, if it were but a little closer, it would become one with him through union ...

By its own nature, love is always a burning force; and in the measure in which it grows in depth, it becomes more sensitive. This love is inevitably "felt" as much in the joy of union as in the painful emptiness of absence. In certain spiritualities, such as the Franciscan, the sensitive aspects stand out because of their intensity. All joyful devotion that

leads to the overcoming of oneself through self-denial is good. However, it also contains subtle dangers of narcis­ sism, spiritual gluttony, and alienating selfishness. We might search for God for the peace and comfort that His presence brings, and not for God Himself. We might search for the sweetness of God instead of the God of sweetness, retarding or definitively avoiding the transforming union.

However, the "visit" ("felt" presence of God) always produces "gentleness" and "delight" (Ps

34; 86; 100; 145).

In the same way, eating and drinking bring a certain satisfac­ tion and delight, for each faculty is designed for a certain objective and the achieving of the objective produces a sensation of fulfillment or satisfaction. Humanity was cre­ ated in the image and likeness of God (like an arrow shot toward a divine target); it is inevitable that when we reach, to a certain degree, our Objective, we will feel an emotional joy (devotion).

Nevertheless, in order that we might avoid subtly looking for ourselves with this emotional devotion, God sometimes twists the natural rule: in spite of the fact that we have reached God on a fairly high level, God sometimes leaves us empty, anxious ... This is the reason for the periods of dryness and purifying nights.

It should be understood that for us who come from the hard battle of life, the beating of God within us is refresh­ ing; we need emotional devotion as much as we need to breathe. If there were no emotional joys for us, it would be like rowing with no oars.

Consolation

In sorrow, in illness, in mourning, in persecution, we are in need of consolation. Our relatives and friends try to console us when all others have abandoned us. But their words are only a slight relief. We remain alone in our pain. In any decisive moment, we are alone.

tion, is the total abandonment of Jerusalem, destroyed, sacked, burned, deported into exile, and forgotten by God: "Yahweh has abandoned me, the Lord has forgotten me" (Is

49:14).

But both the prophet Jeremiah and the prophet Isaiah offer the "book of consolations." God is presented here as a loving Father who says, "I did forsake you for a brief moment, but in great compassion I shall take you back" (Is

54:7).

There are certain times when nothing or no one is capable of consoling us. Desolation reaches levels that are much too deep: friends, relatives, lovers are not able to reach that level. No one knows whether it is loneliness, frustration, nostalgia, emptiness, or everything put togeth­ er. Only God can reach the bottom of that abyss.

There is no one who has not experienced, having found himself in such a state, suddenly and without knowing how, a profound comfort as if some soothing ointment had been poured on the wounds. God descends upon the wounded soul like a pure, sweet nursemaid.

Other times, we begin to feel like a helpless child: reproaches, a serious illness, a real failure, the closeness of death ... The desolation is too serious, unable to be meas­ ured. Who is able to console us? Friend? Spouse? "As a mother comforts a child, so I shall comfort you" (Is

66:13).

God's consolation is like cool ointment poured out until it reaches the wounds of desolation.

And if the desolation is due to the absence of God, then a "visit" from God is capable of changing the darkness to light; water will spring forth and the mountains will be laid low and the deserts changed into gardens (cf. Is

42:15-17).

All absence produces sadness. Jesus will be absent. His own will feel like orphans. In prayer, something similar happens: the sensation of darkness, the sense of distance, absence, or silence of God leaves us with a feeling like that of being orphaned, sad, or distraught. In both cases, Jesus says "Do not worry." I will send Someone who, by nature, is the Comforter. "In those days, the early Christian groups

advanced in the love of God and continued to grow, encouraged by the Holy Spirit" (cf. Acts

9:31).

Saint Paul discovered that consolation springs from desolation. He had lived through a painful affliction, to the point of feeling the claws of death in his flesh; in that, it was proved that the God of all consolation comforts beyond all measure. His Second Letter to the Corinthians is the Magna Carta of biblical consolation. The introduction to the first chapter alternates between consolation and desolation. It gives the impression that both are meant to be "suffered" in a life-giving manner.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the merciful Father and the God who gives every possible encouragement; he supports us in every hardship, so that we are able to come to the support of others, in every hardship of theirs because of the encouragement we our­ selves receive from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow into our lives, so too does the encourage­ ment we receive through Christ. So if we have hardships to undergo, this will contribute to your encouragement and your salvation; if we receive encouragement, this is to gain for you the encouragement which enables you to bear with perseverance the same sufferings as we do. So our hope for you is secure in the knowledge that you share the encouragement we receive, no less than the sufferings we bear. (2 Cor 1:3-7)

And in the seventh chapter, we see Paul crushed both inside and out, battered by struggles and fears. But, again, we see how from the wounds of affliction is born the flame of consolation.

Even after we had come to Macedonia, there was no rest for this body of ours. Far from it; we were beset by hardship on all sides, there were quarrels all around us and misgivings within us. But God, who encourages all those who are distressed, encouraged us through the arrival of Titus; and not simply by his arrival only, but

also by means of the encouragement that you had given him, as he told us of your desire to see us, how sorry you were and how concerned for us; so that

I

was all the more joyful. (2 Cor

7:5-7)

6.

TENDENCIES

If prayer is the concentration of the faculties, distrac­ tion is the scattering of the mind in a thousand directions, momentarily avoiding the control of the will and con­ science. In speaking of

interior silence,

we have explained the nature of distraction and have pointed out ways of overcoming it.

Dryness

When distraction is not a temporary phenomenon but a total inability to center ourselves in the Lord, and this becomes habitual for a time, it is called

dryness.

Dryness is accompanied, at times, by a feeling of depressing helpless­ ness and a certain unnerving of the senses. The pessimist tends to think that he or she was not born for prayer or that all has been lost.

Dryness, in some people, may produce sadness and even desolation because of a complete inability, though it may be only temporary, to relate with the Lord. In some cases, this dryness may come dangerously close to the borders of aridity.

Although they are different words, they are mutually conditioned in such a way that it is difficult to tell where the boundaries of dryness, distraction, and aridity begin and end.

The spiritual masters, describing their experiences, abound in extraordinarily vivid descriptions of the dryness through which they had to pass. Reading them, we are caught somewhere between fear and admiration. Saint

Teresa assures us that many times she went to the well and many times drew the bucket without obtaining a single drop of water.

It frequently happens - continues the saint - that the soul does not even have the strength to lift its arms to draw out the bucket; in those moments, the individual cannot form a single thought. Dryness demands a high price. Anyone who has gone through this knows that price.

I

remember many times, adds the saint, how happy I was to have obtained that single drop of water from that blessed well, considering it to be a special privilege from the Lord. To remain firm in these periods of dryness, more courage is needed than for any other task in the world. For rriany years, Teresa confesses, I was more worried about the clock - in choir - than about prayer itself, counting how many minutes were left and wishing that prayer would end soon. And many times

I

have been ready to submit to any harsh penance before beginning to recollect myself for prayer.

I

do not know if it was the devil or my own nature, but the fact is that just thinking that I had to go to prayer filled me with laziness. And, entering the oratory, my soul fell to my feet and

I

was beset by a great sadness and I had to force myself to cheer up. Finally - concludes Teresa - those times were ended by the grace of God.

That is why thousands of people abandon almost all prayer. They made superhuman efforts and were not able to draw out a single drop of water from that blessed well. Later, they felt unnerved by the disproportion between their efforts and the results, and ended up thinking that it was not worth the trouble.

Nevertheless, they are ready to begin again because prayer is a matter of life or death in terms of the meaning of their lives.

The

causes

of dryness have various characteristics:

1.

An uncontrolled activity that destroys inner unity.

2.

The nature of the prayer itself: the silence of God, the darkness of faith, the tendency of the human mind toward

variety and diversification, the influence of the senses over the interior faculties.

3.

Pathological tendencies of all types that escape diag­ nosis; bodily characteristics; strained and uncomfortable positions. Without having an actual illness, we can feel bad, in a bad mood, moments of depression, powerful instabil­ ity, melancholy or something else. Certain hereditary de­ fects appear that, in the normal course of life, pass unno­ ticed, especially in terms of dryness and versatility.

4.

Well-done prayer is a complex activity, one in which there is intellectual work but, moreover, one in which there is emotional labor that affects emotional energy. A basic emotional balance is needed.

5.

Periods of dryness may be tests sent expressly by the Lord. In the Bible there is a definite rule that the faith of one to whom it has been given is put to the test.

As Teresa of Avila said in her

Autobiography:

I believe myself that often in the early stages, and again later, it is the Lord's will to give us these tortures, and many other torments which present themselves, in order to test his lovers and discover if they can drink of the chalice and help him to bear the cross before he trusts them with his great treasures.

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