Ah, Padraig, I can see where you are going with this! I await your next post. Safe in the Flames of the Sacred Heart!
You know more than me , Terry! I bob and weave like an Irish bog road at twilight! Happy Christmas to you and yours! How do you like the German atavar I gave you. Hope the studies for the Deaconate are going well.
Padraig, My son, Danny, walked by when I posted a few hours ago and said he liked my avatar. I had to let him know you were the culprit. Since my oldest son, Ben, is fluent in German, I have to like it. Thanks! And just to get the facts straight, the Diocese has not even approved my application to the Diaconate. In three weeks, I go in for psychological testing. That will flunk me for sure! Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
It will be an interesting journey I am sure. Psychiatrists are a very mixed bunch,I suppose like the rest of us.
A lady told me a story one time. She had been a nursing Sister, young with a very good career when she went to holday in Egypt and sailed along the Nile. She got back to her hotel room and fell asleep. Now the bedroom had very heavy, good wooden shutters so that when they were closed the room became totally dark, you could not even see your hand when held up to yourface. So when the lady woke up and it was totally dark she wasn't worried as she thought it was because the shutters were closed. However when the poor woman went over and opened the shutters she began to scream. for the shutters being opened made no difference she had gone completely and utterly blind. When they took her to the hospital they found her eyes had been infected by a small fly form the Nile and she had lost her sight for good. She described to me how this at first had completely destroyed her ability to deal with life. Young, wel leducated with a great career and prospects , suddenly entirely blind in a strange country. However i time and with training she adapted to her condition and started life off over again... Well that reminds me of the effects of the start of the Dark Night on myself. For a start I was always since I was a child able to ,'See' things. So for instance the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament in Church was not simply a theory but a living reality, to walk into a Church with a tabernacle was to walk into a fire of light, life, warmth and joy... I think all Catholics can sense this to some degree or another. But I would say for myself it was very,very strong. Also for me the indweling of the Holy Spirit was a very strong reality even from very early childhood, I conducted conversations with Jesus even more easily than I did with my brothers and sisters. Again this is I hope a reality for most Catholics; I can only say for myself Jesus was my constant companion. In addition to this in the monastery I was praying really 24 hours of the day..a constant and in a very asecetical atmosphere, for instance no TV, radio, newspapers computers, up a half three i the morning... So when the lights went out I got hit big time. I could no longer mystically see things so it was a little bit like loosing an inner eye site. Whereas formally when i looked at a tabernacle it was fire, love, light now it was a brass box sititng cold and silent. Just a box. When I looked for istance at people I could no longer see their spirit just them as people , I could no longer see them with the light of grace and holiness around them . Adolph Hitler would have looked pretty much the same as Padre Pio. But worst of all the jesus within in the tabernacle of my heart had just winked out. Yes I could still talk to God , of course I could but it was if He wasn't there anymore . As if my whole understanding of my spiritual pilgrimage had been an illusion. God had fled and even the memory of God seemed an illusion. To cap this off I was in a monastery where there was little or no place for physical consolations..like say taking a few stiff whiskeys (which I hink might have done me no harm) or going to see a good film or a night out with friends or well something. So I was in a kid of spiritual cooker which intensified what wa sgoing on.
That is fascinating Padraig. You explain it so well too! Now, the question is....when did it turn back on??
Well not for about 24 years Marti. But you are getting me to the end before I have even gotten started Don't worry it won't take me 24 years to tell it
ohhhh. sorry! I obviously need to start at the beginning. I just jumped right in. Patience is not my strongest point...
But I may go to the end for a moent and write this. I used to think the end of the Dark Ninight would be like waking u pand the shutters being opne agin in my bedroom ..so to speak, Not so. It is that the darkness becomes luminous. In a kind of way you become like an owl, able to see i the dark. Darkness doesn't go, darkness becomes light, so to speak.
In a way its bit like someone going outside o na very dark night. At first they can see nothing , but given a little while things clear and they begin to see ,with some people quite clearly. Well a bit like that. Only at the end of the Dark Night you end up seeing much , much, much better thqan you did at the start.
..A 'pillar of Intention' is what we all need to be--strong, courageous, FOCUSED, and INTENTIONAL. SORRY, I imposed on your thread about prayer. I'll shut up now...
I think I'll pause at this point to consider how long and how deep the Dark Night might be. When I was discussing the Night with my Spiritual Director I asked him how long it might last (hoping for a few months) he cheered me up by telling me that of St Paul of the Cross lasted over 20 years. Fr Bernard had a theory that the longer it lasted the greater the saint. But I have long since discarded that theory. For instance one of the greatest saints who ever lived St Therese of Liseaux died very young ( as due to the health constraints of previous eras) did many of the saints. So if St Therese went ont the Dark Night at 15 and died at 24 her Dark NIght would have been for around about 9 years. Simialrly with St Teresa of the Andes who died when she was just 20 so I guess could have only been in the Dark Night I guess for 5 years or less. In fact her superior commented to a Sister that Tereasa was in the final stage of prayer already before entering the Carmel which may make it even shorter..and again a very great saint indeed. If I was to hazard a mathematical formula I might guess, it is the outcome of the extent of the suffering mulitplied by its length. like so suffering x length with the souls responsiveness thrown in as a major factor. So Suffering x length x souls response(prayerfulness). However we don't use the word Mysticism for nothing for to be honest I just don't know and I don't think anyone else anywhere I ever read does either. Its a mystery. For instance I dare say Padre Pio was in the Dark Night for sixty years or more. What's more his suffering was quite simply enormous. In addition to this his respense to God, his prayerfulness was ideal. Does this then mean that Padre pio was the greatest saint who ever lived? Well I know that many of his devotees say know...but I can only say it would be a very,very brave person who would say so. I would say this however . The greatest saint who ever lived was the person who loved God most. Only God alone can say who she/he was. Probably I guess someone none of us has ever hear off who died alone up a mountain in a country we never even thought off in a century we know nothing about. Well I for one am not sorry we can't calculate such stuff for waht a pity to place love in a formula...or in a test tube.
Padraig, Thank you for that moving episode of St Theresa's parting. I noticed they sprinkled her with Holy Water. They will have to use the whole bucket for me! In your experience of the Dark Night, it was as if God instantly snuffed out the Light of His Presence! I'm obviously not there, but in the last year Jesus has quietly and steadily been severing my attachments to earthly creatures, whether persons or things. There has been a growing sense of loneliness. The Lord has not deprived me of my beloved Geralyn, which has been a comfort. But I do wonder how long this process will continue. This has caused me to focus my heart more on Christ, but, it is as if I'm enveloped in a fog and can't find Him. There are brief moments of consolation. I also feel the desire to pray earnestly for the world and the sake of others. There is so much suffering in the world which the joy of knowing Jesus could alleviate. Any joy I experience is not so much a feeling, but a certainty that God will prevail. I do rejoice, however, when others advance in their walk with Christ! Dear Lady, pray for us! I really don't know where that places me in the journey of prayer, though I'm not overly concerned to figure it out. God's will be done. Safe in the Flames of the Sacred Heart!
Well, Terry from what I have read of you (subject of course to your Spiritual Director of course) I would say you are in the Dark Night. However the difference between your case and mine is this. Imagine two guys who are going for a swim in the . One dives right into the Dark waters of a diving board. The other goes up the sand and , taking his time, pasddles out. In effect it little matters either way since they both end up in the sea, but the guy who dives off the board gets a rude awakening. So in a Trappist monastery you are kind of jumping off a diving board so when you hit the black waters there are no consolations, you cannot, say, go out for a drink with friends, switch on the TV or make yoursel a nice meal to confort yourself. Neither are there the many distractions that would ease things. I noticed this after I left the monastery how while things were not exactly a bowl of roses they eased. There is a story that one time one of her nuns came to St Teresa of Avila in tears believing herself to be in the Night and Teresa with loads of common sense and wisdom sat her down and made her a large steak. You might remember st Bendict Jospeh Labre (the patron saint of tramps). Well when St Bendict Joe was a young man in France he tried to join numerous CIstercian (Trappist) monasteries. But in each one he bombed and had to leave regular as clockwork. What was, apparently happening was every time he went into the monastery he got hit right away with the Dark Night in the most dramitic and unbearable form. SO nad he had to leave each monastery in a big hurry. Poor Benedict had to keep leaving and he kept joining up over and over until he realised GOd was not calling him to the monatic life. He was a bit live a swimmer who keeps dings into the dark ocean and getting frost bite till he relaises that paddling in makes more sense. So with Benedict he realised through prayer in the end that he was called to be a ,'Fool for Christ' (more of an Eastern tradition) an intinerant pilgrim wandering aroung the world from pilgrim site to sire. Paradoxically in many ways I would say Benedicts life was harder in many , many ways than a monks , but enabled him to hit the Dark Night at a slower speed, if you see what I mean. To paddle rather than dive so to speak.
My dark night lasted 7 years. It was hell on earth for me. I tend to slip in and out of it from time to time. I don't know that I see things more clearly, but I am much more at peace than I have ever been in my entire life. Prayer is becoming my consolation now. I am like a reed that flows with and is uprooted by the water. My life is not mine nor is it under my control. I cannot prepare for anything, because my life changes happen when I least expect it. The water flows and I am uprooted again and again. This is not victimology. It is a pulling away, rather forcibly at times. The uprooting does hurt. I am a nester. I love to nest, but time and again, I am pulled out of the comfort of my nest and forced to move on to places and challenges that I would rather not face. I think of the character PigPen in the Charlie Brown series. Even after he is cleaned up, the dust cloud forms and follows him. He can't change it, and neither can I.
-It would be wonderful, I think Mallory if all the areas of sin within could be cleaned up at the snap of our fingers. Sadly this isn't so. This is one thing that makes me uneasy about the theology of , 'Born Again', Evangelical Christianity. It leaves so very little room for doubt. One minute we are fallen the next we bright and shiney as a new penny. Not only does there seem little enough room for confronted unclaimed areas of sin in our lives but their seems such little room for growth in holiness. We are rather like a bunch of plastic flowers , frozen in space rather than a real live bunch of flowers constantly growing and blooming. There is an area of sin in my own life I have struggled with for most of it. About three weeks ago I met an old priest in confession who told me very firmly I needed to take personal responsibility for to overcome. Well such a simple thing to say..but it came like a bolt out of the blue to me!! {Thats the nature of sin often, isn't it?...that we are the very last to know) But in the last htree weeks it is like a second Spring in that part of my soul, a real revival , for I have taken control and in Christs name I do seem to have conquered. But you know all those years praying to Our Lady! Sigh. It took a long, long time. But I think often the Holy SPirit has to drip drip ,drip and melt the cold ice bergs in our hearts away and it takes time. Sometimes a life time. I think too, areas of sin remind me of an onion. THe Holy Spirit strips away one layer of filthy dark and lo and behold another totally new area is revealed. For me this area is lack of charity. I am just so judgemental and harsh on others. It is kkind of sad and funny. A for instance is when I go to mass in the morning the Church has many people. But you know I don't know a single soul there they are all strangers to me, though I have been going to the same Church I don't know how many years now . I only know them by sight so to speak.. But know then or not I am often struck by the most unkind thoughts..this one is talking too much, this one seems overly pious, this one clatters alot in her boots and so on and and on and on and on... I wa spraying to Our Lord about this and he was pointing out that I need deep healing for this. That my whole outlook towards others needs to change to be more loving and kinder. But changing a grumpy old coot insn't easy. In fact, humanly speaking its impossible. But God can do it, the waters and fire of the Holy SPirit can make me new, Our Lady Star of the Sea can lead me , make me new, make me kinder, gentler, less judgemental more loving, less of a grumpy old coot. 'O my Jesus, Thou who art very Love, enkindle in my heart that divine fire which consumes the Saints and transforms them into Thee. O Lord our God, we offer Thee our hearts united in the strongest and most sincere love of brotherhood; we pray that Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament may be the daily food of our souls and bodies; that Jesus may be established as the center of our affections, even as He was for Mary and Joseph. Finally, O Lord, may sin never disturb our union on earth; and may we be eternally united in heaven with Thee and Mary and Joseph and with all Thy Saints. Amen.'
Good morning, Padraig! When I referred to Pig Pen I was suggesting that. no matter what you do, some things just can't be changed because you have no control over them at all. I have always felt that I have no control over the circumstances in my life, no matter how hard I try to control events. They are taken out of my control, and I drift like a reed uprooted in a river and planted in another location. During my "dark night," I experienced great sufferings, almost beyond what I thought I could endure, and God pulled back. For years I honestly believed that God did not love me, and the sufferings continued. This was true hell on earth. Like Pig Pen, no matter what I did, the suffering continued and God withdrew. Finally, there was a miracle for me, and I was healed and realized how much God really did love me! If this had to do with sin, I should have been forgiven anything I have ever done. I doubt that this is true because, for me, old sins keep surfacing, and I am in the confessional A LOT!!! God bless our wonderful priests who hear my confessions! We are lucky to have 3 wonderful confessors!!! So, maybe we are talking about 2 different things? I'm not sure.
From Padraig: But you know all those years praying to Our Lady! Sigh. It took a long, long time. But I think often the Holy SPirit has to drip drip ,drip and melt the cold ice bergs in our hearts away and it takes time. I have mentioned before, my struggle with tailspins in the the first four years of my marriage. Geralyn and I prayed and sought any spiritual and practical solution we could find. Then Our Lady won a miracle from the hand of God, that instantaneously freed me from tailspins on the First Friday before our Medjugorje pilgrimage (1987). I believe the work of the Holy Spirit in each soul to be marvelous, yet very mysterious. Why for instance did the Lord wait four years before acting so decisively? I think that two key factors are often missed. First is the web of relationships in our lives, since God's work is meant to impact many and not just individuals. Second, any apostolate to which the Lord calls us, might require an impediment to be removed before He gives us the green light. Both of these circumstances can impact God's timing. 2Cor 3:18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
