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Spiritual Desolation
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.
Those formed in the Ignatian tradition of discernment
of spirits might become confused here. The astute
reader might ask, “If I am supposed to yield to suffering,
and desolation is suffering, am I supposed to yield
to desolation itself?” The answer is both simple and
complex. No, we are not to yield to desolation but are
to fight it, as indicated by St. Ignatius, by turning to
God in prayer, penance, and examination. We should
consider what He is doing in such circumstances.
However, to add the dimension of St. Alphonsus’s
wisdom, we fight the desolation with a peaceful resignation
to whatever the outcome of our efforts might
be, as with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is
in the simultaneous movements of struggle coupled
with yielding that we, like Jesus, will discover the will
of God and embrace it.
The key is this: all that we do, we do with detachment
from outcomes. We leave the results up to God,
and we embrace whatever blessing or difficulty He
decides we need. If it is a blessing of consolation or
something easier, we rejoice and praise and thank Him.
If it is a blessing of a difficult outcome, we rejoice and
praise and thank Him.
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