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Finding Peace in the Storm
“In this life,” as St. Teresa used to say, “our lot is not
to enjoy God but to do His holy will.” And again, “Love
of God does not consist in experiencing His tendernesses
but in serving Him with resolution and humility.” And
in yet another place, “God’s true lovers are discovered in
times of aridity and temptation.” Let the soul thank God
when she experiences His loving-kindness, but let her
not repine when she finds herself left in desolation. It is
important to lay great stress on this point, because some
souls, beginners in the spiritual life, finding themselves
in spiritual aridity, think God has abandoned them or
that the spiritual life is not for them; thus, they give up
the practice of prayer and lose what they have previously
gained.
Some of St. Teresa of Ávila’s most stern and vehement
admonitions are that we persevere in mental prayer,
come what may. She knew what St. Alphonsus knew as
well: that this perseverance is itself an act of love that
will always receive its reward. Both Doctors warn that
if we wane in the practice of prayer, we will most surely
lose our footing and fall off the narrow path to Heaven.
As for aridity, we can understand it as a sense of
dryness or the absence of the consoling presence of
God. The key to a right perspective regarding aridity
is that how we feel has nothing to do with whether
God is close to or far away from us. St. John of the
Cross argues that the holy soul in aridity is often closer
to God than when it is in consolation. It is notable
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