bearing blog: Introduction to the Devout Life 4-14 and 4-15: Troubleshooting spiritual desolation.

(An index of all posts on St. Francis de Sales' work Introduction to the Devout Life is here. A post outlining part 4 of the book is here.)

In the last post, I wrote about St. Francis de Sales's guide to the problems and temptations of consolations. It may seem counterintuitive that spiritual consolation can be a problem, but Francis makes a case for it.

It shouldn't give anyone trouble that desolation can be a problem. That's the subject of the next two sections.

The "desolation" discussion, like the "consolation" discussion, is largely arranged in bullet points. They're both very bloggy all by themselves. Let's recap the points about dealing with consolation:

Preamble: Our circumstances and emotions change all the time, so we have to keep our superior will fixed on God.

I. Devotion does not consist in our feelings, including spiritual consolations.

II. But our "devout" feelings and spiritual consolations are useful to us, and worth much more than worldly pleasures.

III. Q. How can we tell the difference between spiritual consolations and useless pleasures? A. By the fruit they yield.

IV. How to receive consolations:

   (i) Humble ourselves and be aware that our consolations are not evidence of our goodness

   (ii) Realize that God probably gives us consolations because we're so darn weak that we need them

   (iii) Be thankful to God for providing them

   (iv) Use them as God intends

   (v)  Detach ourselves from them by protesting to God that we want Him, not His consolations

   (vi) Tell your confessor if you get a lot of consolation so he can help you deal with the abundance.

OK, what does the desolation one look like? I won't paraphrase these nearly as much because they are wonderful examples of Francis's gift for analogies, especially from Scripture. The bit about the Canticle of Canticles is especially good -- it makes me want to go back and read it over...

Preamble: "[Consolations] do not last; ...you will sometimes find yourself desolate and deprived of all feelings of devotion...What must we do at such a time...? The first thing is to discover the source of this evil..."

I. "[O]ften the cause of this desolation lies in ourselves."

"A mother refuses sugar to a child subject to worms; so God withdraws his consolations when he sees that we take pleasure in them and are subject to the worms of vanity."
"When, through sloth on our part, such consolations fail to bear fruit, he punishes us by taking them away. We find ourselves like those Israelites who, having failed to gather the manna before dawn, found it melted away after sunrise."
"Like the bride in the Canticle of Canticles we sometimes rest on a bed of sensible consolation and when the spouse of our soul knocks on the door of our heart and calls us to the practice of devotion, we delay, unwilling to deprive ourselves of our false feeling of contentment and satisfaction, so that he passes on, and leaves us to our laziness; then, when we wish to seek him, he is hard to find."
"Lack of frankness and sincerity with our confessor often causes spiritual desolation... If you are not simple and sincere as a little child you will not receive any sugar plums."
"If you have sated yourself with worldly pleasures it is not surprising that you have lost your taste for those of the spirit.... He has filled the hungry with good things, says our Lady, and sent the rich away empty-handed." (Lk 1:53)
"Have you carefully preserved the fruits of the consolations you have already received? If so, you will receive more." [N.B. This point is distinct from number two; that refers to consolations that don't bear fruit at all because of our sloth.]

II. "Examine your conscience and see if you have been guilty of some such defects as these... if, on the contrary, you can find no particular cause for this dryness, spend no more time on further examination, but carry out the following advice in all simplicity:"

"[H]umble yourself profoundly before God... 'See what I am, my Saviour, left to myself...'"
"Pray that God may grant you his joy... My father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass me by. (Mt 26:39)"
"Open your heart to your confessor... then follow his advice with great simplicity and humility.... God...often renders such counsels fruitful even though they may not appear very likely to prove useful, just as he cured Naaman by using the waters of the Jordan in which Eliseus had, seemingly without reason, ordered him to bathe."
"Beyond all this, the best thing you can do is remain indifferent to deliverance from your spiritual desolation. This does not mean that you may not wish for this deliverance, but you must not set your heart on it.... Let us say to God, My Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass me by; but let us add courageously: only as thy will is, not as mine is; (Mt 26.31)... We must say... The Lord gave me consolations and the Lord has taken them away; blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:21)
"Finally... let us remain courageous, and... preserve the even tenor of our way, omitting none of our spiritual exercises, but rather, if possible, performing even more. If we cannot offer our Lord a devotion that is sweet let us offer him one that is dry."

III. In an example from the life of St. Bernard we find a sort of a pattern of dryness following on richness of consolation:

"God usually gives a foretaste of heavenly delights" [i.e. consolations] "to those who enter his service to detach them from earthly pleasures and encourage them in the pursuit of divine love, like a mother who honeys her breasts to entice her child."
"[I]t is this same God who sometimes, in his wise providence, deprives us of the milk and honey of consolations so that, having been weaned, we may learn to eat the dry but more solid food of a vigorous devotion..."
"[S]ometimes great storms arise in the midst of such desolation. At such times we must fight constantly against temptations, for these do not come from God; but we must bear patiently with the sense of dryness as ordained by God for our advancement." (Distinguish between temptations within dryness, and dryness itself; dryness is not itself a temptation, but an environment in which temptations may arise, just as consolation is an environment in which temptations may arise.)
"[W]e must never lose courage... or say... 'I shall never be happy again'; for in the night we must await the dawn. On the other hand no matter how fair the weather in our spiritual life we must not say, 'I shall never experience sorrow again'."
"[T]he best remedy is to reveal our trouble to some spiritual friend who can console us."

Now I want to point out something that Francis adds almost as an afterthought, but that I would rather put at the very beginning of the possible interior causes of desolation: we may have tried to "do" too much devotion. It is indeed possible to overdo it.

"Sometimes these feelings of distaste, dryness, and desolation arise from some physical indisposition as when, for example, we find ourselves oppressed with tiredness, drowsiness and fatigue through some excess in watching, labouring or fasting, which not only weary the body but the soul as well, by reason of the intimate relation between them."

Francis does want us to make valiant acts of virtue when we're spiritually exhausted like this, because God finds them pleasing; but he wants us to remedy the dryness at its source:

"The remedy on such occasions is to refresh the body by some lawful recreation and relaxation."

So there you go: Yes, it is possible to do too much fasting, adoring, and good works. Take a vacation once in a while.

Now, let's look at a couple of the themes in this section.

First, asking why: yet another example of Francis meeting real people where they really are.

I like that Francis starts right out with the question that's on everyone's mind when bad times come: "Why?" Far from chiding us for asking such a question, he knows that faith in the Christian God requires a trust that there must be some reason, even an inscrutable one, for dark nights of the soul; and yet, that our trust is weak and is aided by pausing to consider the many reasons that might be. He's helping us, through use of our reason, to give God the benefit of the doubt.

And why might we have lost our consolations, our "feelings" that God is there and loves us? I can almost imagine Francis counting them off on his fingers. Maybe God took them away for our own good. Maybe we have wasted them or their fruits. Maybe we were stuck in a rut of self-satisfaction. Maybe we made a bad confession and this is the fruit of that. Maybe we are too involved with worldly pleasures to notice the more subtle spiritual ones.

But an even more fruitful theme can be found in Francis's plays on the word "dry." I like very much this sentence:

"If we cannot offer our Lord a devotion that is sweet let us offer him one that is dry."

We have all heard the word "dry" used to describe the soul, or the emotions, of one suffering spiritual desolation. "Spiritual dryness" is almost a technical term in the language of devotion. I have always thought of "dry" meaning "arid," that the opposite of spiritual "dryness" is necessarily lushness, swelling rivers, greening land. But here St. Francis puts "dry" as the opposite of "sweet," which (maybe because he's French?) immediately puts me in mind of wine.

Perhaps spiritual dryness is not dry like a desert, but dry like a champagne brut nature.

Something to think about.

Later, having surprised us once by setting "dry" in opposition to "sweet," he does it once again by setting "dry but more solid" food opposite mother's milk. Babies eat food like milk -- not at all dry. Grownups eat food like bread.

So our dryness is dry like a desert. It is also dry like wine, dry like bread.

Hm. Clever.