Saturday, March 27
Charles Henry Brent, Bishop of the Philippines, & Western New York (1929)
Exodus 10:21-11:8
Psalms 42, 43, 137:1-6, 144
2 Corinthians 4:13-18
Mark 10:46-52
Psalm 42
“Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”
Do you ever feel downcast? Not from regret or guilt, but being in an emotional low within your everyday life. You might be in what St. John of the Cross describes as the dark night of the soul.
Our lives are more often than not full and overflowing with activity, busyness, hurry; so there are times we need silence and solitude (the dark night…) to renew us, to center our lives and bring us closer to God. We’re not talking about deep anguish or depression, but a period of time with a feeling of dryness, emptiness, aloneness, maybe even a feeling of loss.
So what do we do? St. John suggests that we should be still, allow all the physical, emotional, psychological, even spiritual senses to be silenced, then to wait, listen, and put our hope in God. It is very tempting to seek release or to blame others for our times of solemnness, but I would suggest that we should be grateful for the opportunity to be at an emotional standstill and hopefully better attuned to let the Lord do his work within us.
To get the most from this journey through the dark night we should be guided by the words of St. John “Oh, then, spiritual soul, when you see your appetites darkened, your inclinations dry and constrained, your faculties incapacitated for any interior exercise, do not be afflicted; think of this as a grace, since God is freeing you from yourself and taking from you your own activity.”
Note: The reference for this meditation and the quotes of St. John of the Cross comes from the book “Celebration of Discipline” by Richard J. Foster.