Entering the desert
Progressing in prayer is not like working out at the gym. You don't progress by just doing it. At the gym, your persistence and a good workout plan will make you stronger. At some point, you will be limited by your physical abilities and age, and that's where you will stop. Prayer is different, because your efforts are not the only action. True, you do have to apply yourself. You must work hard, to eliminate habitual sin, establish healthy sacramental practices, and practice daily mental prayer. St. John of the Cross tells us that these disciplines are only preparation for what God will do in your soul. But you have to be willing to enter a dry and empty experience of prayer. You have to enter the desert.
Catholic writers on spiritual theology make a distinction between two kinds or grades of prayer: ascetical grades of prayer, and mystical grades of prayer. The ascetical grades of prayer are not "ascetical" in the sense of focused on physical mortifications. The term simply means that you are in control of your prayer. You use your will and imagination to direct your attention to a particular devotion or meditation. You probably will have to contend with distractions, and you might find yourself getting restless to be up and going about your day. It takes discipline and self-control to stick with your prayer commitments, and that's why this prayer is ascetical. It's good for us. We build some spiritual muscle. Like a fitness workout, we have to start small, maybe with 15 minutes a day. This is the stage of prayer where people usually experience what St. John of the Cross calls consolations.
For beginners--and remember that, for St. John, this means people already accustomed to a daily prayer discipline--prayer is usually accompanied by frequent feelings of love, affection, reassurance of God's kindness, and rich and imaginative meditations on Scripture and holy books. These are necessary to encourage souls to continue. Yet our fallen nature easily begins to cling to these comforts. We find ourselves turning to prayer, not solely for love of God, but at least partly, maybe even primarily because of how it makes us feel. The Lord wants to strip us of these desires, which "weary and fatigue the soul; for they are like restless and discontented children, who are ever demanding this or that from their mother, and are never contented." Ascent of Mount Carmel, I.6.6.
Desires begin to be silenced when a person begins to enter the mystical grades of prayer. Here, something different starts happening. You find that you no longer seem to be in control of your prayer time, either in duration or content. You might start with the idea of praying the Liturgy of the Hours, or reciting the Rosary. But you find yourself drawn into a deep reflection that is centered on God but wholly unplanned. We are not talking about extraordinary phenomena like visions and locutions. Mystical grades of prayer begin to show the direct action of the Holy Spirit, but in the way of a still, small voice. For a person accustomed to consolations, this experience can be disturbing. Consolations vanish, but it could be that nothing is wrong. It could be that the desert is calling.
We can be sure that St. John of the Cross entered into this desert of purification, but it likely occurred at a young age. He was born into poverty, and his father died when John was an infant. He was inured to hardship from the beginning of his life. It is notable that hardship and poverty did not sour his disposition. Rather, he was a cheerful and gentle child, well-loved by all who knew him. He was moved by heaven to begin penitential practices at least as early as age 9. His widowed mother, the beautiful and saintly Catherine Alvarez, discovered that he was in the habit of sleeping on the floor rather than in his poor bed, and using a bundle of sticks as a pillow. She trusted that the Holy Spirit was guiding him, and let him be. At age 14 he entered into service at the public hospital in Medina del Campo, which generally served the destitute suffering from fatal diseases. He never shrank from any task, no matter how disagreeable, and he continued and increased his penitential practices, all the while displaying an interior joy and peace that everyone saw. He passed up opportunities for leisure and revelry, disdained sleep and physical comforts, and devoted his free time to study and prayer. What kind of person does this?
It is tempting to tell ourselves that this state of life is not for us "normal" people, that it is only for "special" people who are called to be saints. But this is not the lesson we are meant to take. St. John willingly allowed himself to be deprived of both exterior and interior comforts and consolations. Our Lord drew him into the desert, into the experience of aridity. We also are called to submit to aridity, when and as God wills. It does not require us to sleep on the bare floor with sticks for a pillow. It does require that we surrender the clinging, persistent desire for exterior and interior consolations, and that we allow our loving Lord to choose what is next.
If He causes the springs of consolation to dry up, we must trust. When aridity begins to be a feature of prayer, and increases, take courage. The desert may be calling you.
Further resources
Contemplative aridity- embracing the desert
This is a video by Dan Burke, the founder and leader of Apostoli Viae, a Carmelite association open to all.
Finding Peace in the Storm: Desolation, Aridity and Prayer
Dan Burke and Jordan Burke discuss the place of aridity, as explained in the writings of St. Alphonsus Ligouri, and summarized in Dan's book, Finding Peace in the Storm.
Image by Jimmy Larry on Unsplash