Dry times in our faith journey are bound to happen, but we often approach it with the attitude of “why me?” How might it help to put it in perspective by considering St. Francis’ explanation that at times the dryness is a fault of our own? Or, how does that not help you? St. Francis gives a great analogy to explain dry periods by reminding us that a mother will withhold sweets from a sick child. How might this apply in our spiritual life? How might Luke 6:32 help complement this reflection? “For i
VisitationSiste: For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.” We often take for granted that which we receive in abundance. Think about a time when you were overdue for hydration and desperately waiting until you could drink again. When you finally drank, you probably appreciated water more than ever. How are times of spiritual dryness able to function similiarly for us? In the United States (and other first-world countries) we have excess food, shelter, c
VisitationSiste: In the United States (and other first-world countries) we have excess food, shelter, clothes, etc.; however, we have one of the highest rates of depression and suicide. We are being overfed, but we are spiritually malnourished. How does St. Francis’ reflection bring light to this modern-day situation?
Aug 20, 7:22 PM
Dawn (Guest): Bees detest all artificial scents, and the sweetness of the Holy Spirit cannot be combined with the deceitful pleasures of the world…one of the beautiful sentences in this chapter
Aug 20, 7:28 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) Hi Everyone! It’s Judy. How’re y’all this week?
Aug 20, 7:29 PM
Dawn (Guest): Hi Judy!
Aug 20, 7:29 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) Ready for the eclipse tomorrow?
Aug 20, 7:31 PM
Dawn (Guest): as I could be, are you in good range to view it? we are in 86% or partial range
Aug 20, 7:31 PM
VisitationSiste: Hi I am in and out here- someone is in our chapel and I have to check.
Aug 20, 7:31 PM
VisitationSiste: No eclipse viewing for me
Aug 20, 7:31 PM
Dawn (Guest): ok
Aug 20, 7:33 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) Jumping in to question 1. If the dryness is a fault of our own, that is, if we have failed to collect and use the treasures of God’s Love in due time, we can expect that He will withdraw them. e/g If a great banquet is places before us and we do not partake within a certain period of time, the food will be removed. So, too, if we pass by God’s love with our hands and hearts closed, He will remove His love.
Aug 20, 7:34 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) I actually do not know what my range is for the eclipse. I know that we will have only partial view here.
Aug 20, 7:35 PM
VisitationSiste: Good example! I have lived with alot of dryness but not a dry dryness, just a faith that has little experiential about it
Aug 20, 7:35 PM
Carol Ann: hi Everyone!
Aug 20, 7:35 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy( Hi Carol Ann!
Aug 20, 7:36 PM
Dawn (Guest): Hi Carol Ann
Aug 20, 7:38 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) I have recently come through a period of severe dryness that was like a depression. I did little but languish on the couch and stare at the TV. Toward the end of the day, I would be able to move myself to pray the Liturgy of the Hours and the Rosary. I can’t pin down a cause. I just made up my mind to see it through, accepting it as God’s will for me at that time.
Aug 20, 7:38 PM
Carol Ann: It is a quiet night here in our little chat. I have had many spells like that too, Judy. Most recently it has meant there is a challenge that i need to face, but i’m still puling it all together
Aug 20, 7:40 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) I think that it was one of those times when God seems to withdraw so that we experience His absence and seek Him more.
Aug 20, 7:43 PM
Dawn (Guest): I have experienced times too. this chapter is a sure help for those periods…at these times I have held rosary as I fall asleep, or even during the day. Perhaps these times of alienation can help us to cling more fervently to him. like the woman today, who did not listen to what anyone was saying but in faith just believed.
Aug 20, 7:43 PM
Carol Ann: and what is it i am being stubborn about. Sometimes it is because i am coming to a new awareness of something
Aug 20, 7:44 PM
VisitationSiste: That’s a gift to receive a new awareness
Aug 20, 7:45 PM
VisitationSiste: I know St Jane de Chantal suffered dryness and temptations too
Aug 20, 7:45 PM
VisitationSiste: Hi Ruth, Lisa and Carol Anne
Aug 20, 7:45 PM
Lisa C: Hi Mother, et. al.
Aug 20, 7:46 PM
Dawn (Guest): Hi Ruth and Lisa
Aug 20, 7:46 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) Hi Lisa!
Aug 20, 7:46 PM
Carol Ann: it is a great blessing, but sometimes the awareness requires a new repentence and it pulls me up short.
Aug 20, 7:46 PM
Carol Ann: Hi Sr. Susan Marie! Hi Lisa!
Aug 20, 7:46 PM
VisitationSiste: Ah- yes and that is a suffering too.
Aug 20, 7:47 PM
VisitationSiste: I know when I am failing the Sisters for ex.
Aug 20, 7:48 PM
VisitationSiste: It is all the little things and the lack of appropriate correction and need to grow that can cause me to go into a dry spell- running away perhaps from the Lord?
Aug 20, 7:49 PM
Carol Ann: I do need appropriate correction from time to time, like us all. it is inaproppriate correction that makes me stubborn and prideful
Aug 20, 7:49 PM
Dawn (Guest): St F says…so God deprives us of spiritual consolations if they arise a vain complacency with in us. would this be pride, or a feeling of superiority?
Aug 20, 7:50 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) Question 2. a mother withholds sweets from a sick child because the child needs nourishing food, some of which he might not like. In the spiritual life, we all desire the times of sweetness, and revel in them when they come. But to have them all the time could lead to complacency or presumption in which the person would cease to seek the things that can enhance spiritual growth–prayer, reading, sacrifice. And so He withdraws the sweetness so that we might seek Him and Him alone.
Aug 20, 7:50 PM
VisitationSiste: vanity, maybe both Dawn
Aug 20, 7:51 PM
VisitationSiste: Yes Presumption also dependence on the sweetness
Aug 20, 7:51 PM
VisitationSiste: Sacrifice is essential yes
Aug 20, 7:52 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) Dawn, I think that vain complacency is a sense that we are just fine the way we are and can, to use a much used phrase, rest on our laurels. In other words, we do not to do anything else.
Aug 20, 7:52 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (judy) We do not need to do anything else.
Aug 20, 7:53 PM
VisitationSiste: St Therese might say doing is simply letting God do as He holds us. But we still need to place ourselves in or near Him
Aug 20, 7:54 PM
VisitationSiste: But if we are running from God for any reason, that dryness will surround us even as He tries to call us back
Aug 20, 7:55 PM
Dawn (Guest): what would be the remedy to this? Use of the Sacraments ?
Aug 20, 7:55 PM
Carol Ann: so dryness is an invitation to go into the desert and grow closer
Aug 20, 7:55 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (JUdy) That is when we need to consciously “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” and forcefully turn ourselves around to answer the call of the Lord.
Aug 20, 7:55 PM
VisitationSiste: Yes to both I think
Aug 20, 7:56 PM
VisitationSiste: Sometimes we do this in desperation.
Aug 20, 7:56 PM
Dawn (Guest): surrender to his good will for whatever we are experiencing and trust in his love
Aug 20, 7:57 PM
Lisa C: I find that dryness is always about me and not about God. I agree we have to force ourselves back to Him when it comes.
Aug 20, 7:57 PM
Lisa C: Once we do, it goes away, because He is consistent
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) Sometimes I think that we sometimes wait for God to touch us in times of dryness when perhaps it is up to us to recognize the dryness for what it is and, whether it feels good or not, turn to the Lord and ask Him to help us.
Aug 20, 8:00 PM
Dawn (Guest): this young man, a good example of forcefully turning ones self around…I am hopeful many are hearing God’s call today
Aug 20, 8:01 PM
VisitationSiste: Yes
Aug 20, 8:01 PM
Dawn (Guest): good point that dryness is usually about us.
Aug 20, 8:04 PM
VisitationSiste: I am not sure that the quote from Luke helped me about sinners loving each other, I mean in this particular topic
Aug 20, 8:05 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) Being in dryness is like being in a dark room. We stumble around looking for a lamp, a light switch, or a pull cord for a ceiling fixture. We need to trust that the means of turning on a light is present in the room. And in dryness, we must trust that the LOrd is present and that He will make Himself known.
Aug 20, 8:09 PM
VisitationSiste: Do you think this leads to depression
Aug 20, 8:09 PM
VisitationSiste: There is that sense of the dark night
Aug 20, 8:10 PM
Carol Ann: it can, if we don’t realize it is a call to turn back. of course, there could also be a physical reason for the depression too, but for me, the cause and solution has always proved to be spiritual
Aug 20, 8:10 PM
Lisa C: If we could answer what leads to depression we would all get Nobel Prizes
Aug 20, 8:11 PM
Carol Ann: seriously true, Lisa. I’m thinking there’s at least two types
Aug 20, 8:11 PM
VisitationSiste: 2?
Aug 20, 8:11 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) Yes that quite from St. Luke did seem to come out of left field. I did consider it though. Loving those who love is is easy. We respond to the love of others as buds warm to the sun and open. loving the unlovable or the unloving is more difficult. There is a lack of mutuality in that love and it is hard to love those who withhold love. Yet loving them is fruitful for us because we will have to sacrifice something, the return of love, to continue to give.
Aug 20, 8:12 PM
Carol Ann: the spiritual dryness we are talking about that can lead to malaise, and then the physical, biological depression caused by chemical imbalance, et
Aug 20, 8:13 PM
Lisa C: There are many types of depression
Aug 20, 8:13 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): Judy) It is like giving small trinkets and treats to a child out of love and the child is unresponsive. We continue to give, in spite of the expense (the sacrifice and the cost of the trinkets) and/or the rejection of the child.
Aug 20, 8:13 PM
Carol Ann: and our sacrifice may open up those who have been incapable of showing love outwardly
Aug 20, 8:15 PM
VisitationSiste: Continuing to love but with sometimes a pause in between
Aug 20, 8:15 PM
VisitationSiste: that’s how I experience it- while I recollect myself
Aug 20, 8:18 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) Question 4. There is an old saying, “absence makes the heart grow fonder.) The times of spiritual dryness make us even more grateful for thos exeriences or evidence of Go’s love in our lives. Perhaps we had become complacent or lazy in our spiritual journey. the experience of dryness, or even the perceived absence of God, should create a new longing to touch Him, to know Him, to absorb and be absorbed by Him.
Aug 20, 8:19 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) It is a good thing to have these desires rekindled in us. For they can lead us to a renewed search for the Lord and a renewed willingness to receive Him and give ourselves to Him.
Aug 20, 8:20 PM
VisitationSiste: The excitement in our soul ofknowing He will accept us back so lovingly
Aug 20, 8:23 PM
VisitationSiste: but are we really spiritually malnourished?
Aug 20, 8:23 PM
VisitationSiste: all opportunities are available
Aug 20, 8:23 PM
Carol Ann: we could be malnourished if we are neglecting any of the things we should be practicing
Aug 20, 8:25 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (JUdy) I want to hit question 5 before we sign off. Things do not satisfy. Consider the teenager who is popular, talented, has a cell phone, I pad, own TV, etc. But is constantly getting into fights and other kinds of trouble. Both parents are working and have no time for the child. All of the things they have given are no substitute for spending time together,, having meals together, vacationing together, playing together. All of thee contribute to the development of a healthy self-worth.
Aug 20, 8:26 PM
VisitationSiste: Life is difficult even wth the best of parents- like the Martins
Aug 20, 8:27 PM
Carol Ann: i think the fifth question is essentially asking us if money and wealth buy actual happiness or if they cause us to be less happy than normal
Aug 20, 8:27 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) The parents show that the child is valuable enough to spend their time on. And this is of great importance to young people. Lac of parental love and affection can lead to depression and even suicide.. For all of us, we may have wonderful possessions, a fine home, a new car, lovely clothes, the best of everything, but our true hope,peace, love and satisfaction can be found only in God.
Aug 20, 8:28 PM
Dawn (Guest): This is what our life in grace really is…without Him we can do NOTHING
Aug 20, 8:29 PM
VisitationSiste: Memories are of people, not things, usually
Aug 20, 8:31 PM
Lisa C: I pray that everyone who travels far to see the eclipse has good weather and that no one hurts their eyes
Aug 20, 8:31 PM
VisitationSiste: Be careful tomorrow and celebrate the 450th birthday of St Francis de Sales! I will be praying for all of us!
Aug 20, 8:31 PM
VisitationSiste: God bless!
Aug 20, 8:31 PM
Carol Ann: Such a big day tomorrow in so many ways!
Aug 20, 8:31 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (Judy) Money and things cannot buy actual happiness nor can they cause us to be less happy than normal. It is the absence of love that causes the lack of happiness. People can be dirt poor, like many people in third world countries and be very happy.
Aug 20, 8:31 PM
Carol Ann: Thank you Sister!
Aug 20, 8:32 PM
Lisa C: God bless you too Mother
Aug 20, 8:32 PM
Lisa C: God bless us all
Aug 20, 8:32 PM
Guest9871 (Guest): (judy) May the goodness and love of the Lord follow you wherever you go tomorrow and may you thank Him for the wonder of the eclipse, and the wonder of His love. Have a blessed week, all!
Aug 20, 8:33 PM
Dawn (Guest): I agree Judy! thank you all, and Mother for having this chat. Good night and God Bless. Ruth, who disappeared, to you also.
Aug 20, 8:33 PM
Carol Ann: Yes, stay safe. And i hope we all have a chance to witness at least part of this marvelous act of creation
Aug 20, 8:34 PM
Dawn (Guest): I look forward to seeing the images other get
Aug 20, 8:35 PM
Dawn (Guest): g’night <3
LETTER XXVI.