Pope: overcome spiritual desolation through prayer,
not pills or drink
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis
said silence and prayer is the way to overcome our darkest moments, rather than
resorting to pills or alcoholic drinks to escape from our woes. His comments
came during his homily at the morning Mass celebrated on Tuesday at the Santa
Marta residence.
Taking his cue from the day’s
first reading where Job was living through a spiritual desolation and was
giving vent to his sorrows before God, the Pope’s homily focused on these dark
moments of spiritual desolation that all of us experience at some point and
explained how we can overcome them. He said although Job was in deep trouble
and had lost everything he did not curse God and his outburst was that of “a
son in front of his father.”
All of us sooner or later
experience a spiritual darkness
“Spiritual desolation is
something that happens to all of us: it can be stronger or weaker … but that
feeling of spiritual darkness, of hopelessness, mistrust, lacking the desire to
live, without seeing the end of the tunnel, with so much agitation in one’s
heart and in one’s ideas… Spiritual desolation makes us feel as though
our souls are crushed, we can’t succeed, we can’t succeed and we also don’t
want to live: ‘Death is better!’ This was Job’s outburst. It was better to die
than live like this. We need to understand that when our soul is in this state
of generalized sadness we can barely breathe: This happens to all of us…
whether strong or not ….. to all of us. (We need to) understand what goes on in
our hearts.”
Pope Francis went on to pose
the question: “What should we do when we experience these dark moments, be it
for a family tragedy, an illness, something that weighs us down?.” Noting that
some people would think of taking a pill to sleep and remove them from their
problems or drinking one, two, three or four glasses” he warned that these
methods “do not help.” Instead, today’s liturgy shows us how to cope with this
spiritual desolation, “when we are lukewarm, depressed and without hope.”
The Pope said the way out
from this situation is to pray, to pray loudly, just as Job did, day and night
until God listens.
“It is a prayer to knock at
the door but with strength! ‘Lord, my soul is surfeited with troubles. My life
draws near to Hell. I am numbered among those who go down into the pit; I am a
man without strength.’ How many times have we felt like this, without
strength? And here is the prayer. Our Lord himself taught us how to pray
in these dreadful moments. ‘Lord, you have plunged me into the bottom of the pit.
Upon me, your wrath lies heavy. Let my prayer come before you, Lord.’ This is
the prayer and this is how we should pray in our darkest, most dreadful,
bleakest and most crushed moments that are really crushing us. This is genuine
prayer. And it’s also giving vent just like Job did with his sons. Like a son.”
Silence, closeness and
prayer is how to help those who are suffering
The importance of silence,
being close and using prayer was stressed by Pope Francis who said that was the
correct way for friends to behave when faced with those who are undergoing dark
moments, warning words and speeches in these situations can do harm.
“First of all, we must
recognize in ourselves these moments of spiritual desolation, when we are in
the dark, without hope and asking ourselves why. Secondly, we must pray to the
Lord like today’s reading from Psalm 87 teaches us to pray during our dark moments.
‘Let my prayer come before you, Lord.’ Thirdly, when I draw close to a person
who is suffering, whether from illness, or whatever other type of suffering and
who is experiencing a sense of desolation, we must be silent: but a silence
with much love, closeness and caresses. And we must not make speeches
that don’t help in the end and even can do harm.”
The Pope concluded his homily
by asking the Lord to grant us these three graces: the grace to recognize
spiritual desolation, the grace to pray when we are afflicted by this feeling
of spiritual desolation and also the grace to know how to be close to people
who are suffering terrible moments of sadness and spiritual desolation.”
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