Part 2, Chapter 9
Prayer is easy when we are being filled with joy, peace and good fruits. When this is happening we are experiencing spiritual consolation. But when prayer is difficult, it is dry, nothing is happening, the time is ticking by extremely slowly, we are moved to low and earthly things and we are struggling to pray because we have many distractions happening to us, then we are in spiritual desolation. Spiritual Desolation is difficult to deal with it. It happens to us all. There is no shame here. Sooner or later, we all will hit a dry spot in our prayer. Whether it lasts for a day or two or many, our prayer can become dry and we should prepare for it.
What is important about dryness in prayer is that we are not alone. We have God with us and He is never going to leave us. Even when prayer is dry, we should pray and plan on doing what we planned on doing before the dryness came. “Just so, my child, we ought to enter upon mental prayer purely to fulfill our duty and testify to our loyalty” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 47). God is not a VENDING Machine, He is God and He gives us graces and blessings as He deems necessary, so approaching prayer with the mindset that we are always going to be getting something from God, is a wrong attitude. Fr. Timothy Gallagher is known to say, I believe quoting someone else, “if all we received from God was spiritual consolation, we would remain spiritual children.” Spiritual Desolation (Dryness in Prayer) allows for great growth in the Devout Life. Stay close to God during this time and beg Him to help us to keep praying. Dryness does come; still it is a call to be faithful to God in prayer, not to run away.
There are many, many more things that could be said here, but this is an introduction. A good help on this subject matter would be to read Fr. Timothy Gallagher’s book Discernment of Spirits, this is a great book to help us look at spiritual consolation and desolation and some helps in how to deal with it using what St. Ignatius of Loyola taught.