A Homily for the Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4    2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14    Luke 17:5-10

John 3:16 is a hit. Who can say how long people have been cross-stitching it onto pillows or spray-painting it onto structures? Though seldom quick to quote a memorized verse from Scripture, even we Catholics know “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

But when was the last time you saw a T-shirt that read, “Habakkuk 1:2?” Does this verse not speak to us? Is it not often our experience? Can we not claim it as our own? “How long, O LORD? I cry for help, but you do not listen!”

The lament runs deeper than unanswered prayers. Most of us know that prayer is more than presenting our needs to the Lord and having them immediately met. No, we understand that, as our Lord taught us, “thy will be done.” 

The more troubling experience is what St. Ignatius called “desolation,” when God appears to be absent, when we cannot feel God’s presence, especially when we pray. Here’s how the saint described the condition:

Darkness of soul, turmoil within it, an impulsive motion toward low and earthly things, or disquiet from various agitations and temptations. These move one toward lack of faith and leave one without hope and without love. One is completely listless, tepid, and unhappy, and feels separated from our Creator and Lord (Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, No. 4).

We have all been there, and the saints have as well. Those who have left us with any written record of their lives speak of times when God seemed absent. 

In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius offered a concrete strategy for dealing with desolation. We need to ask ourselves what is behind our loss of God’s perceived presence. He writes:

There are three main reasons for the desolation we experience. The first is that we ourselves are tepid, lazy, or negligent in our spiritual exercises. Thus the spiritual consolation leaves us because of our own faults.

What lies behind this diagnosis from the saint? Ignatius knows that the very nature of God is to be present to his creation. God is like the sun, always shining. So, when darkness comes, Ignatius suggests that we question ourselves. Have we stopped looking up? Have we failed to create opportunities for God to shine upon us? Have we been faithful to Sunday Eucharist and daily prayer? If not, we need to look no further. We know what needs to change. 

Suppose that is not the case; we have been faithful to prayer. Ignatius suggests another possibility:

The second reason is that desolation serves to test how much we are worth, that is, how far we will go in the service and praise of God, even without much compensation by way of consolation and increased graces.

Ignatius draws a distinction between doing the will of God and perceiving God’s favor. The two do not always coincide. As one ancient author put it, “If God blessed every good deed, our relationship to him would be one of commerce, not love.” Our Lord says much the same:

When you have done all you have been commanded,
say, “We are unprofitable servants;
we have done what we were obliged to do” (Lk 17:10).

We must remember that there is a distinction between God and God’s consolations or positive experiences in prayer. We were created to seek the former; the latter are secondary. St. Teresa of Ávila compared our growth in prayer to the maturation of a child’s palate. A mother might sprinkle porridge with sugar when the child is an infant, but she gradually withdraws this enticement. God does the same with us. 

Finally, Ignatius offers a third possibility for spiritual desolation. Like the second, it suggests that desolation is to be expected and endured. It is not necessarily a sign that something is wrong.

The third reason is to give us a true recognition and understanding, in order to make us perceive interiorly that we cannot by ourselves bring on or retain increased devotion, intense love, tears, or any other spiritual consolation; and further, that all these are a gift and grace from God our Lord; and still further that they are granted to keep us from building our nest in a house which belongs to Another, by puffing up our minds with pride and vainglory through which we attribute the devotion or other feature of our spiritual consolation to ourselves. 

We cannot come to God without God extending the invitation, without God’s grace. George Bernanos closes his classic, the melancholy novel The Diary of a Country Priest (1936), with the line: “Does it matter? All is grace.” Ignatius insists upon the same. What we need will be given to us by God, whose grace is sufficient. 

“How long, O LORD? I cry for help, but you do not listen!” We may indeed be crying, but we need not fear that God is not listening. It is God’s very nature to listen, to attend to us. When darkness comes, when God appears to be absent, we need to question ourselves, not God.

The Rev. Terrance W. Klein is a priest of the Diocese of Dodge City and author of Vanity Faith.