How much darkness adds to the sufferings of prison life! It was a
suffering which JESUS living in Mary endured for me; and yet while He,
the Light of the world was there, her blessed womb was flooded with
light, with the light of Heaven itself.
What light this thought throws on my interior life! The suffering of
darkness! It is a suffering which He inflicts upon many of His prisoners
of love. "Who is there among you that feareth the Lord, that heareth the
voice of His servant, that hath walked in darkness and hath no light?
Let him hope in the name of the Lord and lean upon his God." (Is. L.
10). If only I can make myself believe that the darkness is permitted by
Him there will be a ray of light at once in the darkness because God is
there, "Surely God is in this place." But how can I be sure that the
darkness is permitted by Him? If I am living the interior life, if my
intention is to please Him in all that I do, and if, however badly I
succeed, I never willingly take back that intention, then _I am pleasing
God_; and if I am pleasing God, I am one of His own dear children, just
as really as was His Son Who did always the things that pleased Him. If
I am one of His children I know, for He has told me so, that _nothing_
can happen to me without His knowledge and His permission, yea His
arranging. So if I have to walk in darkness rather than in light, if
desolation is my spiritual lot and consolation is almost unknown to me,
if a veil hides God's face and my continual cry is: "Oh, that I might
know and find Him" (Job XXIII. 3), if prayer seems impossible, if I have
a distaste, almost a repugnance for all spiritual things, if even Our
Lady seems to desert me, if at times I am on the brink of despair,
tempted even to think that my soul will be lost, if, in short, darkness,
thick darkness has settled down on my soul--what then? "Let him _hope_
in the name of the Lord and lean upon his God." But how can I hope in
darkness, how can I lean upon Someone Who is not there? By faith, that
is by saying all the time: This darkness is _His_ doing, therefore it is
what He wants for me. "I, the Lord create darkness!" That makes all the
difference.
Faith, as it always does, lets a streak of light into the darkness; God
is there and it is only to make the soul more sure of this that He
permits the darkness. If the soul can find and recognize God in the
darkness then it knows Him very intimately and this is what God wants--a
love so great that it detects the Beloved One at once. Does darkness
make any difference to the intercourse of those who love? They rather
prefer it, so that all may be shut out except each other. This is what
God wants from those whom He is teaching to be interior--He puts them
into prison and leaves them in the dark. Are they going to be unhappy,
to repine and complain, longing for consolation and all the sweet things
with which God fed them when they hardly knew Him? Not if they have
faith; and if their faith is strong, they will hardly be able to
distinguish desolation from consolation, God's absence from His
presence, yea the very darkness itself from the light! For is it not
their God who is the cause of all that is happening to them, and is not
that enough for those who love? They only want His Will, not their own,
and His Will is to keep them in prison and in the dark and so to unite
them more closely to Himself Who for their sake faced for nine months
the darkness of the womb. In the terrible moments when despair seems so
near us, let us hold on to the fact that we _want_ to please God and
therefore that we are His children and that He loves us and is arranging
everything--this is the little ray of hope in the darkness, the line of
light, and in it we read the words: "I give them life everlasting and
they shall not perish for ever; and no man shall pluck them out of My
Hand." (St. John X. 28).
_Colloquy_ with JESUS, the Light of the world, imprisoned in darkness
for me.
_Resolution._ To lean upon my God in times of darkness.
_Spiritual Bouquet._ "I form the light and create darkness." (Is. XLV.
7).