Suffering is a powerful path toward intimacy with Christ. It reduces us to nothingness, increases our faith, produces spiritual growth, purifies us, and makes us holy. Spiritual warfare is real. We are all in a battle against the enemy and his demons, some more intensely than others. God sometimes allows demonic attacks so that we can grow spiritually. These are terrible sufferings that can include oppression, obsession, infestation, and sometimes possession, which cause a sense of emptiness within or a feeling of abandonment by God. In this state, all positive spiritual experiences cease for a time as demons torment the person. They experience fear, anxiety, confusion, and sorrow at how broken and lost they have become. They don’t know it yet, but these demonic attacks are going to draw them closer to God. It is important to remember that our reward in suffering is Jesus. The emptiness and abandonment one endures are the beginnings of a profound love for God.
“Suffering is a great grace; through suffering the soul becomes like the Savior; in suffering love becomes crystalized; the greater the suffering the purer the love.” (Diary 57)
Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul, 3rd Edition
Spiritual emptiness or a feeling of abandonment by God are symptoms of spiritual attacks. They create within the soul a loneliness so profound that it overtakes them. It is an emptiness so deep that the soul cannot fathom or understand it. They don’t know what they have done to deserve such harsh treatment, and they don’t know how to stop it. These spiritual attacks are a heavy cross to bear, but through them, God places deep within the person a desire for Himself; He secretly summons them to approach Him. The soul is unable to ignore this call, and Jesus now occupies their thoughts day and night, and all they want to do is find Him. They desperately want to return to themselves again, to find healing from their suffering.
“Jesus said: You shall love the Lord your God with all your with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
Math 22:37
But the Lord does not immediately come to their aid. He allows them to continue in their suffering so that they will persist in seeking Him. But the more they seek Him, the further from their reach He seems to be. As they walk this dark and treacherous road, Jesus becomes the very focus of their life. At this point, they know with total certainty that no earthly thing or person will do. Jesus is their only solace and their only cure.
“He is the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
John 1:15
As catholics, we (should) know that Jesus is truly present and alive in the Eucharist. We encounter Him during the Mass, and He is continually present in Eucharistic form in all of the tabernacles and adoration chapels across the world. He waits there, silently calling us to meet Him in the depths of our hearts. Little by little, Jesus begins to heal those who answer that call and touch them with His profound love and peace. But Jesus wants our constancy and fidelity. He wants us to continue to come to Him. So He fills us with Himself in little, tiny spurts. He consoles us in our miseries and touches us deep within our hearts, and then He withdraws His presence for a time. This filling and emptying creates a yearning for God. It keeps the soul coming back to Jesus over and over again. And it is in this process, this discovery, that love for Jesus begins to burn fiercely within the heart.
They know now that Jesus is the only way. He is the only path to healing. They know that they cannot help themselves, and so they must depend on God and place their hope and trust in Him in all their trials and difficulties. They see that in the consolations, the Lord fills them with the peace they so desperately need. And in the emptiness or lack of God’s presence, they are drawn into His Sacred Heart. It is in this back-and-forth that the Lord increases within the soul an intense love for Jesus. A love they cannot live without.
Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden light.
Mathew 11:28-30
If we enter into this great silence (adoration) and immerse ourselves in God, He will show us the way. Take all your grief before the lord. It is where we go deeper in the spiritual life. It is where we learn to love God. It is where we are changed and healed. And even if you can’t feel God, know that He is not absent, just hidden within you. Our difficulties and sufferings have meaning; unite them to Jesus’s suffering on the cross. In this way, your sufferings become a prayer, and prayer has the power to change everything.
The Eucharist, Jesus, is the remedy for all of our ills. The more time we spend in His Eucharistic presence, the more He penetrates us with His love. And it is His love for us that causes us to love Him. Suffering brings us to love God most profoundly. No one will console you in your suffering like Jesus, and no one will love you like Jesus. He is the One who heals, the One who gives strength and peace, and comes to our aid in all things. All we have to do is go to Him in the silence and give Him everything, and He will do all the rest.
Act of Charity
Oh my God, I love you with my whole heart and above all things because you are infinitely good and perfect; and I love my neighbor as myself for love of you. Grant that I may love you more and more in this life, and in the next for all eternity. Amen
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