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Course 20 · Lesson 7.3

Dryness, failure and starting again

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 20 outline

Module 1: Spiritual Formation and the Doctrines Behind Prayer

  1. What spiritual formation means in Scripture and tradition
  2. How the Trinity, the Incarnation and grace shape Christian prayer
  3. A map of the prayer traditions: Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant
  4. Ways and stages of growth: purgation, illumination and union, and their critics

Module 2: The Desert and Early Monasticism

  1. Anthony, Athanasius and the beginning of the desert movement
  2. The sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers: how to read them
  3. John Cassian and the eight thoughts that trouble the mind
  4. From the hermit to the community: Pachomius, Basil and Benedict

Module 3: Praying with Scripture and with the Church

  1. Lectio divina: its history and the four movements
  2. The Psalms as the prayer of the church
  3. The Divine Office and the Liturgy of the Hours: hours, texts and structure
  4. Using the daily office alone, and the Protestant daily prayer tradition

Module 4: Hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer

  1. Stillness and the prayer of the heart in the early Eastern church
  2. The Jesus Prayer: its words, its sources and its history
  3. Gregory Palamas and the fourteenth century controversy over light and energies
  4. Practice and cautions: the role of a guide and the warnings of the tradition

Module 5: Fasting, Discernment and Spiritual Direction

  1. Fasting in Scripture and in the three traditions
  2. Asceticism: its purpose, its dangers and its abuses
  3. The discernment of spirits from Antony and Cassian to Ignatius of Loyola
  4. Spiritual direction: the elder, the confessor, the pastor and the mentor

Module 6: Contemplation and Action

  1. Mary and Martha: how the church has read the two lives
  2. Prayer that issues in service: Benedict, Brother Lawrence and the Reformers on vocation
  3. When practice goes wrong: pride, quietism and spiritual experience without doctrine

Module 7: Building a Rule of Life

  1. What a rule of life is, and what the word rule meant for Benedict
  2. Choosing practices: Scripture, prayer, fasting, rest and service
  3. Dryness, failure and starting again
  4. Reviewing and adjusting a rule over time

All courses

Program / Course 20: Spiritual Theology / Lesson 7.3

What you will learn

  • Describe what the tradition means by spiritual dryness and name several possible causes.
  • Distinguish dryness from sin, from the dark night of John of the Cross and from depression.
  • Summarize what Scripture and the tradition teach about failure and beginning again.
  • Identify practical responses that the traditions recommend when a rule collapses.

The big idea

Every long practice of prayer meets seasons when nothing seems to happen, and also meets lapses and failures. The tradition treats these as normal and not as signs that something is wrong with faith. Dryness may come from many causes: fatigue, illness, neglect, testing or a purifying work of God. The tradition counsels perseverance, honesty, simplification and counsel, and teaches that beginning again is part of the Christian life. It also warns against confusing dryness with depression, which needs medical care.

Key terms

Dryness (aridity)
A period in which prayer seems empty or without feeling, whether or not a person has done anything wrong.
Dark night
In John of the Cross, a purification in which God removes familiar consolations so that faith and love can mature. It is distinguished from ordinary dryness and from depression.
Desolation
In Ignatian teaching, an inner state of darkness or heaviness that draws away from faith, hope and love.
Anfechtung
A German word used by Luther for spiritual assault or trial, in which a person is tormented by doubt and a sense of God’s absence.
Perseverance
Continuing in a practice or in faith through difficulty.
Repentance
A turning back to God, in sorrow for sin and a resolve to amend. Not the same as guilt or self-punishment.
Lament
A form of prayer in the Psalms that brings complaint, grief and plea before God.

Background

Dryness is a theme in nearly all writing on prayer. The Psalms are full of it: Psalm 42 speaks of a soul that thirsts for God like a deer panting for water. Psalm 22 opens with the cry why hast thou forsaken me. Psalm 88 is unusual in ending without comfort, with the words that darkness is the psalmist’s only companion. Job, Jeremiah and Elijah all go through darkness and complaint. Scripture treats such experiences as part of faith and gives them words.

Later writers analyzed the causes. Cassian wrote of acedia as a temptation of monks. Ignatius of Loyola listed reasons for desolation, among them neglect of prayer, a test of faithfulness, and a reminder that consolation is a gift. John of the Cross described the dark night of the senses and of the spirit. Luther wrote often of Anfechtung, and later Protestant pastors, including Charles Spurgeon, spoke openly of seasons of darkness and depression. Teresa of Avila said that she endured years of dryness in prayer.

This lesson looks at how the tradition understands and responds to these seasons. It does not offer medical advice, and it notes where the help of a doctor is needed.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Several possible causes

The tradition does not give a single explanation. Dryness may follow physical causes, such as lack of sleep, illness or overwork. It may follow neglect or sin, when a person has turned from prayer or from a duty. It may come as a test, in which faith continues without feeling. It may come from the withdrawal of consolations that God intends to purify love. And it may come from a mood disorder.

Because the causes differ, the first practical counsel is to ask honestly what is going on, with a trusted guide. Elijah in 1 Kings 19, exhausted and despairing, is first given sleep and food by an angel, before he hears the still small voice.

Step 2: The dark night and what it is not

John of the Cross taught that God sometimes removes the sweetness that attracts a beginner so that love may be loved for God’s sake and not for the pleasure. In his account the signs are that a person finds no satisfaction in created things or in prayer, remains desirous of God and is unable to meditate as before. He insisted that this is a purification and that it passes.

He did not teach that every dry period is a dark night, and he warned guides against calling a person’s trouble spiritual when it has other causes. Teresa and John both stressed that sin and illness should not be mistaken for it. The twentieth-century letters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, published after her death, show a long period of felt darkness. Interpreters have read this variously, as a dark night, as spiritual trial or as something requiring more caution. The tradition does not give a quick label.

Step 3: Depression and other illness

Prolonged low mood, loss of interest, changes in sleep and appetite, hopelessness or thoughts of self-harm are medical matters and not only spiritual ones. A person with these symptoms should see a doctor or mental health professional, and should not be told to pray harder or that their faith is weak. Many Christian teachers, including Spurgeon, who suffered from depression, have said so. A person in immediate danger should contact emergency services or a crisis line.

Medical treatment and prayer are not opposed. Most traditions teach that healing comes through many means, including medicine (Colossians 4:14 speaks of Luke the beloved physician).

Step 4: Failure and beginning again

Scripture contains many failures and restorations: Peter’s denial and Jesus’ restoration on the shore (John 21), David’s repentance in Psalm 51, the prodigal son. Lamentations says that the Lord’s mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). Benedict ends his list of good works with the instruction never to despair of God’s mercy (chapter 4). The Sayings preserve stories of elders who respond to a fallen brother with the counsel to get up again, in various forms. Proverbs says that a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again (Proverbs 24:16).

The tradition distinguishes repentance from shame. Repentance turns toward God, and shame turns inward. A person who treats each lapse as proof of hopelessness is not helped by the tradition, which holds that the right response to failure is to ask forgiveness and begin again, with a smaller step if necessary.

Step 5: Practical responses

The traditions suggest several responses. Keep a small, fixed minimum of prayer even when it feels empty, since fidelity is more important than feeling. Use the Psalms and set prayers when words fail. Simplify the rule. Rest, eat and sleep. Tell a trusted person. Continue worship with others, since the faith of the church can carry a person who cannot carry it alone. Review the causes honestly. And be patient. John of the Cross and Teresa agreed that the cure for dryness was not a new method but faithfulness, humility and love.

  1. What do I do when prayer feels empty?
  2. Which of the causes of dryness seems most likely for me at the moment?
  3. How do I tell the difference between spiritual dryness and depression?
  4. What does it mean to repent without shame?
  5. What is the smallest practice that I could keep during a hard season?
  6. Who could I tell when my rule collapses?

Examples

Elijah’s first help

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah sits under a broom tree and asks to die. God sends an angel who gives him bread and water and lets him sleep, twice, before any word is spoken. A reader may ask what in their own dryness needs bread and sleep first.

A collapsed rule

A man who kept a daily prayer rule for a year stops during a month of illness and cannot restart. His pastor suggests beginning with one psalm a day and no more. The man worries this is too little, and the pastor answers that Benedict called his Rule a rule for beginners. (A constructed example.)

Not just dryness

A woman tells her director that she feels nothing in prayer. As they talk, the director learns that she has slept little for weeks, lost interest in her family and had thoughts of not wanting to live. The director urges her to see her doctor that day and stays in contact. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic teaching, drawing on Teresa and John of the Cross, treats dryness as common and sometimes as purifying, and counsels perseverance and the guidance of a director. The Catechism speaks of the battle of prayer, including distraction and dryness, and names humility, trust and perseverance as responses.

Orthodox

Orthodox teachers speak of times of the withdrawal of grace as tests that deepen humility, and of the importance of continuing the prayer rule and the sacraments in such times. They stress counsel from a spiritual father and caution against interpreting every low mood as spiritual.

Protestant

Protestant pastors have written extensively on spiritual darkness. Luther’s Anfechtung, the Puritan literature on desertion and Spurgeon’s candid accounts of depression all counsel clinging to the promises of Scripture, not to feelings. Many Protestants also stress medical care and the community’s support.

Clinical view

Clinicians and chaplains agree that low mood has many causes and that effective treatment is available. They advise people not to delay seeking help, and note that religious practice and community support can be valuable parts of recovery alongside professional care.

Why it matters

Nearly everyone who attempts a regular practice meets dryness and failure. Without a framework, these experiences are often read as proof of unbelief, and the practice is abandoned. The tradition’s teaching, that dryness is common, has several causes, can be borne in company and does not end the relationship with God, helps a student continue. The medical caution protects those who need more than prayer.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Dryness means I have lost faith or God has left.

Correction: The Psalms, Teresa and John of the Cross all treat dryness as a common part of faithful life. Feeling is not the measure of faith.

Misunderstanding: Every period of darkness is a dark night of the soul.

Correction: John of the Cross described a specific purification, and warned against applying the label too freely. Many troubles have ordinary causes, including illness.

Misunderstanding: Depression is a spiritual failure that prayer alone should cure.

Correction: Depression is a medical condition that deserves medical care, which the traditions allow and encourage alongside prayer.

Misunderstanding: After a serious lapse, one should wait until feeling ready to restart.

Correction: The tradition counsels beginning again promptly and humbly, with a small step, trusting God’s mercy rather than waiting for confidence.

Knowledge check

Name some causes of dryness that the tradition recognizes.

Physical causes such as fatigue or illness, neglect or sin, a test of faithfulness, a purifying withdrawal of consolation, and mood disorders. Because the causes differ, the tradition counsels honest examination with a trusted guide and does not give a single explanation.

How did John of the Cross distinguish the dark night from other troubles?

In his account the dark night is a purification in which a person finds no satisfaction in created things or in prayer, yet longs for God and cannot meditate as before. He warned that sin, illness and ordinary trouble should not be mistaken for it, and that it passes.

What should a person do who has symptoms of depression?

See a doctor or mental health professional, and not be told simply to pray harder. A person in immediate danger should contact emergency services or a crisis line. Medical care and prayer are not opposed, and most traditions encourage both.

What does the tradition teach about starting again after failure?

It distinguishes repentance, which turns toward God, from shame, which turns inward. Scripture shows restoration in Peter, David and the prodigal son, and Lamentations says God’s mercies are new every morning. The counsel is to ask forgiveness and begin again, with a smaller step if needed.

Think it through

  1. What has your experience of dryness taught you?
  2. How might you respond to a friend who says they have lost faith because prayer feels empty?
  3. What would make it easier for you to begin again after a lapse?

Independent assignment

A plan for hard seasons

In your notebook, write 300 to 450 words. Read Psalm 42, Psalm 88 and 1 Kings 19:1-8. Write a short plan for how you will respond when your practice collapses or prayer feels empty: your minimum practice, the person you will tell, the signs that would lead you to seek medical help, and a sentence you will say to yourself about beginning again. Do not share this with anyone.

Further study