Consolation Continued, Pt. 4

For the non-spiritual consolations to become the springboard to Spiritual Consolation that it can and should be, we must always hold to the idea that it is not the feeling of Consolation that we pursue. Rather, it is God, in Himself, whom we pursue. When we are in the state of a Natural Consolation, we ought not become distracted and captivated by it, we must however, allow our minds to be lifted from the world around us to the heights of the Divine Life. We even ought intentionally point our minds to Heaven in an active role.

We know Spiritual Consolation does not last forever, it is not a permanent state, until we reach heaven. Because this state of feeling God’s presence does not last, we need to take action now to commit to our memories that we can fall back on our experience of God’s nearness when the feeling does inevitably fade. When we are in spiritual consolation and we do not prepare for the desolation, when it comes, we will soon allow ourselves to be convinced that those experiences of God’s love were somehow not authentic or that we had imagined them all along. A lack of preparation will result in the immanent desolation causing a great deal of confusion when it comes, or an anger and bitterness that we launch at God, loosing Faith, leading to an ager at all of life and a feeling of disappointment and irritability. Having not prepared while in Consolation, we arrive at desolation and blame God, and adopt an attitude that this is His fault or believing that He does not actually love me or is intentionally causing me pain.

To prepare for desolation while in consolation helps to negate the risks of unpreparedness. The state of Consolation gives us a period of time that is easier to navigate through the spiritual life. It is easier to establish good habits and and mare intentional strides in the life of faith, virtue, and prayer. Don’t waste your times of consolation, prepare!

To be continued…
How to prepare! Pt. 5