2.2. Desolation
In the first week of the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius gives rules for discernment. Spiritual desolation is an experience of trail to remain firm and faithful. Gallagher says, “Persons in spiritual desolation, who consider this truth while they are enduring the desolation, find themselves crossing a spiritual threshold.” The aim of the first week and through the aid of these rules, the person is called to conversion of the heart from a worldly and mediocre life. Desolation, in simple terms, implies as the work of the evil spirit. It happens in the prayer life of people that they can feel that the Lord has abandoned them. Frustration and discouragement strike them in such moments. They don’t find any meaning in the perseverance.
…show more content…
People feel depressed and helpless. We try to engage in other activities and deviate from the prayer life because it is a way to help people run from pain rather than deal with it. The root cause of desolation is temptation. Desolation dispels hope and brings in loneliness. People, in desolation, feel miserable and unworthy. St. Ignatius says that God is always there even when one don’t feel divine presence. He tells the people that one of the most important thing to cultivate during the times of desolation is patience. He suggests that it is important to identify the cause of the desolation. Sometimes, it happens that desolation seems to come from nowhere. Most of the time, it is noticed that people have done something to bring it on. Neglecting some important responsibilities, giving into selfish desires and indulging in the fault of others are some of the reasons that bring desolation. It is important to remember that God never causes desolation, but God might be allowing the desolation as a trial so that we can grow in virtue and learn to love God and others in bad times as well as good. Desolation can bring good to the people. It is an opportunity not to be missed. Because it can also be a test from God to show how vulnerable and limited we are. During the times of desolation, one should stick himself to the virtues like patience, trust, increased prayers, more service to others in order to reap the fruits …show more content…
According St. Ignatius there is only one consolation, which devil cannot give i.e., consolation without any previous cause. It is God alone, who can give consolation to the soul without any previous cause. It is a gift of joy, peace, hope, love and an increase in faith. “Thus, consolation without any sensible cause is a sure and precious experience of God and can be a valuable guide to discern his will, it is not the normal experience of human beings.” As the devil can trick the people in disguise, they should be very careful to scrutinize their experience. Anyone with minimum experience of genuine discernment, will be able to see through the things knowing that devil can never produce a lasting joy of consolation. “Ignatius says that we must examine the beginning, middle and end of our consolations; if all three are wholly good, it is a sign they are from the good angel.” Ignatius understood that spiritual life is an ongoing alteration of spiritual consolation and spiritual desolation. Moods are often
Depression is considered a mental disorder that can lead an individual to commit suicide, experiment fatal risk that can injure his or her life. Furthermore, an individual feeling depressed lacks motivation to do anything progressive with his or her life. With that said, these individuals sometime gives up interest in activities that were once enjoyable, gets in a phase were he or she loses appetite, begins to overeat, loses concentration on what he or she is trying to complete, and becomes indecisiveness. Moreover, depression is a condition that makes an individual feel miserable, have no motivation to any activity that can influence his or her views, actions, welfare. Furthermore, depressed individuals at times may feel sad, apprehensive, desperate, destitute, useless, awkward, short-tempered, and agitated. In addition, the melancholy of depression is categorized by a greater concentration and length that is attached to severe symptoms. According to Wedding & Corsini (2014) states, “Physical disease, severe and acute stress, and chronic stress area also precipitating factors” (Pp. 240) of an individu...
In spite of the fear which propels him, there is finally hope for Ignatius. Waddling fearfully into the world, he can now learn to accept his common fate with the rest of humanity--his own humanness and inherent vulnerability in a world over which he has no control. In her frustration and resignation, Ignatius' little mother, an unusual Earth Mother at best, once sadly and plaintively tells her son, "You learnt everything, Ignatius, except how to be a human being" (375). Therein lies a lesson for us all.
After reviewing the work of David Hume, the idea of a God existing in a world filled with so much pain and suffering is not so hard to understand. Humes’ work highlights some interesting points which allowed me to reach the conclusion that suffering is perhaps a part of God’s divine plan for humans. Our morals and values allow us to operate and live our daily lives in conjunction with a set of standards that help us to better understand our world around us and essentially allows us to better prepare for the potential life after life. For each and every day we get closer to our impending deaths and possibly closer to meeting the grand orchestrator of our universe.
In Cause of Suffering, everyone craves a lust for satisfaction, whether it is hunger, power, or entertainment. We never forget the thirst for attentiveness as it becomes repetitive until the thirst subsides for a while. For this reason,
It is easy to place the blame on fate or God when one is encumbered by suffering. It is much harder to find meaning in that pain, and harvest it into motivation to move forward and grow from the grief. It is imperative for one to understand one’s suffering as a gateway to new wisdom and development; for without suffering, people cannot find true value in happiness nor can they find actual meaning to their lives. In both Antigone and The Holy Bible there are a plethora of instances that give light to the quintessential role suffering plays in defining life across cultures. The Holy Bible and Sophocles’ Antigone both mirror the dichotomous reality in which society is situated, underlining the necessity of both joy and suffering in the world.
When responding to Demea’s comment he states that this is just conjecture and superstition or witchery. There is no visible evidence to show us things are happening and these these can never be tested for there truth in their argument. He then continues to Philo’s argument were he mentions God’s altruism or perfect benevolence. This meaning he is selfless nature, but one would then have to deny the argument. Meaning ridding of the despair. Why are we concerned about what we cannot judge when we in turn cannot even judge ourselves? He is trying to say hear that how could you do something you have not even experienced. You had no prior knowledge to do such things or know such things. He then formulates an argument: Saying if one would focus not only misery you would view then good. Saying that there is not only misery in the world it seems we as people only focus on the bad. But if we take a chance to look at happy thoughts it wouldn’t be a miserable world. Then stating there is more good in the world, then we would not focus on the bad things but the good things as well. Like a scale if you were the measure the good and misery in the world. Goodness severely outranks the bad. Concluding, we feel both misery and good as a whole in being a human being. Meaning we are not one without the other. Like ying and yang. You must have the good part of a human as well as one the can experience the bad things or it is no human at
The Consolation of Philosophy is written by Boethius while in prison awaiting for his execution. It starts out with Boethius talking to lady philosophy and she starts to tell him about the philosophical view on Christianity. She begins by explaining that the vagaries of Fortune visit everyone and she has came there to "cure" him of all his suffering and sickness he is feeling through this troubling time. Boethius's view is more of a philosophical point of view meaning that he uses reasoning and experience to base his view of God. He doesn’t understand why bad things happen to good people and why good things happen to bad people. Boethius had a hard time understanding that God would allow good people to have a troubling life. Boethius has a
However, individuals of the World State only require comfort for pain and suffering because they are death conditioned at a young age. Interestingly, soma is compared to religion, a comforting human concept. In chapter seventeen Mustapha Mond states, “Christianity without tears - that’s what soma is” (Huxley 238). Soma provides the desired comfort to its consumers, much like the comfort that Christianity provides to its believers. Soma, however, masks the agonies or “tears” in life while Christianity does not completely eliminate the evil in human lives on earth. The Savage, John, suggests, “it is natural to believe in God when you’re alone - quite alone, in the night, thinking about death” (Huxley 235). While God does provide a natural comfort for humans, He does not provide it to the extreme extent that soma does. The World State civilization relies upon soma’s comfort, becoming addicted to the escape from suffering that the drug provides. John confronts Mustapha Mond for “getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it” (Huxley 238). Religion provides comfort from “everything unpleasant,” however, it does not simply eliminate these unpleasant feelings. In the ideas of Christianity, people first must endure these hardships in life before being granted complete relief through eternal life in heaven. Soma does not create the necessity
Boethius's idea of a simultaneous God that could remain omnipresent without propagating or condoning evil became a cornerstone in Christian theology during the medieval ages. The Consolation soothes the reader not because it provides a theological proof, but because it reveals that injustice will never be rewarded by the truly virtuous God. In the Consolation of Philosophy, reason represented by Lady Philosophy comforts the imprisoned Boethius that in a world created by an eternal, emanating God, bad can never overcome virtue and goodness.
The human experience is what connects people to one another. What we experience defines who we are and who we become. It also defines how we interact with others. The amazing thing is that not only do the events that bring joy, peace and happiness connect us but also those that bring anxiety, fear and despair. This brings to light the fact that God somehow in his sovereignty uses all things for the good of those who love Him. These ideas are brought to light in Jerry Sittser’s book, A Grace Disguised which is his personal journey of loss and the insight and experience that was gained in the face of great tragedy. In his book, Sittser discusses various insights he has gained, such as how Christian’s view sorrow, how families recover when someone they love develops a mental disorder, and the Christian view on suffering and forgiveness. I believe that the author has written a book that has many universal truths that can be applied to anyone’s life and they have the ability to bring healing to many. His ideas can also aid professionals who work with the mentally ill in becoming more compassionate.
The concept of suffering plays an important role in Christianity, regarding such matters as moral conduct, spiritual advancement and ultimate destiny. Indeed an emphasis on suffering pervades the Gospel of Mark where, it can be argued, we are shown how to "journey through suffering" (Ditzel 2001) in the image of the "Suffering Son of Man" (Mark 8:32), Jesus Christ. Although theologians have suggested that Mark was written to strengthen the resolve of the early Christian community (Halpern 2002, Mayerfeld 2005), the underlying moral is not lost on a modern reader grappling with multifarious challenges regarding faith in the face of suffering. In his article "A Christian Response to Suffering", William Marravee (1987) describes suffering as an "experience over which we men and women continue to stumble and fall". The way we view God is crucial to the way we view suffering according to Marravee, who delineates the disparity between a view of God as an ‘outsider’ and the biblical image of God – where God is an ‘insider’ who suffers with us in our struggle. This essay seeks to explain the Christian view of suffering and the purpose suffering can have in our lives.
...cal or intellectual need. If this were so, she would not have conceived of herself as spiritually lacking. It is only in reflecting on her present condition that she may then understand herself as spiritually deficient; through this present understanding of herself she is able to negate her present situation by turning her attention towards fulfilling this need, giving her action of fasting meaning. That is, the cause of her act of fasting is not derived from some past or present determinate but rather is derived from a future possibility which is presently non-existent. In contrast, the suffering (i.e., hunger) of a depressed person is (usually) a result of that depression; the suffering just happens to the person. The suffering the depressed person is feeling is only a cause of the lack of active sustenance, and thus the suffering is not valued in and of itself by the individual. Our choices and actions, therefore, gain purpose because we reflect upon ourselves and conceive not only who we were and who we are, but who we desire to be. It is because we can actively respond to this self-conception and self-projection that we have free will and our lives are, in turn, meaningful.
A person may feel unforgiven and angry with God. Something could have happened in a person’s life that makes him or her feel unworthy of salvation and forgiveness. The individual may begin to feel like life has no meaning. In class we looked at Psalm 88. The author of this Psalm says, “You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily on me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves. You have taken from me my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them I am confined and cannot escape; my eyes are dim with grief” (Psalm 88: 6-9 New International Version). This is an example of how a person can blame God for the problems they go through in life. If a person begins to feel abandoned by God, they may fall in to depression because they feel as though life is
- But comfort can be found when we see the picture God has presented, not of a life without struggle, but a life where victory can be found in the struggle itself.
“Depression - noun - severe despondency and dejection, typically felt over a period of time and accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy.” (Google) Depression is when a person is in a state of being extremely unhappy and feels lonely and unimportant. In America, every year over 19 million are diagnosed with depression and every one in seven people will experience depr...