These times of darkness are necessary for the mind to purify and refine it. The fact is that many things are often at work in our use of our minds, in our desire to understand, from which we need deliverance: some curiosity, a lot of pride, conceit, and desire for power (to understand is to dominate); as well as a human quest for security (to understand is to master and control).

To know everything, we must first pass through a stage of not knowing…we cannot truly grow, humanly or spiritually, without going through times when the intelligence is painfully humbled.

We should also recognize that thinking and reflecting can bring us nearer to God, they can be a path toward him, but they cannot give us God himself. Thinking of an object means holding it at a certain distance in order to master it. That is not possible with God-we cannot “think about” God in the sense of making him into an object. It is faith, love, and adoration that place us in contact with God. The spiritual life has sometimes been over-intellectualized in the Western world.

The conclusion to which what has just been said obviously points to this: our emotions and our intellects are useful and valuable, but they cannot serve as the basis for our relationship with God or our prayer life. The only basis for that has to be faith. When our emotions are dry and our minds are blind, faith should be enough to carry us forward. Faith is free, untrammeled. It can feed on what stirs our emotions and enlightens our minds, but it can also do without those things.

‘Thirsting for Prayer’ written by Father Jacques Philippe