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

This deliberate act of putting ourselves in God’s presence sometimes requires an effort. We have to lay our worries aside, along with everything else we have on our minds or occupying our imaginations, in order to turn resolutely to face God and direct our attention and love to him. Before doing that, a sort of “airlock moment” to clear our heads can sometimes help us to rid ourselves of any agitation and enter into prayer: a five-minute walk, some moments of relaxation or deep breathing, a calm cup of tea. Sometimes our time of prayer must be preceded by a sort of psychological threshold that eases the transition from everyday stress to this very different kind of activity, made up largely of receptivity, which is prayer.

Thirsting for Prayer by Father Jacques Philippe

Ordained in Viviers in 1901, he (Charles de Foucauld) decided to settle in the Algerian Sahara at Béni Abbès. His ambition was to form a new congregation, but nobody joined him. Taking the religious name “Brother Charles of Jesus”, he lived with the Berbers, adopting a new apostolic approach, preaching not through sermons, but through his example. In order to become more familiar with the Tuareg, he studied their culture for over twelve years, using a pseudonym to publish the first Tuareg-French dictionary. He collected hundreds of Tuareg poems (paying a few sous to anyone who would bring poems to his hermitage) which he translated into French. He censored nothing in the poems, and never changed anything that might not conform to Catholic morality. De Foucauld’s works are a reference point for the understanding of Tuareg culture.