Abstract
Religious persons may experience phases of spiritual dryness, ranging from spiritual insecurity to a spiritual crisis. The authors analyzed the underlying causes of spiritual dryness in religious brothers and sisters who had lived for several decades in monastic structures. They performed qualitative interviews with 16 brothers and 14 sisters and asked for triggers of phases of spiritual dryness. In the content analysis of the 30 narratives, the identified categories were inductively structured and condensed to five main topics: (1) Loss of Relationship with God, (2) Loss of Orientation, (3) Loss of Depth, (4) Difficulties with the Religious Community, and (5) Intrinsic Factors: Overload, Uncertainty, Depression. These five main topics can be further categorized as extrinsic (God is not responding, others cause difficulties) and intrinsic (loss of orientation and depth, uncertainty, and depressive state) causes. A thorough discernment of the underlying ‘spirits’ (the triggers) is important to help and support individuals during these phases. It seems that no single (theological) interpretation of the causes is correct but that different interpretations might be true for the very diverse persons experiencing these phases of darkness, dryness, desolation, or loss of faith.
Highlights
Religious persons may experience phases of spiritual dryness, ranging from spiritual insecurity to a spiritual crisis
Religious persons sometimes come to a point where all their quest and longing for God stalls, where they perceive that their relationship with the sacred has become shallow
In nonordained Catholic pastoral workers, 12% experienced spiritual dryness often to regularly and 48% sometimes (Büssing et al 2016), while in religious brothers and sisters it was experienced by 14% often to regularly and by 55% sometimes (Büssing 2019)
Summary
Religious persons may experience phases of spiritual dryness, ranging from spiritual insecurity to a spiritual crisis. Best known is the experience of the “Dark Night of the Soul” of John of the Cross (1542–1591) (John of the Cross 1959, vom Kreuz 2013) He described a spiritual purification process that is perceived as a painful phase of loss but that may “cleanse” the God-seeker and throw him or her back to the pure essentials. It is difficult to distinguish between gloom and darkness as the transitions can be fluid Those who have experiences of darkness, spiritual dryness, desolation, etc., are probably at a crossroads that (if adequate support is lacking) can lead toward either spiritual despair and loss of faith or (if these are overcome) toward consolidation and spiritual growth. The empirical data indicate that several factors, both psychological and spiritual, can cause phases of spiritual dryness
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