Spiritual Dryness Research Articles

Marrying an Unbeliever: Systematics over Exegesis of 2 Corinthians 6:14a

This paper titled, “Dynamics of Congregational Worship in Hebrews 10:19-25 and Its Relevance to the Contemporary Church in Nigeria,” discusses the benefits of the Christ-event (sacrificial death, resurrection and ascension) to acceptable worship. God deserves to be worshipped and honored as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. Congregational worship is an avenue for believers in Jesus Christ to appreciate God for the past blessings received, as well as presenting their requests to God in anticipation of future blessings. With the veil in the temple torn into two during the death of Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary, a new way of good access has been opened to believers in Jesus Chris, as he had secured opportunity for believers with the privilege of always drawing nearer with new confidence to the throne of grace in order to enjoy the benefits of approaching God. Unfortunately, today, in Nigeria as in some other countries, congregational worship no longer seems to be spontaneous and passionate as it should be, because worship has lost its value or flavors. In some churches, worship is seen only as ritualistic, obligatory and lacking in dynamic value. Such experiences of spiritual dryness should not continue; else congregational worship will remain a fluke. To achieve the goal of this paper, the writer has examined the goals of Christian worship, especially, corporate or congregational worship. He had also embarked on an exegetical study of Hebrews 10:19-25 by exploring the meaning of some Greek words and phrases in their historical contexts. In the process, the opinions of some biblical scholars were also examined and presented. Lastly, the writer drew some inferences from the exegetical study of Hebrews 10:19-25, from where he presented the benefits of congregational worship, to serve as recommendations for contemporary churches.

Spirituelle Trockenheit – Krise oder Chance?

In a qualitative study, we asked Spiritual Directors of German R. C. seminaries how they interpret the data collected about spiritual dryness in the German Pastoral Ministry Study. According to each of the situations discussed in this study, the interviewed experts consider dryness as a challenge for spiritual growth, as a sign of distress in relationships with God or humans, or as a manifestation of the prayer’s negligence. This paper discusses in an oecumenical perspective the balance between God’s grace and human’s spiritual quest.

Spiritual Dryness in Catholic Laypersons Working as Volunteers is Related to Reduced Life Satisfaction Rather than to Indicators of Spirituality

Phases of spiritual dryness may affect a person’s life orientation and sense of meaning, particularly of persons who work professionally for the sake of others and who rely on God as their main life orientation. This study investigated spiritual dryness in religiously motivated laypersons who are prosocially active volunteers. In particular, the study investigated which indicators of spirituality are related to spiritual dryness and also whether compassion and altruism are related to spiritual dryness. Data from 102 persons working for UNITALSI, an Italian volunteer organization, were collected using standardized questionnaires. Among these strongly religious laypersons, 12% reported that they experienced times of spiritual dryness (as measured with the Spiritual Dryness Scale) fairly often. Spiritual dryness was best predicted by low satisfaction with family life and by future prospects (which together explain 31% of the variance), followed by a low perception of the transcendent (an additional 8%) and high altruism (an additional 4% of explained variance). Most of those who found ways to deal with these feelings were inspired to help others more and perceived greater spiritual serenity and depth afterwards. It was found recently that for Catholic priests and non-ordained pastoral workers, the perception of the transcendent was the best (negative) predictor of spiritual dryness, but among Catholic laypersons investigated in this study, reduced life satisfaction was the best (negative) predictor. The data underline that laypersons who work voluntarily for others require spiritual guidance and support because spiritual dryness as a phase of spiritual crisis may impair their life satisfaction and may conflict with their voluntary engagement.

Gerard Manley Hopkins and his Friends in Dublin

Studies • volume 106 • number 422 193 Gerard Manley Hopkins and his Friends in Dublin1 Michael McGinley Much of the writing about Hopkins in Dublin relies heavily on analysis of the so-called Sonnets of Desolation written probably in 1885–86. It is well to recall, however, that even in these poems there is light and even some hope in the gloom. In ‘To seem the stranger’ Hopkins asserts: Not but in all removes I can Kind love both give and get. It may be useful to note some of Hopkins’s ambitions when he came to Dublin to take up his appointment in University College in February 1884: 1. His priesthood – his relationship with God was central to Hopkins’s being; 2. His job in Dublin – the ‘Dublin Notebook’ clearly shows that he fulfilled his academic duties with care and expertise;2 3. Poetry – his own, and his detailed suggestions to Robert Bridges, Canon Richard Dixon and Coventry Patmore; 4. Dorian measure – Hopkins planned to write a major original book on the metre of Greek lyric poetry; this required deep involvement with classical Greek literature but also the deployment of sophisticated analytical tools which Hopkins lacked;3 5. Music – he composed at least twenty-seven settings for poems. In a letter to Robert Bridges, of 12 November 1884, he says: ‘Before leaving Stonyhurst I began some music … to Collins’s “Ode to Evening”. Quickened by the heavenly beauty of that poem I groped in my soul’s very viscera for the tune and thrummed the sweetest and most secret catgut of the mind. What came out was very strange and wild and (I thought) very good’.4 Hopkins experienced the great highs and lows sometimes seen in people of genius. In his biography of Ronald Knox, Evelyn Waugh notes: Mystical writers agree that it is a common, if not universal, sign of Gerard Manley Hopkins and his Friends in Dublin 194 Studies • volume 106 • number 422 advance in the spiritual life when ‘consolations’ are withdrawn, and the soul is left without any sensible delights for very long periods. 5 WH Gardner, in his introduction to Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins, published in 1953, comments: Such moods of ‘desolation’ conform to those periods of spiritual dryness, which are carefully described and prescribed for, by St Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises. Desolation is the human shuddering recoil from the strain of a rigorous discipline – a sourness, loss of hope, of joy, almost a suspension of faith itself, which makes the victim feel he is totally separated from his God.6 In a letter of 28 October 1880 when he was a curate in Liverpool, Hopkins wrote to Bridges: Time and spirits were wanting; one is so fagged, so harried and gallied up and down. And the drunkards go on drinking; the filthy […] are filthy still […] would that I had seen the last of it. In Ireland, Hopkins increasingly suffered low moods. An intriguing question arises – would he have experienced the highs that so glowingly shine in his poetry if he had not also plumbed the dark depths of his soul? In focusing on Hopkins’s Dublin poetry, it is important not to ignore his social life in Dublin. He moved in many different circles: the Jesuit community, academic circles, the literary and artistic scene, recreational activities and contacts with families in the city. The Jesuit community He greatly valued the help and friendship of Fr William Delany, President of University College. In a letter to his mother dated 26 November 1884 he says, ‘Fr Delany has such a buoyant and unshaken trust in God. He is as generous, cheering, and open hearted a man as I ever lived with’. But Hopkins’s greatest friend in the Jesuit community was Robert Curtis. In the same letter he goes on to say: … and the rest of the community give me almost as much happiness, but in particular Robert Curtis. He is my comfort beyond what I can say and a kind of godsend I never expected to have. His father, Stephen Curtis QC, and mother live in town and I often see them. Robert Curtis, born in 1852, was a gifted mathematician...

Spiritual dryness in Catholic priests: Internal resources as possible buffers.

Spiritual dryness in Catholic priests: Internal resources as possible buffers.

Hunger and Thirst: Suffering with Christ in Sts. Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Kolkatta

Hunger and ThirstSuffering with Christ in Sts. Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Kolkatta Albert Marie Surmanski Sr., OP (bio) Sts. Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Kolkatta were both women mystics who had great desire to cooperate with Christ in the salvation of others. Catherine talked about her "hunger for souls," while Teresa spoke of "satisfying the thirst of Christ." As they grew in union with Christ, both came to see the suffering in their lives as a sharing in Christ's suffering. Despite these similarities, the spiritual experiences of Catherine and Teresa are profoundly different. Since they are from different countries and centuries, one would expect to find some differences in their experiences, but what is fascinating is that their differences deepen the closer they grow to the same crucified God. As Catherine matured spiritually, her suffering came to flow directly out of a compassionate vision of the world—thus from light and not darkness. In contrast, Teresa endured a prolonged "dark night" until the end of her life.1 Both identified with Christ on the cross, seeing their sufferings as a participation in his. Their differing experiences raise questions about mystical experience in its relationship to Christology. Does mystical experience, particularly that of the dark night, follow a characteristic path? To what extent is this path a deepening identification with Christ? If so, was Christ's experience one of clear knowledge or of darkness? [End Page 18] Catherine is a doctor of the church in her own right, with a precise teaching on the path of spiritual growth. Her way is compatible with that of St. John of the Cross, but emphasizes God's freedom in shaping his relationship with every soul. Although Teresa's experience is a significant variation on the path that Catherine describes, several principles Catherine offers suggest points of reconciliation. With the help of Aquinas's Christology, it can be shown that both women share in different aspects of Christ's sufferings in accord with their differing missions. 1. Catherine of Siena's Life and Vocation Catherine of Siena, a fourteenth-century Dominican tertiary, possessed a passionate and energetic nature. She was a Dominican through and through who spoke and lived the primacy of wisdom over will. One of Catherine's most characteristic statements is "upon knowledge follows love." She experienced her deepest sufferings and joys as flowing from mystical knowledge of God. Catherine dedicated her life to Christ around the age of seven after receiving a vision of Christ. At the age of sixteen, having refused all offers of marriage, Catherine received the habit of the third order Dominican Sisters of Penance. This meant that she became a member of the Dominican family, but did not take public vows or live a strict community life.2 Catherine spent the next three years in intense prayer and penance, rarely leaving her room in her parents' house except to attend Mass.3 During this time, Catherine experienced periods of extraordinary closeness to Christ as well as periods of spiritual dryness and temptation. This time in Catherine's life culminated with a mystical betrothal, in which Christ gave her a ring that remained visible to her throughout her entire life. Bl. Raymond of Capua, Catherine's spiritual director and biographer, reports that when Christ gave Catherine the ring, he exhorted her to faith and promised her strength to overcome her enemies.4 The presence and significance of this ring precluded [End Page 19] any further experience of spiritual darkness for Catherine. As a miraculous token of God's loving support, it signified and ensured that she would never be without some tangible experience of God.5 It soon became clear that Christ had given Catherine this token as a promise to support her in the mission to which he was calling her. Catherine was sent to bring the love and wisdom of God first to her family, then to Siena, Italy, and eventually to the papal court in Avignon. Catherine feared a loss of intimacy with Christ when she was sent out to her family. Raymond records Catherine "crying bitterly" when first told to leave her room. She asked...

Spiritual Dryness in Non-Ordained Catholic Pastoral Workers

Background: We wondered whether “spiritual dryness” as a specific phase of “spiritual crisis” or insecurity is mostly a matter only of Catholic priests or can also be found in other pastoral professionals. Methods: In a cross-sectional survey, we measured the prevalence of spiritual dryness in non-ordained Catholic pastoral workers, and identified relevant predictors. Results: In a sample of 3.277 pastoral workers, 50% would occasionally experience phases of spiritual dryness, while 13% experience it often or even regularly. There were no significant differences between women and men, professions, or age groups. The best predictors of spiritual dryness were low transcendence perception and a low sense of coherence (both are resources), as well as depressive symptoms and stress perception (both are demands or stressors), which would explain 41% of the variance. Self-efficacy expectation and social support were not among the significant predictors. Conclusion: Both the proportions and the main predictors are similar compared to Catholic priests. It is thus not the underlying profession or vocation and the related life situation or differences in social support, but predominantly specific perceptions, feelings, and attitudes that are related to the phenomenon of spiritual dryness—and these can be found in all pastoral professionals who seriously live their spirituality.

Reactions and Strategies of German Catholic Priests to Cope with Phases of Spiritual Dryness

We investigated strategies of 763 Catholic priests (response rate 36%) to deal with phases of spiritual dryness, specifically their reactions toward these feelings, and which strategies were used. Most priests have found strategies to cope with feelings of spiritual dryness. Those who have managed to overcome these phases were stimulated "all the more to help others" and experienced "deeper spiritual clarity and depth." Whatever strategy was chosen (we differentiated eight strategies in various combinations), there were no significant differences for priests' self-efficacy expectation, transcendence perception or life satisfaction. Instead, we found significant differences for social support (F=6.5; p<0.0001) and somatization (F=3.4; p=0.002).

Foundations of the Definition of Faith in Dialogue with Porta Fidei by Benedict XVI

Faith is closely linked with love. Acts of charity are what proves that we are believers and they can also serve as arguments for unconscious faith among the non-religious. If the Creator himself is the source of all such acts, in each act of charity we have to do with human consent and a manifestation of God's power. Through its various functions and dimensions, the Church is a signpost in the process of faith-building. Membership in the Church helps us open ourselves to this grace as it is a room for evaluative reflection on human deeds and thoughts, an environment in which hearts receive God's support in a special way, and aplace which gives us a chance to confront ourselves with other believers, whose testimony motivates us in times of spiritual dryness. Signs of the times are certain events in which man is able to see hints for his life more by asking about the reason for which they occur than about their nature.

Spiritual Dryness as a Measure of a Specific Spiritual Crisis in Catholic Priests: Associations with Symptoms of Burnout and Distress

Spirituality/religiosity is recognized as a resource to cope with burdening life events and chronic illness. However, less is known about the consequences of the lack of positive spiritual feelings. Spiritual dryness in clergy has been described as spiritual lethargy, a lack of vibrant spiritual encounter with God, and an absence of spiritual resources, such as spiritual renewal practices. To operationalize experiences of “spiritual dryness” in terms of a specific spiritual crisis, we have developed the “spiritual dryness scale” (SDS). Here, we describe the validation of the instrument which was applied among other standardized questionnaires in a sample of 425 Catholic priests who professionally care for the spiritual sake of others. Feelings of “spiritual dryness” were experienced occasionally by up to 40%, often or even regularly by up to 13%. These experiences can explain 44% of variance in daily spiritual experiences, 30% in depressive symptoms, 22% in perceived stress, 20% in emotional exhaustion, 19% in work engagement, and 21% of variance of ascribed importance of religious activity. The SDS-5 can be used as a specific measure of spiritual crisis with good reliability and validity in further studies.

Two Perspectives on Spiritual Dryness: Spiritual Desertion and the Dark Night of the Soul

St. John of the Cross’ work, The Dark Night of the Soul, and Joseph Symonds’ work, The Case and Cure of a Deserted Soul, offer two compelling treatments on the subject of spiritual dryness. Moreover, these works represent two spiritual traditions (the Discalced Carmelites and the English Puritans respectively) which offer distinct but viable perspectives on the Christian life. This paper seeks to answer the following question: What is the degree of similarity between St. John of the Cross’ understanding of the dark night of the soul and Joseph Symonds’ understanding of spiritual desertion? A secondary question is also addressed: What is the value of these resources for pastoral care today? Although notable differences exist between the two, their degree of similarity is significant considering the disconnection between the spiritual traditions that each represent. Moreover, these works are invaluable resources for contemporary pastoral care.

The English Puritans and Spiritual Desertion: A Protestant Perspective on the Place of Spiritual Dryness in the Christian Life

Spiritual depression is a term originally employed by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones to describe the phenomenon of Christians experiencing a state of the soul that is marked by an unusually potent and longstanding sense of pessimism, inadequacy, despondency, and lack of activity within (but not limited to) one's relationship with God for what appears to be no discernable cause. Although St. John of the Cross’ The Dark Night of the Soul is arguably the most historically influential work on the subject, the English Puritans also developed a robust perspective of their own–-one built upon the principles of the Reformation and a solidly Protestant perspective of the spiritual life. The Puritan concept of spiritual desertion is most lucidly articulated in a lesser-known work by Joseph Symonds titled, The Case and Cure of a Deserted Soul–-a rich and invaluable resource for contemporary pastoral care.

Pastoral Burnout and the Impact of Personal Spiritual Renewal, Rest-taking, and Support System Practices

Pastors risk burnout because of inordinate ministerial demands, which may drain their emotional, cognitive, spiritual, and physical energy reserves and impair their overall effectiveness. Burnout advances across three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced accomplishment. The debilitating effects of pastoral burnout were examined through a survey of 270 pastors. Relationships between burnout and three potentially preventative or mitigating factors, spiritual renewal, rest-taking, and support system practices, were explored. The results identified spiritual dryness as the primary predictor of emotional exhaustion, the stress dimension of burnout. In the published literature, no other work to date has empirically substantiated a link between pastors’ spirituality and burnout. These findings expand the burnout construct and promote leader self-care practices that foster resilience, vitality, and well-being.

Beyond Image: The Apophatic-Kataphatic Dialectic in Teresa de Avila

Catholicism distinguishes between two different approaches to spirituality. Apophatic, or negative spirituality stresses interiority, imageless-ness and wordlessness. Kataphatic, or positive spirituality is image-driven and uses analogies to speak of God. Teresa de Avila draws on both traditions. Inspired by Francisco de Osuna's practice of recogimiento, Teresa describes the inward movement of the soul. The incoherent, impressionistic quality of her prose results from the amassment of disparate metaphors that ultimately transcend word and image, deconstructing all rational notions of God. However, her familiarity with Ignatius's Ejercicios espirituales made her acutely aware of the effectiveness of image to spur spiritual experience, and she builds on images of Christ and the Virgin in order to overcome spiritual dryness and intensify prayer. The apophatic-kataphatic dialectic creates an exquisite tension in her work.

‘Acedia’ 700–1200

Among the seven deadly sins, none is more interesting to study for its historical development and the complexity of its meaning than the sin of acedia. For while its companions — with the possible exception of avarice — remained fairly static through the centuries of medieval thought, and indeed have remained so to the present, acedia presented a variety of faces and changed in its very nature, from the moment when it entered Christian teaching in the West to the fifteenth century. In Christian thinking, pride has always been pride; its psychological roots may have been explained in agreement with different philosophical and psychological systems, and its manifestations may vary according to changing attitudes and experiences, but its nature has remained essentially unchanged. The same is true of envy, wrath, lust, and the others. But not so with acedia. A reflection of the complexity which this concept acquired during its medieval lifetime can still be seen in the totally different connotations which its names have for the cognoscenti of today. The ancient term acedia fascinates because it suggests such phenomena as spiritual dryness, ennui or WeItschmerz, while its vernacular equivalent sloth, as everyone readily agrees, stands for something so common and ordinary that it hardly deserves a second thought.

Pearl, A Study in Spiritual Dryness. M. Madeleva

<i>Pearl, A Study in Spiritual Dryness</i>. M. Madeleva

Pearl: A Study in Spiritual Dryness.

Pearl: A Study in Spiritual Dryness.

The Dark Night of the Soul

A prominent feature in experience of great mystics is a period of spiritual dryness and depression which they describe under such figures as the dark night of soul, the mystic death, or the great dereliction. The purpose of this paper is (1) to illustrate this experience from some of records in which it has been described by those who have passed through it; (2) to attempt a psychological explanation of its occurrence; and (3) to give some answer to question, Is experience merely a psycho-physical oscillation of mood or is it (as mystics themselves claim) a significant if not an indispensable stage in development of highest spiritual experience and activity?