Day 8: The knot of spiritual dryness

On the eighth day of the Mary Undoer of Knots Novena, we bring to Mary the knot that may not have been on the original list of knots we wrote on Day 1: the knot of spiritual dryness. The faith we once had with feeling no longer feels. The prayers we once prayed with consolation no longer console. The sacraments we once received with fervor have become dutiful. Mary, the Mother who stood beneath the Cross when every consolation had been stripped from her, knows the territory and is the Mother to undo this knot.

Today's meditation

Catholic spiritual writers have given considerable attention to the experience of spiritual dryness. Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591) develops the theology in The Dark Night of the Soul and The Ascent of Mount Carmel. Saint Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) lived in spiritual dryness for the last eighteen months of her short life. Saint Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997) lived in interior darkness for nearly fifty years, as her Come Be My Light posthumously revealed. The dry spell in prayer is not a sign of spiritual failure; in many cases it is a sign that the soul is being weaned from the consolations of God to the love of God Himself, who is more than His consolations.

The Mother to whom we pray today is the Mother who, in the most painful spiritual dryness of all, stood at the foot of the Cross and watched her Son die. The Catholic theological tradition has long understood that Mary suffered with her Son on Calvary in a spiritual martyrdom that included the experience of God's apparent silence in the face of the world's evil. From this experience, she now intercedes for every Catholic soul that prays into the apparent silence of God.

Today's intention

Today, name to Mary the dryness in your own prayer life. Be honest:

• I have stopped going to confession because I find it difficult.
• The Mass has become a duty I attend without expectation.
• The rosary has become a recitation without meditation.
• I have not had a real spiritual consolation in months or years.
• Prayer time has become a half-hearted attempt at God's presence.

These are not signs of damnation. They are common chapters of the spiritual life of every soul that has prayed for any length of time. Bring them to Mary today.

The principal prayer to Our Lady Undoer of Knots

Virgin Mary, Mother who never refuses to come to the aid of a child in need, Mother whose hands never cease to serve your beloved children because they are moved by the divine love and immense mercy that exists in your heart, cast your compassionate eyes upon me and see the snarl of knots that exist in my life. You know very well how desperate I am, my pain and how I am bound by these knots.

Mary, Mother to whom God entrusted the undoing of the knots in the lives of His children, I entrust into your hands the ribbon of my life. No one, not even the evil one himself, can take it away from your precious care. In your hands there is no knot that cannot be undone.

Powerful Mother, by your grace and intercessory power with your Son and my Liberator, Jesus, take into your hands today this knot (name it). I beg you to undo it for the glory of God, once for all. You are my hope.

O my Lady, you are the only consolation God gives me, the fortification of my feeble strength, the enrichment of my destitution, and, with Christ, the freedom from my chains. Hear my plea. Keep me, guide me, protect me, O safe refuge!

Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for me. Amen.

The first three decades of the Rosary

Pray the first three decades. If today the rosary itself feels dry, pray it anyway, simply, without straining for feeling. The faithful recitation of the rosary in dryness is itself a more meritorious prayer, in the eyes of God, than the consoled rosary of an earlier easier time.

Reflection

The Catholic spiritual tradition holds that prayer in dryness is, in many ways, more spiritually fruitful than prayer in consolation. "It is when we feel nothing that we are in fact most close to God," writes Saint Therese in the last pages of her Story of a Soul. The reason is theological: when prayer is consoled, we cannot easily distinguish whether we love God or merely the consolation God is giving. When the consolation is removed, the love (if any) of God Himself becomes visible, both to us and to God.

The remedy for spiritual dryness in Catholic spiritual writers is not to manufacture feelings (an impossible and counterproductive task) but to persevere in the practices: keep going to Mass, keep praying the rosary, keep examining the conscience, keep going to confession at the regular intervals, keep reading the spiritual classics, keep doing the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The dryness lifts in time, often by surprise, sometimes after years. The lifting is itself a gift of God, given on His timeline, not earnable by our striving.

Today's prayer to Mary is for the patience to persevere in the dryness, the trust that she is undoing this knot even when we cannot feel her presence, and the eventual gift of renewed consolation when the Lord chooses to give it.

Closing prayers

Conclude with the Memorare and:

Holy Mary, who stood beneath the Cross in the darkness of Good Friday, undo the knot of our spiritual dryness. Pray for us.