Spiritual Maturity

Fr. Ronald Rolheiser

And this is painful. It is experienced precisely as darkness, emptiness, doubt, abandonment. But this is, in fact, the 'test' that we pray God to spare us from whenever we pray Matthew's version of The Lord's Prayer, “Do not put us to the test”.

This experience is usually given to those who have the maturity to handle it, spiritual athletes, those who pray for and truly want a searing 'purity of heart', people like Mother Teresa. They asked Christ to experience and feel everything as he did. He just answers their prayers!

Mother Teresa understood all of this. That is why her seeming doubt did not lead her away from God and her vocation but instead riveted her to it with a depth and Purity that, more than anything else, tell us precisely what faith really is.

Wrestling with God