Because hope, in particular, suffers during desolation, Ignatius encourages the director to give the desolate person “courage and strength (Annotation 7).” As Ignatian scholar Timothy Gallagher so beautifully points out, Ignatius encourages the desolate person to trust that Christ “has left him in trial in his natural powers, so that he may resist . . . since he can resist with the divine help, which always remains with him, though he does not clearly feel it.” He can resist, insists Ignatius. “Let the one who is in desolation think that he can do much.”
The problem is that if the desolation IS for cause this can lead to pride not dependence
