Mother Angelica on Suffering and Burnout

by Mother Angelica

Paul was not to concentrate on what he was suffering but on the grace with which that suffering filled his soul.

Suffering in itself is neither good nor bad. It is the way one suffers and the fruit of that suffering that matter.

Interior suffering can be more purifying than any other form of pain because we are forced to cope with it. We can distract ourselves and forget a sprained ankle, but when dryness, weariness, sadness, worry, and fear assail us, they hound us wherever we go. We must understand why God permits this interior suffering, for at first glance it would seem life provides enough pain to sanctify us. Daily trials and even physical pain are somehow outside of us, but interior pain, be it spiritual or mental, is deep within and forces us to be patient and practice virtue. Interior trials sanctify us slowly because they have the power to change us for the better. It is in the soul, in our personality and temperament, that change must occur if we are to reflect the image of Jesus. We may have cancer and be healed, but never change. We may triumph over some disagreeable situation, but never change, but when our pain is inside our soul and we cooperate with God’s Grace in using it, then it has the power to change us. It is in our souls that God does His most magnificent work. The world may look upon the aged, the sick, and the retarded with sympathy, but God’s work in their souls, through the power of interior suffering, is doing a greater work than when He created the universe. Only in eternity shall we see the beauty of the soul, and only then shall we realize what great things were accomplished by interior suffering. We can be sure that: Dryness makes us patient as we seek to love God ...

Though our poor human nature rebels at this state of soul, it realizes that somehow great work is being accomplished. The silent Hand of God moves on, purifying the faculties of our soul, detaching us from possessions, people, and ourselves, raising us to various heights of prayer, and increasing our capacity for love.

It is those who are putting forth great effort to become like Jesus that God plunges into the darkness of dryness and into an awareness of their imperfections. So begins the purification of our faculties — Memory, Understanding, and Will — and the beginning of our ascent to the Mountain of Holiness.

Our Intellect, reasoning on a human level, keeps telling us that sanctity is not for us. It is obviously for those who have fortitude to accomplish great deeds and possess great talents and gifts. As if to add fuel to the fire, our Wills begin to vacillate and are confused as to the course to take. Our ability to accomplish anything on a spiritual level is difficult. A “do nothing” attitude grips our souls, and lukewarmness tries to wrap its arms around us. It is near impossible for the soul to see how any good could come from this state of mind. But if the soul perseveres in its prayers and acts of virtue in spite of how it feels, it will soon begin to realize that its purification is good, and freedom of spirit will be its reward. Even though distractions plague its prayer time, the soul calmly returns to its seeking of the Lord as soon as those distractions are noticed. The danger here is for the soul to seek consolations by deliberate distractions. Meditative reading is put aside, and the soul spends the whole time of prayer reading a book that gives it consolation but little fervor. The shortening of prayer time is a real danger, for the fear of “wasting” time takes hold of the soul. It seeks more action, and soon the good works that bring consolation replace prayer time and the soul falls prey to great danger. It is important to persevere in praying, even in lengthening the time of prayer, for the purification of dryness far outweighs the few consolations the soul de...

Dryness sharpens every faculty. It forces us to great degrees of Hope when our Memory and Imagination are dulled. It increases our Faith, for we must seek Him as He is and believe His Word. It strengthens our Will by making it follow His Commandments and imitate His virtues.

Detachment is one of the greatest works of dryness. It is great because it is detaching ourselves from ourselves and not from things. Things are comparatively easy to give up when we feel the loving arms of God around us.

How grateful we should be to God for His patience with us even though we struggle against His Providence and Guidance. Let us not become giddy as we climb the Mountain of Holiness and forget our goals, our desires, and our way. If we ask God for sanctity we must believe that He has heard our prayer, and everything in our moment-to-moment existence is designed by Him for that end.

However, a true friend loves us in every possible circumstance or trial. In fact, differences deepen our friendship because true love is fed by sacrifice.

The knowledge that His Presence never leaves us adds to the cross of dryness because we think that Presence must be felt. We are slow to understand that God wants us to have both a yearning and an assurance of His Presence — but in Faith.

It is when we gaze up to the Father in anguish of heart, lonely and empty, that the Spirit of Love accepts the ashes of our human love and begins His work of transformation. It is time for Jesus to bear fruit in our souls.

The people and things we are attached to are the things we love selfishly. We find comfort and consolation in them, and in proportion as our souls cling to these feelings, in that proportion we are attached.

If we are strong enough to love and commune with God, without feelings, we shall do the same with our neighbor. We shall love that neighbor with a detached love. This means we make loving more important than being loved in return.

If we cannot love ourselves as a masterpiece of God’s Power and at the same time hate the sins we commit, we shall be unable to relate to our neighbor in love. When we find sin we shall hate the sinner and fail to make the distinction between our neighbor and his weaknesses. It will be difficult to love that neighbor in the way God loves Him because that neighbor must be near perfect before he is the recipient of our love. The Commandment will be merely an ideal that is not realistic in modern-day living.

Though the essence of dryness is a lack of feeling, the consciousness of one’s unworthiness, with all the weaknesses of human nature strong and operative, is very much a “feeling” but one not to our liking. We try to run away from the feeling of our nothingness that overwhelms us, but we cannot. It is one of the many phenomena of the spiritual life that “no feeling” produces a “feeling.” The soul’s awareness of its wretched condition can do more to its pride in five minutes than a thousand humiliations in a lifetime.

The soul slowly understands what humility of heart means. It does not feel crushed or broken, but it is overwhelmed by a “sense” of its sinner condition, of its capacity for evil, and the thin thread that separates it from God, whose “power is at its best in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). It is no longer discouraged by its tendencies towards sin; it is more surprised at what it does not do, and implores the grace of God to ever stay in His favor. Its striving for perfection becomes more interior, and with the effort to overcome exterior faults it tries to improve its motives. It strives to be gentle not only in action but in heart.

humble

Jesus Needs My Consolation Only once in Scripture did Jesus ask something of others, and that was comfort — companionship in a time of great need — encouragement in a time of fear — empathy in a time of darkness. Three times He asked His Apostles to “watch and pray with Him,” and three times they disappointed Him (Matt. 26:37-46). He always gave but received nothing in return. Little seems to have changed since then. We ask and receive from Him, but what do we give Him in return? In our knowledge of His Godhead and our sinner condition, we realize that we can add nothing to His Nature or Glory. This knowledge often clouds the reality of His Goodness and His Will to be loved and comforted by us. Our intellect gets in the way of our heart. We look upon Him as One who is aloof, unaware, and unconcerned. Nothing is further from the truth. He became man that we may look to Him for comfort and He may look to us for consolation. He desires a “togetherness” that is warm and loving. This is far from the familiarity that loses sight of His Divinity — the kind that treats Jesus as though He were mere man and never God. Love acknowledges His Divinity, and never ceases in its desire to adore and glorify Him, but love also realizes its limitations, acknowledges its weaknesses, and reaches up in perfect trust to give comfort to its Creator and Lord. A Christian’s humility waxes strong and is able to overcome the theological speculations that tell him he cannot comfort God. He is not inte...