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.
