My Dry Garden

By Nancy Shuman -
Monasteries are not drought-proof.  When skies close up and rains no longer soak the ground, monastery fields and gardens are no less subject to dryness than are any other plots of land. 

The monastery of the heart is not drought-proof, either.  Sometimes we feel as if our souls are barren, lifeless, parched.  There are days when our prayers seem to go nowhere, times when we feel that God Himself has left the universe to dry up and wither to dust. 

If we’ve ever felt this way, we are not alone.  “I could neither pray nor read,” wrote St. Teresa of Avila about one such experience, “but there I remained, for hours and hours together, uneasy in mind and afflicted in spirit on account of the weight of my trouble......"  (continue)

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