I have often remarked, both in comments on this blog and in person, that I can barely talk about myself, though the problem gets better with time. My conversion experiences are, for example, something of a mystery that surpasses words. I read the Confessions in awe. How could Saint Augustine write so well about himself and his experiences? How could he talk about them? I’d just stutter. “This saint,” I think, “is amazing! Why is this?”
The answer, if we sit and think about it, is not that complicated. It’s very simple. It’s all about contemplation.
We never really know the circumstances of life and of our experiences until we know ourselves. We never really know ourselves until we see ourselves more as God knows us and our memory is purified. We never see how God knows us, and we will never have a purified memory, until we are united with his will. We are only united to his will, one in will and love with him, through contemplation. Contemplation in both sporadic and continuous forms is begun only by passing through what Saint John of the Cross calls “dark nights” and other spiritual writers, like Saint Alphonsus, call “desolation” in the “crucible”.
Putting this all together, we realize that the way to knowing ourselves and being able to tell our own story (which is the story of God the Trinity acting in our life) is to pass through those “dark nights”, to pass through the “crucible”, in order to be transformed by and into divine love.
There is one thing necessary (see Lk 10:42)!
Saint Thérèse puts it like this:
I am now at a time of life when I can look back on the past, for my soul has been refined in the crucible of interior and exterior trials.
I find great comfort in these words. It tells me where to go, when we could otherwise be confused about the way forward. Do you want to tell your own story? Do you want to look back on the past? Know God. Suffer and pass through the “crucible”.
Related posts:
Contemplative in the Mud 