The treasures of darkness

Last Sunday was the Society's 221st birthday - a day of global celebration for our international family of the Sacred Heart. But here in England-Wales it began with some early phone calls, and the news that one of our elderly sisters had unexpectedly slipped away, to celebrate our special day with God and Sophie. Like that other generously loving woman of heart Mary of Magdala, Liz too had gone to meet Jesus when it was very early on the first day of the week, and still dark... 

Liz was my retreat and then spiritual director for several years; a quiet, generously wise and astute woman who taught me so much about prayer, and especially about embracing the prayer of faith and waiting into which God has led me all my life. It began in 1997, when the sister who was my spiritual director at the time suggested I ask her to direct my retreat, saying She prays like you do; she'll understand and help you. And indeed she did.

Most of my experience of prayer had been of darkness and dryness, and a deep, though inchoate sense of being led to a place beyond words. So, I had struggled with the Spiritual Exercises in my noviciate, and still struggled to reconcile this strong pull into dark, empty silence with self-doubting ideas of how I 'should' pray and experience God. Liz understood all this; more than that, she affirmed that God was indeed present and working in the darkness. This she called the prayer of faith, because - in an emptiness devoid of experiences and feelings - it is faith alone which assures the pray-er of God's presence and action.

There has of course been a evolution since then, as over time the darkness became dazzling (and changed complexion), and the emptiness paradoxically full, and I began to welcome the waiting... and thus this became my home, in which I know - just know - God's presence and love. I will give you the treasures of darkness, God said to me, as he did to Isaiah; my gratitude to Liz is for how she helped me, all those years ago, to know and embrace this truly as treasure and gift. And as I look back on the evolution, recalling key graces and insights, I can still hear, woven throughout, Liz's insistence, quiet and constant, that we don't come to prayer in order to think, or 'do', or focus on our feelings, but simply in order to be with God, in love...

As Liz now is, her longing and waiting over, in the fullness and eternity of life.