Dear Father Angelo,

I am 43 years old, and despite being raised in the Christian faith, I spent many, too many years without giving importance to Mass, much less prayer.

The rare times I showed up at church, I didn’t care about being late, and I even burst out laughing at one thing or another. This was to make her understand how miserable my behavior was.

And yet I had attended catechism, but I wasn’t aware of the seriousness of missing the Mass of the Eucharistic Jesus. I didn’t kneel at the consecration, much less was I aware that the living God was in the tabernacle.

How much I have hurt the Lord, and how much I still hurt Him whenever I don’t feel loved. That’s the point: I would like to feel God’s love, I would like to know how God can love someone who feels good for nothing, fearful of everything and everyone.

I’d like to know how to discover God’s love, how to turn sadness into joy, and how to love others from the heart.

Excuse me, Father, my hasty letter has flooded like a river.

If you’d like to answer me for advice and bless me in your prayers, I thank you.

Priest’s answer

Dear friend,

1. Sometimes the Lord adds some spiritual consolation to the spiritual blessings of grace.

But it cannot be said in and of itself that spiritual blessings find their verification in the emotion of the heart.

These are two distinct levels.

It would be a grave error to evaluate a spiritual event with the sensory element, such as the emotion of the heart.

2. At the beginning of the spiritual life, the Lord attracts through holy emotions, as is evident from what He Himself says through the prophet Hosea: “I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks; Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer” (Hos 11:4).

3. But often these many emotions are absent for a variety of reasons: either because we are too tired, or distracted, or because of sin.

Sometimes the Lord withholds them because we do not believe ourselves to be already saints, or even to purify our spiritual life, as happens to those who progress very quickly.

Saint John of the Cross spoke of the purification of the senses and the spirit, giving them a specific name: the dark night of the senses and the dark night of the spirit.

4. It is true that the Lord transforms sadness into joy.

He transforms it and guarantees it for the future life. Saint Thomas comments: “For the saints weep as they sow during this time of merit, but they will rejoice at the reaping, during the time of reward” (Commentary on the Gospel of John 16:20).

5. It transforms it into joy in some way already in this life because it gives the strength to offer one’s sadness to God as a plea for forgiveness and salvation for many.

Sadness is not removed because it remains like a thorn in the flesh, as happened for St. Paul (cf. 2 Cor 12:7). However, it is soothed.

6. In this case, one feels loved by God in the same way that St. Paul could say: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church” (Col 1:24).

Even in this case, suffering remains. But at the same time, one can rejoice, glimpsing the good fruits it will bring.

Because it is similar to the pruning that the vine receives to produce fruit: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit” (Jn 15:1-2).

7. To experience such consolation, it is necessary to look at everything with God’s eye.

This is the secret to never despairing.

Hoping you always keep your gaze fixed on God and experience peace, I bless you and remember you in prayer.

Father Angelo

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