The desert
can be a time
of silence and solitude, of being alone and facing the truth
about ourselves. The desert may also be a time of spiritual
dryness.
Our physical and emotional surroundings can also be
desert-like: harsh and uncompromising and not life-giving.
Sometimes, however, we experience a desert and see beauty in its
emptiness. It can be a place of intimacy with God.
The journey of many people takes them through a desert.
We meet them there in our ministry. As a desert-dweller, Charles
absorbed the
multi-faceted qualities of the desert. His writings reveal
what he learned.
It is necessary to enter the desert and remain there
a while in order to receive the grace of God. It is in
the desert that we empty ourselves, that we chase away
all that is not God, that we completely empty out the
little house of our souls so that God alone may fill it.
. . . It is indispensable. . . . It is a time of grace.
....................
We must go through the desert and dwell there to
receive the grace of God. It is while there that one
expels from oneself everything that is not divine. The
soul needs this silence, this recollection, this time to
forget the created universe. It is during it that God
establishes His kingdom in the soul and shapes its inner
spirit, the spirit of intimate life with God, the soul's
converse with God in faith, hope, and charity.
....................
Silence, recollection, and withdrawal from the world
are the means God uses to form the inner spirit and
establish His reign within us. . . . Later, the soul
will bear fruit to the same extent that it has been
inwardly formed. If the inner life is non-existent,
there will be no fruit despite all the zeal, good
intentions, and work. It wants to impart holiness to
others but cannot, not having it to give.
....................
I love this desert; it is so good and wholesome to be
alone, face to face with eternal things -- truth washes
over you like a flood.
....................
It was at the moment when Jacob was on the road --
poor, alone -- when he sank naked to the ground in the
desert to rest after a long journey on foot, it was at
the moment when he was in the painful situation of an
isolated traveler in the middle of a long voyage in a
strange and savage country, without shelter, that was
the moment when he found, in his sad condition, that God
had heaped incomparable favors upon him.
....................
In solitude, one is never alone. The spirit was not
made for noise, but for taking things in. Life is a
preparation for heaven, not only through deserving work,
but by the peace and communion with God.
....................
It is wonderful, my Lord, to be alone in my cell and
converse with You in the silence of the night -- and You
are there as God and by Your grace.
