How do you find meaning despite apparent emptiness?

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Praedicare

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Has anyone here ever intuited a lack of meaning and purpose in this universe, despite your Faith? That it’s all just cold, empty, and impersonal, despite what we believe about God?

Each human being is less than a wave, less than a drop of water, less than an H2O molecule, on this vast sea of time. There are 7 billion of us now, and there have been countless billions before and there will be countless billions after. We pass into this world and pass out of it so fast. I can’t reconcile this extreme smallness with any sense of personal meaning. I feel lost, empty, and lacking all sense of reality/connection with God.

Nothing else could have happened on Easter Sunday than that Jesus rose from death. But that was 2000 very silent years ago. Aeons. Ages. Generations upon Generations. I feel as if it has no meaning up to the present day. For me, Jesus might as well not have risen at all, because of how silent, distant, and empty God is.

Even the beautiful symbolic things of the Faith are not doing anything to bring me peace: the beautiful bookends, the fulfillment of prophecy, the miracles. Here I am, alone and afraid and confused by a Church that has failed us all by being in schism and not having the power to show what is true. The whole world just seems to be in perpetual travail and groaning and evil and sin and curse and death… with no resolution.

I feel sick in my soul and dead in my heart.

How do you survive times like these, when you’re not sure about anything?
 
I think during times like this we need to rely on our faith. The Cross was 2000 years ago but its an event that impacts eternity. When we go to Mass, in a mysterious spiritual way we are at Calvary. Even though we are very small, our souls would last forever, even after the Second Coming and when the universe is renewed. 🙂
 
Praedicare said:
Has anyone here ever intuited a lack of meaning and purpose in this universe, despite your Faith? That it’s all just cold, empty, and impersonal, despite what we believe about God?

Each human being is less than a wave, less than a drop of water, less than an H2O molecule, on this vast sea of time. There are 7 billion of us now, and there have been countless billions before and there will be countless billions after. We pass into this world and pass out of it so fast. I can’t reconcile this extreme smallness with any sense of personal meaning. I feel lost, empty, and lacking all sense of reality/connection with God.

Nothing else could have happened on Easter Sunday than that Jesus rose from death. But that was 2000 very silent years ago. Aeons. Ages. Generations upon Generations. I feel as if it has no meaning up to the present day. For me, Jesus might as well not have risen at all, because of how silent, distant, and empty God is.

Even the beautiful symbolic things of the Faith are not doing anything to bring me peace: the beautiful bookends, the fulfillment of prophecy, the miracles. Here I am, alone and afraid and confused by a Church that has failed us all by being in schism and not having the power to show what is true. The whole world just seems to be in perpetual travail and groaning and evil and sin and curse and death… with no resolution.

I feel sick in my soul and dead in my heart.

How do you survive times like these, when you’re not sure about anything?
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Ask a spiritual director they’ll help you greatly. Try researching karlo broussard on Divine hiddeness. Faith isnt something we can reason, though knowing these fulfilled prophecies and miracles will dispose you to faith,
 
First off, the term you need to look up is “spiritual dryness” or “spiritual aridity.” Because that’s what it sounds like you have. It’s not a fun part of the cycle of one’s spiritual life, but it is definitely part of it. And you will feel a lot better once it’s done, but it’s not a bad thing. It’s the cod liver oil of the spiritual life.

If you’ve never read The Ascent of Mount Carmel by St. John of the Cross, now is a good time to read it. He will teach you (among other things) that the times when you feel that God is farthest away, are actually the times when God is busiest at training you and making you stronger. He also has a lot of good practical advice on what to do when it’s happening to you.

(Basically, he teaches that you shouldn’t try to get out of it by sheer force of will, because you’ll just bang your head against a brick wall. Keep doing your normal prayer life stuff, even if it seems useless or boring; and keep going to Mass (assuming you do). Don’t add anything new and strenuous to your routines, but don’t quit. Eat, drink, rest normally, and don’t mistreat your body, because that won’t help either.)

I started reading patristics when I was going through one of these periods of “spiritual dryness.” There’s something very bedrock about reading the Fathers, and there’s also something very modern and relevant about their lives in the ancient Roman world. I don’t know if they will help you, but you might like them. Browse around a bit. Have you ever read St. Augustine’s Confessions, for instance?

St. Gregory Nazianzen’s deathbed dialogue with his big sister, St. Macrina, is cheering in a weird way. And they talk about Greek automatons, which is nifty.
 
Mintaka said:
First off, the term you need to look up is “spiritual dryness” or “spiritual aridity.” Because that’s what it sounds like you have. It’s not a fun part of the cycle of one’s spiritual life, but it is definitely part of it. And you will feel a lot better once it’s done, but it’s not a bad thing. It’s the cod liver oil of the spiritual life.

If you’ve never read The Ascent of Mount Carmel by St. John of the Cross, now is a good time to read it. He will teach you (among other things) that the times when you feel that God is farthest away, are actually the times when God is busiest at training you and making you stronger. He also has a lot of good practical advice on what to do when it’s happening to you.

I started reading patristics when I was going through one of these periods of “spiritual dryness.” There’s something very bedrock about reading the Fathers, and there’s also something very modern and relevant about their lives in the ancient Roman world. I don’t know if they will help you, but you might like them. Browse around a bit. Have you ever read St. Augustine’s Confessions, for instance?

St. Gregory Nazianzen’s deathbed dialogue with his big sister, St. Macrina, is cheering in a weird way. And they talk about Greek automatons, which is nifty.
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Didn’t Mother Teresa write that she suffered from the dark night of the soul, which, I believe, is more long-term than spiritual dryness?
 
“Dark night of the soul” is something that doesn’t happen to shlubs like you and me. It’s like going for your doctorate in the spiritual life. It is super-duper tough and advanced, but it also generally happens only to people who can appreciate how and why it’s super-tough.

If you’re so close to God that you basically go blind to Him, or it’s like He’s a celltower and you’re standing right underneath it… that’s the dark night of the soul. It can last a short or a long time, but Mother Teresa got one of the really really long-term ones. (And that’s highly unusual; I can only think of a few other examples among the saints.)

Handily, St. John of the Cross wrote The Dark Night of the Soul as the continuation of The Ascent of Mount Carmel. But you won’t understand what the heck he’s talking about in Dark Night if you don’t read The Ascent of Mount Carmel first.

Anyway, why listen to me explain spiritual dryness vs. dark night, when you can listen to the expert?

The Ascent of Mount Carmel on EWTN’s website.
 
Thank you for the broad-ranging and varied advice, Mintaka. I’ve studied the Fathers for a long time, and in fact my anxieties lately come from an “over-use” of Church Fathers, History, theology, philosophy, etc.! I’m looking for peace in silence, but in silence there is no peace. I know the works of St. John of the Cross, though I prefer our Eastern Fathers.

I think my personal problems are more based in emotions and the facts of my sensory-processing difficulties (neurological, autism-spectrum). It is almost never theological in foundation, though it becomes theological in expression. The basis is simply exhaustion at having such an over-active nervous system.

I feel a little better now. I am glad of the responses to this thread…
 
Praedicare said:
Thank you for the broad-ranging and varied advice, Mintaka. I’ve studied the Fathers for a long time, and in fact my anxieties lately come from an “over-use” of Church Fathers, History, theology, philosophy, etc.! I’m looking for peace in silence, but in silence there is no peace. I know the works of St. John of the Cross, though I prefer our Eastern Fathers.

I think my personal problems are more based in emotions and the facts of my sensory-processing difficulties (neurological, autism-spectrum). It is almost never theological in foundation, though it becomes theological in expression. The basis is simply exhaustion at having such an over-active nervous system.

I feel a little better now. I am glad of the responses to this thread…
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If I start feeling down, and we all do, I work for others. Takes you outwards rather than inwards Or get outside int the air.

I gave up reading the things listed here after many years of doing so as it was not helping. I have a very high academic background etc, but this can hinder, As I think it was GK Chesterton said, “Through the eye to the heart, avoiding the intellect.”

I would never question God. Not ever. Not fly too near the sun like that. It is what we do for others that matters. Not for ourselves and the miracle is that when we do this we enter a meaning and a fulfilment that is like no other.
 
It’s easy to be devout and joyful when under the grace of the Holy Spirit, but the test comes when all this is removed and we have to struggle to keep the faith. Do not slack, but keep the faith during these very tough trials.

PSALM 42
1 For the leader. A maskil of the Korahites.
2 As the deer longs for streams of water,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
3 My soul thirsts for God, the living God.
When can I enter and see the face of God?
4 My tears have been my bread day and night,
as they ask me every day, “Where is your God?”
5 Those times I recall
as I pour out my soul,
When I would cross over to the shrine of the Mighty One,
to the house of God,
Amid loud cries of thanksgiving,
with the multitude keeping festival.
6 Why are you downcast, my soul;
why do you groan within me?
Wait for God, for I shall again praise him,
my savior and my God.
7 My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I remember you
From the land of the Jordan and Hermon,
from Mount Mizar,
8 Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your torrents,
and all your waves and breakers
sweep over me.
9 By day may the LORD send his mercy,
and by night may his righteousness be with me!
I will pray to the God of my life,
10 I will say to God, my rock:
“Why do you forget me?
Why must I go about mourning
with the enemy oppressing me?”
11 It shatters my bones, when my adversaries reproach me,
when they say to me every day: “Where is your God?”
12 Why are you downcast, my soul,
why do you groan within me?
Wait for God, for I shall again praise him,
my savior and my God.
 
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