September 26, 2005  

"Intercession in the Dark Night"

After being born, informed, and reborn, the next stage for us is being conformed.  The Spirit leads us into the Night of the Spirit so we can be more conformed to God's perfect will, conformed more to Jesus Christ crucified.  Our intercession changes here, too.  It can become very heavy because we're not feeling God.  There are no consolations.  We are being introduced into a deeper intercessory way to the Cross and the Office of Intercession.

 It is much more difficult to love when you are not feeling loved.  It is much more difficult to believe when you're not hearing from God in the way that you used to hear.  There is a passover that is happening for the intercessor.  God is starting a deeper birthing process of faith, hope, and love within us.  We're being introduced in a deeper intercessory way to the Cross itself, the Office of Intercession.  We feel abandoned and alone in these transferences of sin.  Jesus took on sin; He took on the loneliness which is the fruit of separation from God. 

The transferences definitely get heavier because of the deeper birthing process of Faith and Hope and Love that is going on within us.  Heart-piercings are very powerful, and yet they are passive because there is nothing we can do about it.  So we come to a stage in the journey where we are being more conformed to Jesus as we allow others, in whatever way God wants, to pierce our hearts.  It can be something small or something big but it will usually be someone or something that we love because only love can pierce the heart, and it is that love that gives the power to intercession at this particular time.

The Cross is looming there.  We're becoming more acquainted with the experience of it.  Every Christian is commanded to take up his Cross and follow Jesus (Lk 9:23), but in this Night, we also know that we have not been fully empowered yet.  We are learning, though.   God will give us some heavy touches of what He experienced, but it's always Jesus within us that carries the burden.  We become more aware that we are not carrying this cross alone.  Jesus Himself knew that He, no matter how difficult it was, was never alone.

One danger here, in the darkness and heaviness, is the sin of sloth.  It can be painful.  It can be dark.  It is heavy.  We might feel abandoned.  We might feel alone because there are transferences of sin here.  Jesus took on sin and the fruit of that is separation from God.  We'll start to feel that loneliness. The temptation will be to get busy about many other things and start leading ourselves again, not waiting to be led by the Lord because prayer starts getting boring.  There is a lot of aridity there.  Spiritual directors are extremely important to help us stay on track.

Our discernment is growing and becoming more pure as our spirit is being purified.  The discernments are of the Spirit.  So, obviously, the discernment of Spirit gift is definitely more pure because our own spirit is becoming purified.  Ignatius said the most difficult spirit to discern is our own spirit.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "New Heavens - New Earth," Omaha, NE, 2004.