I think it’s safe to say that most of us wish that our spiritual lives were always filled with consolations.  We enjoy the experience of feeling God’s presence and the peace and joy it brings.  On the other hand, we instinctively dislike feeling interiorly desolate, like a desert.  We know from experience, however, that the spiritual life is filled with consolation and desolation, peaks and valleys, light and darkness. Read more »