Elijah’s Desert

 

ELIJAH’S DESERT

The spiritual journey is commonly conceived as a progression and often as an ascent, so that some charting of progress in the spiritual life is inevitably entailed.

An alternative image of the spiritual life is suggested by the journey of Elijah the prophet to Mount Horeb when he fled from the murderous Jezebel.

Mortally afraid, Elijah flees a day’s journey into the desert until, overwhelmed by exhaustion, he lays himself down beneath a broom tree, praying, “This is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” Roused by an angel from sleep, he is refreshed by a hearth cake and a jug of water. Descending into sleep a second time, he is awakened by the angel, who exclaims, “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!” Afterwards, so fortified is he that at once he walks forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb. (1 Kings 19:1-8)

In this image of the desert the traveller is preoccupied not with their progress upward or inward but with advancing in love toward their destination, often in darkness and struggle, but also as God wills resting in oases of light and peace.

The image offers the advantage that it is a spur to prayer and ascetical practice yet at the same time a check upon self-conscious introspection or prideful dwelling upon “spiritual progress.”

The image of a journey across a flat desert combines the images of the dark night of the soul of Saint John of the Cross and the desert oasis of Saint Bruno the Carthusian.

The dark night of the soul is a desert because it is a period of purification of the senses and the spirit—painful, mysterious, yet despite it all, ardent. Saint John of the Cross says it cannot be adequately described:

“So numerous and burdensome are the pains of this night, and so many are the scriptural passages we could cite that we would have neither the time nor the energy to put it all in writing; and, doubtless, all that we can possibly say would fall short of expressing what this night really is.” [Saint John of the Cross, “The Dark Night of the Soul,” II, 7, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D. (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1991), page 406]

Saint John compares it to a “dark dungeon” where a prisoner, “bound hands and feet,” is “able neither to move nor see nor feel any favor from heaven or earth.” The soul in this condition is “humbled, softened, and purified, until it becomes so delicate, simple, and refined that it can be one with the Spirit of God, according to the degree of union of love that God, in his mercy, desires to grant.” [Ibid., pages 407-408]

Souls who endure this suffering “know that they love God and that they would give a thousand lives for him (they would indeed, for souls undergoing these trials love God very earnestly)” yet “they find no relief. This knowledge instead causes them deeper affliction.” [Ibid., page 409]

In contrast, the desert oasis is the foretaste of the fruits of Paradise, the vision of God in purity of heart that for reasons entirely hidden to the soul and out of sheer gratuitousness God wishes to bestow upon the soul.

Saint Bruno’s letter to his friend, Raoul, offers us glimpses of this rarefied spiritual attainment. He writes, “In any case only those who have experienced them can know the benefits and divine exultation that the solitude and silence of the desert hold in store for those who love it.” They “enter into themselves,” “rest in quiet activity,” “eat the fruits of Paradise with joy,” even “see God himself.” [Saint Bruno the Carthusian, Letter to Raoul, Dean of the Cathedral Chapter at Rheims, 7, retrieved on April 2, 2017 from http://www.chartreux.org/en/texts/bruno-raoul-le-verd.php]

Of this divine exultation, Saint John speaks as well.

“There are intervals in which, through God's dispensation…the soul, like one who has been unshackled and released from a dungeon and who can enjoy the benefit of spaciousness and freedom, experiences great sweetness of peace and loving friendship with God in a ready abundance of spiritual communication.” [Saint John of the Cross, op. cit., page 408]

Thus the spiritual journey may be conceived and understood as a trek across the flats of Elijah’s desert.

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