After Mother Theresa died, her private journal was discovered and its contents became public.  People were astounded to learn that her journal chronicled long years of spiritual dryness, of a sense of great distance from God.  Shouldn’t a person like her who had dedicated her life to prayer and service be in a state of constant awareness of God’s benevolent presence?  Well, maybe if we wrote the rules, but this is clearly not how things work with God.

Those of us in the spirituality business should be more frank, more often about the lackluster quality of our own spirituality.  No one who takes the spiritual life seriously lives in a state of constant bliss.  In fact, the more one tries to live intentionally in the presence of God the more one is likely to become aware of failings and faults that hinder that relationship.

We don’t get through these times of dryness alone.  We make it because we are part of a community of faith.

In Mark 2:3-5, some friends of a man who was paralyzed tried to bring him to Jesus for healing.  The crowd was too thick to wedge their way to the front, so they climbed up on the roof and dug their way through.  They lowered their friend on his cot right into the lap of Jesus, so to speak.  Jesus made him whole.

That paralyzed man couldn’t get to Jesus alone.  He needed his friends to make a way, and they didn’t stop until they got him to the place where God’s healing power could reach him.

That’s what the community of faith does for us.  Sometimes it is the word of wise counsel or a shoulder to cry on.  Often it is just being in the midst of the congregation singing and praying words that you just can’t quite feel yourself at the moment.  That’s ok.  When we can’t pray, the Church prays for us.

The Church, at its best, is a community of cot-carriers and roof-diggers.

Prayer:  Thank you for every hand that has grabbed a shovel and made a way to bring my helpless soul to you.  Amen.