Your Prayer 'Brick Wall' Isn't What You Think It Is (S10, EP06)

Have you hit a wall in your prayer life? If you feel spiritually dry or stuck, you might assume you're experiencing the famous "dark night of the senses." But what if that prayer brick wall is actually an alarm bell pointing to something much more fundamental?

In this episode, we challenge the popular misdiagnosis of spiritual dryness. We explore how a "prayer brick wall" is often not a sign of spiritual advancement, but a direct consequence of a life where our actions don't match our prayers. Drawing on the timeless wisdom of St. John of the Cross, we uncover the subtle spiritual imperfections—like spiritual gluttony and pride—that can masquerade as holiness and prevent us from truly growing closer to God.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why the feeling of a "prayer brick wall" should be seen as an alarm bell, not a badge of spiritual perfection.
• How to identify key spiritual imperfections, like spiritual pride and gluttony, that St. John of the Cross warns against.
• The critical link between your actions and virtues outside of prayer and the actual quality of your time with God.
• A powerful analogy from human relationships that reveals whether your love for God is based on your terms or His.

TRANSCRIPT

(NOTE: This transcription was generated automatically using an AI program. Consequently, this transcript may not match everything you hear in the podcast episode, and it may contain errors such as spelling, grammar, word choice, etc., due to the limitations of current AI technology.)

Understanding the Prayer Brick Wall

Hi everyone, welcome to this next episode of Midnight Carmelite. So, this episode is titled, "Your prayer brick wall isn't what you think it is." I struggled for a while about how to present this because it has to be clear and general, and that's what it is. I feel like it needs to call out something that I've seen quite a bit and people have asked me to speak about this. So here I am. I feel like right now there's a common misdiagnosis of spiritual dryness, or what I've seen called a prayer brick wall. People are treating it as some sort of sign of advanced spiritual perfection, for example, that they are in some form of the night of the senses, active or passive, but really, it should be an alarm bell. The reason it should be an alarm bell is because what it means is that the prayer life of the prayer brick wall is not built on the rock of virtue. In fact, I would argue it's directly linked to a dissipated, self-centered life outside of prayer. So that may sound harsh or confusing to people, so let me explain what's going on. If your prayer and your action don't match, it's a sign that you are not persevering with God. That doesn't mean you don't have imperfections or slip up; the key is perseverance. We have to acknowledge this common pain point and challenge this popular notion of everyone being in the night of the senses when people aren't even dealing with spiritual imperfections. In fact, you see a lot of people today exhibit what St. John of the Cross would call spiritual pride.

Let me give you an example. Let's say you're a person who condemns someone who doesn't conform to your idea of devotion. I don't have to come up with examples; I think it's kind of, as John of the Cross would say in Spanish, está claro. It's obvious. You could look around, and even in yourself perhaps, and see how you condemn or others you've seen may condemn those who don't conform to their idea of devotion. Another example would be being complacent about your spiritual accomplishments. Indulging your spiritual imperfections is another example of not being built on the rock-solid foundation of virtue. Another sign you can look at is to see where your attachments are. Where are you going for worldly things—pleasures, status, whatever? Or again, and this is the key, spiritual satisfactions and consolations. One of the big ones today is spiritual gluttony, which is where you seek a kind of satisfaction in your prayer and even receiving the Eucharist, such that you're seeking the consolations of God rather than the God of consolations. Then you become upset when you don't have this sensible thing; you didn't feel the presence of the spirit. I would argue that talking about feeling the presence of the spirit is also a sign that you probably aren't experiencing the presence of the spirit. You're experiencing this spiritual gluttony; you're dealing with this imperfection. I think this is really important to say so that the problem can be clear, which will allow people to remove that obstacle to growing closer to God. If you don't remove these things, you'll never enter the Night of the Senses. In other words, you'll never be engaging in the active Night of the Senses, which is mortifying your appetites and becoming detached from consolations. If your goal is God and heaven, then this is an obvious thing to do. Frankly, the lack of perseverance in it also shows the lack of love you have for God.

The Relationship Between Prayer and Love

Let me put this more explicitly with an example. Let's say you are dating someone and you say to them, "I really love you." When that other person hears that, they're going to have to assess a couple of things. First, you have to agree on what love is. Let's assume it's willing the good of the other—actual, real, charity love, not just Eros or Philia. The person is going to ask, "Is this charity love? Does this person really give themselves to me?" They'll think of instances of whether or not that person did that. They'll hear the words and look at the actions to see if they match, which points to the interior disposition of the person towards the other. As Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." Don't just look at what people do; try and figure out if the exterior action is reflecting a true interior disposition. So the person would assess that. Let's take a bad version where the person says, "Well, I've never really seen them step out for my good. They are only around and taking me on dates when they're doing what they want to do." In other words, everything's on their terms. It's never on my terms. They never say, "You know what, I don't really like going to plays," but they come to plays with me to share that with me, learn about it, and see it as a way of spending time together. I really appreciate when they do come because I get to share something I enjoy with them.

That's analogously what we're dealing with here in the life of prayer. Am I saying things to God in prayer, but then I have these spiritual imperfections that I'm kind of blind to? Am I not detaching from them? Am I only concerned about being with God when it's on my terms rather than trying to have it on God's terms, which is what it should ultimately be? It should really be nothing about us; it's all about Him. It's all about loving Him and doing His will. So, without going too long on this podcast—I've gone longer than I normally do—I just want to stop here. We'll continue talking about this in the next episode. I just want to get this out there and get us all thinking about it, because from this, we're going to spring to how your prayer changes how you love. We've talked about love with the relationship, and now we're going to talk about how prayer changes that. I'll see you in the next episode.