The Holy Spirit

Sometimes God seems near, sometimes very far away. 

This mystifies me. Since God is always there, how can it seem otherwise? 

Father McClaskey used to talk about the Holy Spirit drawing close to us sometimes but pulling away at others, depending upon what we need. He compared it to a loving parent raising a child: Sometimes the child needs all the help and support the father can provide, but other times the child needs to be made to stand on his or her own two feet. 

Mother Theresa suffered for fifty years, feeling “no presence of God whatsoever” in her life. St. Therese of Lisieux called these spiritual tests the “night of nothingness.” The people considering Mother Theresa for sanctification say the fact she did not feel the presence of God during much of her life did not change the fact that He was working through her in helping Calcutta’s poor, sick and dying. 

For the less saintly among us, maybe it is we who withdraw, not the Holy Spirit. Like stiff-necked Hebrews in the Old Testament, the moment God does something good for us, we decide we’re in charge -- not God -- and turn away. 

When we put ourselves first, things always go wrong.