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I Don’t Have the Energy – Struggles in the Spiritual Life with Fr. Timothy Gallagher O.M.V.
Fr. Timothy Gallagher and Kris McGregor discuss spiritual desolation and St. Ignatius of Loyola’s guidance on overcoming it. Desolation often manifests as a lack of energy or motivation in one’s spiritual life, as illustrated by Bob’s story—a faithful man suddenly feeling weary in his spiritual commitments and tempted to give up leading a church group.
It’s important to recognize and reject these feelings without making changes during desolation, using St. Ignatius’ principles: “Be aware, identify, reject,” and “in desolation, make no change,” alongside the wisdom of staying connected with others for support. This approach mirrors St. Benedict’s teaching on dismissing negative thoughts quickly to prevent them from taking root.
We’re meant to face spiritual struggles with others. This unity in faith is essential for spiritual resilience in a challenging cultural environment.
Discerning Hearts Reflection Questions
- Identify Your Desolations: When have you experienced a lack of motivation or heaviness in your spiritual practices?
- Recognize Patterns of Resistance: Do you notice any recurring situations where you feel drawn away from prayer or other commitments?
- Acknowledge External Support: Who in your life acts as a spiritual companion, helping you recognize and resist spiritual desolation?
- Discern in Desolation: Have you ever made changes to your spiritual life during times of spiritual dryness, and what were the outcomes?
- Rely on the Community of Faith: How can you strengthen connections with others in faith to support your journey and resist isolation?
- Trust in Spiritual Tools: Which Ignatian principles, such as “Be aware, identify, reject,” could help you face future spiritual challenges?
- Embrace God’s Timing: How does the reminder to “make no change in desolation” encourage you to trust God’s timing over impulsive decisions?
- Invite Jesus into Struggle: In what areas of your life could you open the door more fully to Christ, allowing him to be the “divine physician”?
An excerpt from the chapter, “I Don’t Have the Energy”:
In this form of desolation, we feel spiritually sluggish, indolent, lazy, lackadaisical. The adverb “totally” is powerful: in time of spiritual desolation, we may feel totally sluggish, lazy, and slothful as regards various aspects of our spiritual lives. We feel no energy for prayer, for God’s service, for involvement in our parish, for holiness in our vocations, and the like. The feeling of slothfulness in spiritual desolation may contrast sharply with the energy we more habitually feel for these same things when not in desolation.
There is no shame in experiencing this form of spiritual desolation. We all do at times. What is important — Julie is on target with this — is to be aware of it, understand it for the tactic of the enemy that it is, and firmly reject it. For Bob, this means that he should not renounce leadership of the group until he has greater clarity about his spiritual situation (rule 5: in time of desolation, never make a change). That change will not resolve his lack of energy; identifying and rejecting the desolation will. Bob may further apply the means Ignatius offers to resist and overcome the desolation: prayer of petition, meditation, examination, suitable penance, and the rest.
Gallagher O.M.V, Fr. Timothy ; Gallagher O.M.V, Fr. Timothy. Struggles in the Spiritual Life: Their Nature and Their Remedies (pp. 72-73). Sophia Institute Press. Kindle Edition.
To find more episodes from this series, visit the Struggles in the Spiritual Life Podcast
From the book’s description:
“Here is a powerful, life-changing book that will help you understand and conquer the struggles you face in your spiritual life. It’s a book for those who love the Lord and desire holiness yet often feel adrift or stagnant in their search for spiritual growth.
All of us encounter valleys on our journey with the Lord — those periods of spiritual desolation that are a painful yet unavoidable feature of our prayer life. Spiritual desolation is as complex as we are, so understanding what is happening and responding to it properly are critical to reaching the heights of holiness.
With warmth and understanding, Fr. Gallagher carefully identifies in this book the various forms of spiritual and nonspiritual desolation and supplies the remedy for each. You’ll learn how to discern whether your struggles derive from medical or psychological conditions or whether those struggles are spiritual and permitted by the Lord for reasons of growth. In each case, you’ll be given the remedy for the struggle. You’ll also learn the forms of spiritual dryness and of the Dark Night — and how to respond to them.
In chapter after chapter, Fr. Gallagher presents a particular struggle as experienced by fictional characters and then provides the advice he gives to those who come to him for spiritual direction about that struggle. You’ll gain confidence as you journey through desolation, and you’ll learn to reject the enemy’s ploys to infect you with a sense of hopelessness.“
