Father And Joe

Most episodes of Father and Joe assume that we are either in a good spiritual place or at least trying to move toward one. But what happens when we are not? What happens when prayer feels empty, hope feels thin, God feels distant, and the temptation is to quit, change everything, or decide that we have failed?Joe Rockey and Father Boniface Hicks use the wisdom of **Saint Ignatius of Loyola** to explore spiritual desolation: the heaviness of spirit that can bring darkness, sadness, tepidity, lack of faith, lack of hope, lack of love, and the feeling of being separated from God. Father is careful to distinguish spiritual desolation from an ordinary low mood. Desolation is spiritual in character, and it affects how we interpret God, ourselves, and the decisions in front of us.The central warning is practical: do not make major spiritual changes while in desolation. Just as it is unwise to hire or fire someone from a place of panic or heaviness, it is dangerous to make permanent spiritual decisions when our inter