Moving Away from God → Darkening of the Soul → Spiritual Age -2
What happens in the soul?
The darkening has advanced. What began as laziness, lukewarmness and neglect of the spiritual life now begins to influence the way of living. The person leads an increasingly worldly life and no longer feels great guilt when falling into venial sins. As the search for God weakens, the person begins to seek in immediate pleasure what The person previously found in a living relationship with Him.
How do you live?
Everyday life begins to revolve more and more around the satisfactions of the world. Amusement, comfort, desires and pleasures become more important, while the things of God become relegated. The person may still consider himself a believer, but the person’s faith has less and less influence on the person’s concrete decisions. Consciousness begins to lose sensitivity.
The prayer
The prayer continues to weaken. It can be maintained by habit, but it becomes tiresome, distracted or mechanical. The taste for the Word of God decreases and the heart begins to find greater attraction outside of God.
The great danger
The danger is in the progressive change of what the soul seeks to be happy. By losing the taste for the things of God, one begins to replace them with sensible or intellectual satisfactions that cannot fill the void.
Signs that may accompany this age
• Increasingly mundane life
• Less sensitivity to venial sin
• Search for immediate pleasure
• Increase in worldly interests
• Progressive loss of taste for the Word of God
• Decreased desire to pray
• Heavy or mechanical prayer
• Increasing distractions
• Spiritual confusion
• Weakening of the perception of God
A phrase to remember
“When we stop looking for happiness in God, we begin to look for it in the pleasures of the world.”
Where does it lead
If it continues, indifference towards God and sacred things increases and the deep Darkening begins.