Hi, I'm Edward Sree, and welcome to all things Catholic where real faith meets real life.

Christians sometimes go through periods of intense darkness when

they're struggling they're facing great trials are struggling in life

maybe struggling in prayer maybe maybe struggling in prayer, maybe even struggling with faith.

Have you ever been there before?

Maybe you're there right now? Or maybe someone you love is going through a period

of great spiritual darkness. Why does this happen sometimes?

When the worst feelings in a period of great trial like this is the feeling of being so

alone, like I'm the only one going through this. No one else is struggling like I am and where is God in the midst of this? How come God isn't helping me? I want to encourage you if you've ever gone through a period of trial like this before or you're going through spiritual darkness right now or when you will in the future, know that you're not alone.

That countless Christians throughout the ages have gone through these periods of darkness,

even the great saints, even the great doctor of the church we celebrate today,

St. Torres of Liseu. I love St. Torres. We hear all about St. There's Terez of Lisieu. I love St. Terez. We hear all about St.

Terez though, right? We hear about how she spends her heaven during good on earth and we

ask her in recession. She gives us a red rose or a white rose or she's gonna to spend her life doing little things with great love.

We hear about her little way, the spirituality of St. Terres of the view.

But what we don't often hear is how that spirituality of the little way was forged through periods of great trial, suffering, and spiritual darkness.

Do you know about the great trial of faith, St. Torres endured? Do you know about how she felt completely overwhelmed by what was happening in her life, facing great suffering, feeling as if she had been

abandoned by God, wondering, is everything going to get better? Is God really there? What's

going to happen after she dies, she faced great darkness.

Do you know about that story?

And why would God allow us Christians and great Saints like Torres. Why would God allow us to go through periods of darkness and how did the Saints like St. Terez respond and actually encounter God at a deeper level through those trials,

that's what we're going to take a look at in this week's podcast.

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