Speaking of the life which aims at full union with God in prayer, one who is a ‘master’ in the knowledge and practice of such a life said, with a rueful smile: ‘The interior life has many disadvantages'! He did not refer to the self-evident disadvantages, as they might be called, which are the natural result of giving up certain things incompatible with the life of the spirit. He meant rather ‘disadvantages’ that are part and parcel of the interior life even for those who willingly embrace it. Such disadvantages imply, for example, the absence of certain consolations; the lack of any certainty of real progress and of any personal satisfaction in advancing along the way to God.

So often, those who are really striving to start out on the way which seems to lead to union with our Lord apparently get lost on the road; they seem to be held back from making progress by a kind of ‘mist’ which surrounds them and dispels the clearness of vision experienced when they started out.