Every Christian who strives for holiness of life experiences

Host: The monastery courtyard was wrapped in silence.
The moon hung low over the stone walls, its pale light spilling across the gravel path and the silent rows of olive trees. A faint wind brushed through the leaves, whispering like old prayers half-forgotten. The night smelled of candle wax and soil.

Inside the small chapel, the air was cool — thick with stillness and incense. Only a few candles flickered before the altar, their light trembling like fragile faith.

Jack sat in the back pew, head bowed, fingers laced, his coat draped beside him. His face was drawn, the kind of weary that no sleep could fix. Jeeny knelt a few rows ahead, her hands resting on the wood rail, her eyes open, not in prayer but in thought.

She turned slowly, her voice soft enough to blend with the candlelight.

Jeeny: reading from a small, weathered book she held in her lap

“Every Christian who strives for holiness of life experiences dryness of soul. It is to most people a heart-rending experience. It is a paradox, for the soul becomes confused when it realizes the harder it strives the further away Jesus seems to be.”
— Mother Angelica

Host: The words echoed in the empty chapel, lingering like smoke. Outside, the wind shifted. The distant sound of a bell — solemn, slow — drifted through the walls.

Jack: lifting his head, voice low, weary “So even saints felt abandoned?”

Jeeny: nodding gently “Especially the saints. The closer they reached for God, the more silence they heard.”

Jack: frowning slightly “Sounds cruel.”

Jeeny: after a pause “Maybe not cruelty. Maybe clarity. You can’t see the stars in daylight — sometimes the soul needs night to learn to see again.”

Host: The candlelight flickered, shadows dancing over the carved faces of angels on the wall. Their marble eyes seemed both watchful and indifferent — the kind of gaze that demanded patience.

Jack: leaning back, his voice rough “I’ve felt that dryness. Not faith exactly — but meaning. You chase something you believe in, and one day, it just... goes quiet.”

Jeeny: turning toward him fully now “That’s what Mother Angelica was talking about. The paradox of holiness — the more you reach, the less you feel. It’s like touching water; the tighter you close your hand, the less you hold.”

Jack: bitterly “So the lesson is to stop trying?”

Jeeny: shaking her head “No. The lesson is to try differently. To trust that absence doesn’t mean rejection. That dryness isn’t death — it’s transformation.”

Host: The camera drifted slowly through the chapel — across the flickering candles, the worn wooden pews, the faint shimmer of gold leaf on the crucifix. The air seemed alive with invisible questions.

Jack: quietly “But why make it so hard? Why would a God who asks for devotion hide from the devoted?”

Jeeny: “Because love that’s certain is easy. Love that endures uncertainty becomes eternal.”

Jack: sighing, running a hand through his hair “That’s poetic, Jeeny, but it feels like cruelty wrapped in scripture.”

Jeeny: softly “It’s human. Even Christ cried out from the cross — ‘My God, why have You forsaken me?’ If He felt it, how could we not?”

Host: The candles hissed softly as a draft slipped through the cracks in the old stone. The scent of smoke mingled with the chill of night.

Jack: staring at the altar “You know, I always thought faith was about feeling God. But maybe it’s about still showing up when you can’t.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “That’s exactly it. Faith isn’t fireworks. It’s persistence. The willingness to kneel even when heaven feels like a locked door.”

Host: The wind outside swelled again, rattling the chapel’s small stained-glass window — a single depiction of a shepherd searching for his lost sheep.

Jeeny: softly “Mother Angelica called it dryness of soul, but maybe it’s God pruning the garden. Stripping away the easy consolations until only true love remains.”

Jack: quietly, almost to himself “Love without reward.”

Jeeny: “Yes. The hardest kind.”

Host: The camera caught the faint reflection of the candles in the window — small fires in the dark, like souls refusing to go out.

Jack: after a long silence “You know, maybe we’ve mistaken distance for depth. When you can’t feel God, maybe that’s when He’s closest — not coddling you, but calling you to walk.”

Jeeny: nodding “Exactly. Love that carries you when it’s easy isn’t love. Love that stands when you feel nothing — that’s holiness.”

Host: The sound of the bell came again — closer now, fuller, like a heartbeat of stone.

Jeeny: whispering “Holiness isn’t found in comfort. It’s forged in confusion. In dryness. In doubt.”

Jack: gazing at her, quietly “So the absence isn’t punishment. It’s invitation.”

Jeeny: smiling softly “A painful one. But yes.”

Host: The last candle on the altar sputtered. The wax pooled around its base like spilled tears.

Jeeny: “Faith isn’t about feeling close to God. It’s about refusing to walk away when He feels far.”

Jack: softly, with the tone of surrender “And maybe that’s what keeps Him near.”

Host: The camera panned out, slowly pulling back through the chapel doors, past the courtyard, into the vast, starlit night. The wind carried the faint sound of the bell once more, a call not to certainty — but to endurance.

And as the screen dimmed to black, Mother Angelica’s words lingered, luminous in their paradox:

That the path to holiness
is not a straight ascent,
but a desert —
where silence becomes instruction
and absence becomes invitation.

That when the soul grows dry,
it is not dying —
it is being refined.

And that the greatest act of faith
is not found in ecstasy,
but in the stillness
of those who pray
even when God feels gone —

believing not in the comfort of His nearness,
but in the truth of His return.