Sensing Your Hidden Presence: Toward Intimacy with God

"An electrifying book from the first line. No one interested in Christian spirituality and its relation to contemporary problems can afford to miss this powerful witness to the power of living faith in Christ founded on an intense life of prayer." - Benedict J. Groeschel, O. F. M. Cap.

Many people fear that the process of secularization will end by undermining faith and that, as a consequence, life with God will continue to diminish until it is completely extinguished.

My personal impression is exactly the opposite. Secularization could be compared to the dark night of the senses. It is the most radical purification of the image of God. As a result, the believer of the secularized age will finally be able to live with pure and unadorned faith, without its false supports...

God is not the "maternal womb" that liberates us from the risks and difficulties of life. After creation, God very quickly cuts the umbilical cord, leaving us alone in the open struggle for liberation and independence, and He comes to us saying, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it." (Gen 1:28). The true God, then, is not One who alienates but a Liberator who makes great, mature, and free individuals and nations.

This secularization, we insist, is thus a true dark night of the senses. From now on, faith and life with God will be a risky adventure...

Those who return from this adventure will be figures sculpted by purity, strength, and fire. Transformed by the ecstatic closeness of God, above them will appear the living and illuminating image of the Son. They will become the transparent witnesses of God.

from Sensing Your Hidden Presence
by Ignacio Larranaga, O. F. M. Cap.