The Darkness of Faith in the Contemporary World. The Beliver's Answers on the Basis of the Book of Job and Ps 22 as well as the Experiences of St Therese from Lisieux

Abstract

The present day is marked by wounds inflicted by two totalitarianisms: Nazism and communism. The fruit of their impact is the ever-growing sense of God’s absence in the spiritual experience of contemporary times. This paper refers to the testimonies of two artists: Beckett and Różewicz, to show the mood of the time of God’s death. John Paul II called this experience “a collective dark night enveloping the world.” Then it uses biblical testimonies to reveal that the issue of God who is absent or silent appears in the Book of Job or in Psalm 22 as well as in the descriptions of Jesus’ passion. These reflections lead to present the contemporary context of these biblical passages. Job’s torment is compared to the experiences described in the dramas of J.P. Sartre. In turn, Ps 22 and the Passion of Jesus carry with them the interpretation of the experience of the death of God that the contemporary world is experiencing. The culmination of all the considerations is to show the anguish of the night of faith of Thérèse of Lisieux. At the end of her life she lost her joy flowing from faith. She thought that there was no heaven and that after death a darkness of nothingness awaited her. Her experience was connected with serious physical sufferings. Thérèse’s agony seems to be a response to the dilemmas of contemporary times. Through her pain the Saint of Lisieux carries sufferings of atheists and through her intercession she pleads the grace of faith for them. Thérèse is a gift for the times when God seems to be absent and silent. Her faith, despite her experiences of emptiness and nothingness, saves the lost inhabitants of our times.