With this in mind, then, you understand how it is in the spiritual life that the first fruits of the Holy Spirit give joy to those whose hearts he sees to be pure, and yet after bestowing this joy and sweetness on them the Spirit holds aloof and forsakes them. The explanation is this: he deals thus with those that seek him and fear God, withdrawing to a distance and leaving them to themselves until he knows whether they will seek him or not. There are some people who after he has abandoned them and gone away sit down overwhelmed by disgust, and remain immovably fixed in it. They do not pray to God, asking him to remove the disgust from them and cause the joy and sweetness they knew earlier to return, but through carelessness and self-will they become strangers to God’s sweetness. If, however, they become aware of this disgust, so unaccustomed and alien to their former joy, they ought to pray to God with tears and fasting. Then he of his graciousness, seeing their heartfelt sincerity and knowing that they are praying to him with all their hearts and entirely renouncing their own will, would give them joy greater than they had before and make them even stronger. This is a sign of God’s work in any soul that seeks him.
St Ammonas the Hermit
Epist. 9.2-5 (PO 10:590-593); Word in Season VIII.
