O BLESSED NIGHT!

This book addresses the issue of human suffering and pain from the point of view of the positive and constructive value inherent in these evils as they relate to the question of recovery from addiction, codependency and attachment. The focus is on passing through the hurt to interior freedom as opposed to trying to avoid it at any cost. St. John of the Cross and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin both drank passionately from the chalice of pain in their own lives and then wrote insightfully on the providential and transforming effect of working through the dark night of suffering wherein, through faith, the Lord is encountered beyond the pain, not in spite of it. Recovery from addiction, codependency and attachment is a process of getting in touch with and accepting both one’s human reality and the Reality of a Power greater than oneself. In that perspective pain can be faced peacefully and endured with joy, and the darkness can become for the one who suffers a truly Blessed Night.

About the Authors: Francis Kelly Nemeck, OMI, received a doctorate in spirituality from Les Facultes Catholiques de Lyons in France and is presently the director of Lebh Shomea, a contemplative-eremitical House of Prayer in the desert region of South Texas.

Marie Theresa Coombs, Hermit, received a Masters in Theological Studies from the Oblate School of Theology, San Antonio, Texas. Contemplatives and spiritual directors, both have authored or co-authored a dozen titles in the area of Christian spirituality.