Carlo Carretto was an Italian Catholic theologian and activist who lived for many years as a renunciate in the Order of the Little Brothers of Jesus in the Saharan desert of Algeria.
Letters from the Desert is a book of reflections on the silence and spaciousness of the desert as a backdrop for contemplative prayer and deepening of the mystical connection to God.
“He who believes that he can speak of what is in the depths of his own soul betrays his own inexperience. My God, what an adventure it is, not to understand any longer, nor be able to see. If earlier we possessed ‘something’, love has now reduced us to nothing. Yes, love has reduced us to nothing. It has taken from us all presumption of knowing or being. It has reduced us to true spiritual childhood.
I have held my soul
In peace and in silence
As a child
In its mother’s arms.
This is the highest state of prayer: to be children in God’s arms, silent, loving, rejoicing.”
“When your work is finished and the caravan has halted, you stretch out on the sand with a blanket under your head and breathe in the gentle breeze which has replaced the dry, fiery daytime wind.
Then you leave camp and go down to the dunes for prayer. Time passes undisturbed. No obligations harass you, no noise disturbs you, no worry awaits you: time is all yours. So you satiate yourself with prayer and silence, while the stars light up the sky.”
“Yes, a friendly night, a benevolent darkness with restful shadows. In the movement of my soul is not hindered. On the contrary, it can spread out, be fulfilled, grow and be joyful. I feel at home, safe, fearless, desirous only of staying like this for many hours; my only worry that of the shortness of the night so avid am I to read within and outside myself the symbols of divine language.”
“The friendly night is an image of faith, that gift of God defined, ‘The guarantee of the blessings we hope for and proof of the existence of the realities that at present remain unseen.‘ (Hebrews 11:1).
I have never found a better metaphor for my relationship with the Eternal: a point lost in infinite space, wrapped round by the night under the subdued light of the stars. I am at this point lost in space: the darkness, like an irreplaceable friend, is faith. The stars, God’s witness.”