Faith and Doubt

Catholics (and, likely, other people of faith) go through periods they describe as “doubting.”  Many of them will see this as their “fault” and seek forgiveness from God.  Calling our misgivings “doubt” however, might misconstrue just what is happening in our faith lives.  It might be a perfectly healthy questioning of non-dogmatic elements of the Catholic tradition.  It might not even involve intellectual “doubting” of this or that tenet of faith at all, but rather a sense of what St. Ignatius of Loyola called “desolation” – the absence of a sense of God’s presence in our life, our doubts and beliefs notwithstanding. How can we better discern the source of distance between ourselves and our professed faith?  How can we harness “doub” to fortify our faith and make it more resilient?