Editor’s note: Fr. Anthony Shonis preached this homily on Feb. 8, 2026, at St. Michael Parish in Sebree. It has been edited for clarity.      

One of the few things that comes to us directly from God is the weather. So what is the snow, freezing temps, overcast skies telling us about God?

For primitive man and early Native Americans, the weather reflected the Great Spirit and it was natural and spontaneous to think of God. But all that has changed since the scientific revolution and hence for the modern person. We now know about climate change and weather patterns and how these affect our world. In other words, welcome to science and the modern era!

What does this mean for us? It means a certain loneliness to life… what the mystics have referred to as the “dark night of the soul.” People can still believe in God but it is no longer as spontaneous as it was in pre-scientific era: now it has become an act of the will. “I believe in God because I will to believe in God, not because I am so overwhelmed by nature that I ‘have’ to believe in God…” This is the experience of the human person in the modern world.

The only difference between the modern world and the ancient world is that instead of a few gifted mystics experiencing the “dark night” it has become the normal experience of the modern person. However, the great mystics of the Church remind us that this loneliness … this supposed “absence” of God… this dark night of the soul… is really the Presence of God.

We have only to trust in that Presence even amid the wintery season, knowing that spring will come.

Fr. Anthony Shonis is a retired priest of the Diocese of Owensboro.

Originally printed in the March 2026 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.