Extract from: Karl Rahner's _On_Prayer_

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let us be quite clear about one fundamental fact of human existence. unless it
is set free by god into that infinite freedom wherein alone it can realise
itself, our heart becomes hedged in by mean limitations, by suffering, by
hopelessness, by the daily commonplaces that chain us down. Like the insatiable
cormorant, the human heart then begins to feed upon itself. it becomes a
welter of vanities, a sour well of bitterness and despair, a prison from which
there is no escape. we may seek to escape by travel-forgetting the warming
that "one may change the sky overhead, but not the mind within;" we may seek
oblivious immersion in work or in that sick unrest that is miscalled pleasure;
we may seek to stifle our loneliness amid the laughter of men. but there is no
escape from that ceaselessly nagging, sense of utter loneliness and of helpless
conviction that the world is futile. we know that we are in hectic flight from
ourselves; that we cannot stand still for a moment because the voices within us
will say we have not moved at all -- that we are still in the puddle of
futility. we are like a person who appears to be in good health, but is really
being gnawed by an incurable disease. a little stab of pain suddenly coming in
the midst of enjoyment, reminds such a person that all this is mere pretence
and that he is shadowed by death.

we may choose any form of escapism dictated by our taste for pleasure and by
the limits of our resources; we may build our house of happiness with what
bricks we choose, or wander at large to gather the roses of pleasure. yet, at
a thought, the shades of our prison house are again stifling about us: we
realise that we have but crawled from the misery of one cell to that of another
or, to revert t our metaphor, we have simply hollowed out another place in the
same debris. filling our lives is the same futility, frustration, monotony,
chatter and all that weary swirl of pointless strivings we call human life. 
there are many, of course, who sit contentedly in the dust, feasting on the
store they have, conversing brilliantly with their neighbors, still rooting for
the truffles of pleasure, still dreaming and planning, apparently oblivious of
the fact that the shelter has collapsed and that there are tons of debris
between them and the light. yet, even such hide-bound optimists with their
blindered minds, will suddenly be jolted into the realization that they are
breathing the dust, that there is death in the air, and bitterness in the dregs
of life's Pleasures.

but in the dust of the powdered shelter, there are also the stoics who claim to
know that the position is hopeless, and who stand up to proclaim this barren
truth; who lift up the lamp only to show that there is really nothing but
dryness and despair. they speak sternly to the poor wretch who shudders from
them, in the icy grip of his sudden realization that he is utterly alone, that
his diet must be dust, that there is nothing beyond the inevitable blow of
death. the tell him he must learn self-control by facing calmly up to the fact
that there is no escape, and the poor wretch accepts this state of stultifying
despair so that he comes to accept it as the ordained order of things. he is
convinced that there can be no other state, that he has awakened from the
illusions of life, that he has put aside like the toys of his childhood those
dreams and ideals with which he used to feed his soul. he has experienced his
bitter Epiphany of despair.

those who have settled down to this chronic despair preserve their
self-control, appear to be leading -- and regard themselves as leading -- a
perfectly natural life. they behave reasonably, work conscientiously, observe
standards of decency, marry, found a settled home, discuss the arts and
sciences. occasionally they like to indulge in a little speculation about the
meaning and value of human life, or to listen to such a speculation. but
all this is a mere facade to conceal the real man -- to hide that wound from
which the heart is bleeding to spiritual death, but about which one may not
speak because it is "bad form" to indulge in what one of their number ha once
called "spiritual nudism." all this is a mere pretence at ignoring the prison
whose exit is blocked by the debris of their own hearts. within that prison,
their real self is hopelessly trapped -- that self with does not wear the
spectacles of humanist sophistication, that raw self which sees unerringly into
the hollow heart of earthly life, and judges it to be empty, futile and subject
to death.

modern philosophy has invented a new and flattering mask for the countenance of
despair. man's true dignity, it says, is to realise that there is nothing
beyond the material things around him, that he himself is no more intrinsically
permanent than the trees and the grass "that today is and tomorrow is cast into
the oven," that human life has no more meaning than is summed up in the
terrible words: "from day to day we ripe and ripe, and from day to day we rot
and rot." there is no true human dignity except that of facing up calmly and
bravely to the absolute worthlessness of human existence. a man's wisdom is to
be measured by his realization of his own utter lack of any significance. this
so-called philosophy of despair has been formulated by one such philosopher as
"an icy silence in face of the eternal silence of the alleged Divine;" and the
same author (camus) claims for this philosophy that it establishes "a
meaningless and godless world which thinks clearly and which no longer hopes."

there is, of course, a certain positive realization of one's fundamental
nothingness which may be the beginning of salvation: "of myself, i can do
nothing" said saint paul: and those who have come to such a realization may be
already close to establishing the kingdom of god in their hearts. the
philosophical despair of which we have spoken above, is simply perverted pride:
it is as though a man should say -- "i shall calmly despise my whole existence
because it does not make me a god." such a man comes to take pride in his
realization of his very worthlessness, as though it were a positive achievement
which gave him dignity. "greatness has changed its field: it is now to be
looked for in resoluteness and sacrifice without hope," writes camus. what a
parody of human life we have here, in this picture of man's finest qualities
being exercised in an affirmation of worthlessness and sheer negation! the
head remains bloody but unbowed, "and the eyes look forward unflinchingly to
where there is no hope, no destiny, no line of light rimming the eternal hills."
how different is the positive sense of its own nothingness characteristic of
the truly christian soul! for this realization is simply a measuring of
ourselves against the greatness of our Creator, and a casting out of all that
is petty and earthly in us so that we may remove all obstacles to the
indwelling of the strength of god in our bodies chosen by him to be his
"temples." it was from a realization -- a positive, fruitful realization -- of
his own nothingness and worthlessness, that saint paul made his magnificent
boast: "i can do all things in him that strengthens me." it is a great paradox
to those who have not the eyes of faith, that such abasement and such audacity
can exist together, almost as cause and effect, in the christian soul.

stripped of its mask of sophism, this philosophical despair is revealed as mere
negativity -- as ordinary, barren despair dressed in fine feathers. behind the
words and the lofty protestations of the modern philosophers, there is simply
emptiness and frantic self-deception. they are like those deceptive ruins one
sometimes sees, where a sound facade, viewed from a distance, gives the
illusion of a house standing four-square and solid; but, viewed at nearer
range, is revealed as an empty shell housing only heaps of the debris that once
were roof and walls and windows open to the light. but such philosophers claim
to stand upright in the heart of this shell, boldly denying the existence of
those heaps of debris because they assert that the roof and the walls were more
illusions; and yet, under that debris, are buried their true freedom, their
faith, their hope of an eternal destiny, for they have never learned the secret
of the freedom of the adopted sons of god.

even the christian must be on guard lest his own house has crumbled to some
extent, and some of his true greatness been buried under its debris. the
facade here will take the for of a dry discharging of prescribed duties wherein
the heart has long ceased to play a living role. the danger of such crumbling
is that it happens with great silence: it is rather a process of noiseless dry
rot than such a fall of masonry as would jolt the attention. thus the debris
will silently gather; and mere observance of the externals of religious
practices will not save the living reality of religion from becoming choked and
buried beneath it.

....

thoughts such as these should inspire the christian who has allowed his soul to
become filled with noise and bustle, to realise that god is awaiting the
silence of his heart so that he may speak his word of power. he is awaiting
the moment when the christian ceases to spin fine words as a cloak for inner
emptiness, to heap up dry prayer and arid observance of externals, to listen to
the heart's moan of despair at the burden of life; for in that moment, he knows
that the christian will turn and say: "my existence has no meaning except as
the manifestation of thy Power and Glory through my weakness, and nothingness." 
the soul then realises the truth of the words that "he who will save his life
must lose it -- "that obsessive anxiety for happiness in this world leads only
to the hovel of despair, not to the palace of wisdom. every day becomes a
renewed miracle, wherein the soul grows in deeper knowledge of its own
powerlessness, and knows the growing power of god within the depths of its
being. what once seemed a sterile sense of utter emptiness, proves to be but
the greyness before the dawn of Grace in the soul.....in a fresh affirmation of
faith and love, the soul must descend deeply into the knowledge of its own
worthlessness, for only by doing so can it find god.....with this new awareness
of god, comes a deep and lasting peace -- a calm which is not deceptive, a
confidence without fear, a security that needs no reassurance, a power that
lives in powerlessness a life that springs up in the shadow of death.