I’ve been eager to read Dark Night of the Soul since my interest piqued in Carmelite spirituality. St. John of the Cross is a staple of its teachings, and Dark Night is considered of his greatest works.

I didn’t expect it to hit so close to home quite so quickly.

The book is divided into two parts—Of the Night of Sense, and Of the Night of Spirit. The introduction says the former is easier for most to understand. This dark night is what many experience, but few pass through it and on to the spirit. The “dark night” is when one is spiritually coming out of the “honeymoon phase” of their relationship with God, and it starts to develop into something deeper.

As a convert, I understood this concept immediately. It’s the “what now?” stage. It’s the feeling that you’re not doing enough, not serving enough, or that you’re simply just not good enough overall. I wish I had known years ago that these feelings are normal (and there was an entire book about it!).

St. John of the Cross calls this process “coming out of the state of beginners.” These “beginners” in spirituality are like children, with all of children’s faults—they fall victim to spiritual gluttony, anger, and envy; they depend highly on feelings, then feel unworthy when those sweet Godly feelings aren’t there anymore. But that’s when it’s time to grow up. God starts to take them through the dark night, stripping away their dependency, similar to how a child is weaned from their parents.

It’s easy to get defensive over the title of “beginner.” I don’t want to be a beginner. I want to be the one who knows things. But in the case of spiritual matters, most of us are beginners. Not even all those who go through this dark night come out of it. St. Mother Theresa famously admitted to spiritual dryness for the vast majority of her life. But that doesn’t mean we’re not connected to God. It doesn’t make us lesser children; we’re not necessarily doing anything wrong. Just the fact that you think about God, and want to be closer to Him, means you’re still doing fine.

I read some sections over several times to grasp their meaning. I laughed at others, because it felt directed to me and me alone. As I move into reading of the Night of the Spirit, I don’t imagine I’ll understand all of it. It’s difficult to grasp something you haven’t experienced (yet?). But there’s comfort in the Night of the Sense, not because it’s at all comforting—it can actually be very difficult—but because God is still there, guiding you, even if you don’t feel it at times.

St. Augustine’s City of God was my 2024 “big book of the year.” At 1,000 pages, it required more strategic planning to read in a year than the Bible itself. I had no idea what to expect on going into it, having only read St. Augustine’s Confessions during my RCIA days. I was pleasantly surprised that it was not only deeply spiritual, but also humorous at times.

According to the book’s description:

It began as a reply to the charge that Christian other-worldliness was causing the decline of the Roman Empire. Augustine produced a wealth of evidence to prove that paganism bore within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Then he proceeded to his larger theme, a cosmic interpretation of history in terms of the struggle between good & evil: the City of God in conflict with the Earthly City or the City of the Devil. 

He begins first with what the City of God is not, spending a very long time on trying to explain Roman gods. And I stress trying—these parts were honestly hilarious, with which god to pray for this or that, concluding with a blunt “this makes no sense.” Isn’t it easier to pray to one God, the God of Creation? It also delves into philosophy, of which I know little, but it’s explained in a way that’s easy for even us “non-intellectuals.” He also gives credit where credit is due—it’s not that Plato and the like are wrong. He agrees with much of what they say, to a point. But St. Augustine takes those philosophies one step further, filling in the missing pieces they didn’t quite get. That is, God.

No one can summarize this magnum opus better than St. Augustine himself, so I offer some quotes from portions that really dig into the truth about why this tome was written at all:

Let us therefore keep to the straight path, which is Christ, and, with Him as our Guide and Saviour, let us turn away in heart and mind from the unreal and futile cycles of the godless. —Book 7, chapter 20

Who can scrutinize the inscrutable wisdom, wherewith God, without change of will, created man, who had never been, and gave him an existence in time, and increased the human race from one individual? —Book 12, chapter 14

Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories itself, the latter in the Lord. —Book 14, chapter 28

I won’t pretend I understood everything in this book. But humanity hasn’t changed, in its “futile cycles of the godless,” in its pagan rituals and idolatry. This book offers the answer, revealing the Truth with evidence to back it up, from someone who once lived and believed in that godless world.