Interior Catholic

  • Dark Night of the Soul, part 2

    (Part one)

    Once the soul is purged of those worldly senses, and you feel emptied and hollow, that’s where God’s work truly begins.

    As promised, part two of Dark Night of the Soul isn’t a romp through the flowers. It’s not just a sweet night of prayer and worship. It’s pain and torment (states chapter 5). It’s confronting your own sinfulness and the weakness of humanity in the light of God. It’s the inability to even connect with Him, despite understanding just how much it’s needed. But it’s only when the soul is completely emptied of self that God has room to enter in.

    The most frustrating part is how the suffering soul is powerless to any of it. There is nothing that we can do, no amount of fervent prayer that will bring us closer to Him. At this point, God is in control. And we don’t even know He’s doing it. God works in secret, shining His light into this emptied soul in such a way that the person doesn’t even notice. But isn’t that how it always works? He is always weaving things without our notice, not until we look back and see where He’s made His mark. But it’s easier to see these things in the physical life. It’s much, much harder to peer into our own souls.

    It’s God Himself Who is now working in the soul, and the soul is therefore powerless. Hence it comes that it cannot pray or give much attention to divine things. Neither can it attend to temporal matters, for it falls into frequent distractions, and the memory is so profoundly weakened, that many hours pass by without its knowing what it has done or thought. (Chapter 8)

    Don’t I know it.

    But what’s the point? Why go through the dark night at all? Why go through the suffering and feelings of abandonment? There’s a reason this is called a purgation. Like Purgatory itself, it’s a cleansing. We must experience the fire of purgation, the emptying of self, to become truly holy. This is when the soul becomes spiritual, disconnected from the things of this world. The soul is stronger in this state of darkness. It means God is its guide, giving it strength and courage. Only when the soul is broken down can it slowly, painfully, experience a regrowth, guided by and yearning for God. We absorb His strength and courage. We certainly have none of that on our own.

    It seems impossible, honestly. It’s a cleansing of the spirit akin to the fires of Purgatory. How can anyone be purified while still in this life? St. John of the Cross admits that most people don’t. Most of us can only go so far. But he concludes:

    love and faith, now burning within [the soul], drawing the heart towards the Beloved, influence and guide it, and make it fly upwards to God along the road of solitude, while it knows neither how nor by what means that is done. (chapter 25)

    Allowing God to lead? Living the life we’re truly meant to live? Even if we don’t get there in this life, it’s a promise of what’s to come after.

    ,

  • Dark Night of the Soul, part 1

    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.

And they said to him, “Inquire of God, we pray thee, that we may know whether the journey on which we are setting out will succeed.”

And the priest said to them, “Go in peace. The journey on which you go is under the eye of the LORD.”

—Judges 18:5–6

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