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Embracing the Dark Night of the Soul

The wisdom of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Calcutta can help pastors uncover the truth of their essence in God

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For priests seeking to enter into and embrace the deepest meaning of the dark night of the soul there can be no better guide than St. John of the Cross (1542-91). This 16th-century master of ascetical-mystical theology wants God’s messengers, priests like himself, to know that the often-unvoiced longing for God they feel is not due to melancholy or some other malaise but to the desire, incumbent upon them by virtue of their ordination, to seek and find hitherto hidden depths of divine intimacy.

Passage through the nights of sense and spirit moves one beyond the initial stages of vocal and mental prayer to contemplation of the Trinity in whose name every priest blesses and serves the People of God.

What does this movement into the midnight moments of life signify, and why must a priest pray daily for the courage to embrace it?

Virtuous Life

It goes without saying that priests do their best to grow in the virtues of humility, detachment and fraternal charity bestowed upon them by the grace of ordination. Priesthood presupposes having disencumbered oneself of worldly appetites for power; of inordinate attachments to possessions; and of the free and happy relinquishment of pleasures not in keeping with their vocation to celibacy and chaste, respectful love. Living such a virtuous life prepares priests for a lifelong journey to Christian maturity, which inevitably includes the willingness to embrace the dark nights of sense and spirit.

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POPE FRANCIS SPEAKS OF THE DARKEST HOUR

In his homily at the Easter Vigil on April 11, Pope Francis addressed the darkest hour and related the suffering of the women at the tomb to the suffering of humanity facing the COVID-19 pandemic. “They, like us, had before their eyes the drama of suffering, of an unexpected tragedy that happened all too suddenly. They had seen death and it weighed on their hearts,” he said. “Pain was mixed with fear … .”

He said, “Yet in this situation the women did not allow themselves to be paralyzed. They did not give in to the gloom of sorrow and regret, they did not morosely close in on themselves, or flee from reality. They were doing something simple yet extraordinary: preparing at home the spices to anoint the body of Jesus.”

Pope Francis added, “The grave is the place where no one who enters ever leaves. But Jesus emerged for us; he rose for us, to bring life where there was death, to begin a new story in the very place where a stone had been placed. He, who rolled away the stone that sealed the entrance of the tomb, can also remove the stones in our hearts. So, let us not give in to resignation; let us not place a stone before hope. We can and must hope, because God is faithful. He did not abandon us; he visited us and entered into our situations of pain, anguish and death. His light dispelled the darkness of the tomb: today he wants that light to penetrate even to the darkest corners of our lives. Dear sister, dear brother, even if in your heart you have buried hope, do not give up: God is greater. Darkness and death do not have the last word. Be strong, for with God nothing is lost!”

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In the prologue to book one of “The Ascent of Mount Carmel,” St. John of the Cross expresses his intention to guide followers of Christ through the twilight hours of pondering their call to discipleship. He will describe from experience the midnight testing time of radical recommitment to faith, hope and love. And he will be there at the break of dawn to offer a new depth of understanding of one’s vocation to die and rise with Christ.

St. John of the Cross
A polychrome carved sculpture of St. John of the Cross is displayed at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Palm de Mallorca, Spain. Renáta Sedmáková/AdobeStock

Drawing upon the wisdom derived from his love of Scripture and his obedience to the doctrine of the Church, St. John accepts as his first task to identify two obstacles to advancement. The first is inadequate comprehension of what the dark night of the soul really means. The second is an inadequate direction that leads to one’s resistance to the flow of grace and one’s refusal to cooperate with its leading. St. John says:

“I am not undertaking this arduous task because of any particular confidence in my own abilities. Rather, I am confident that the Lord will help me explain this matter because it is extremely necessary to so many souls. Even though these souls have begun to walk along the road of virtue, and our Lord desires to place them in the dark night that they may move on to the divine union, they do not advance. The reason for this may be that sometimes they do not want to enter the dark night or allow themselves to be placed in it, or that sometimes they misunderstand themselves and are without suitable and alert directors who will show them the way to the summit” (“The Ascent of Mount Carmel” in “The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross,” ICS Publications, $23.95).

Unless one understands this paradoxical enlightenment in the midst of the darkening of one’s senses and one’s spirit, one will fail to advance. The danger is that one may regress to old familiar ways of prayer or to ways of ministry that are merely routine. Without seeking the help of a wise, learned and experienced director of souls, one may cling to comfort zones of self-reliance that curtail progress toward total trust in God, according to St. John: “Some souls, instead of abandoning themselves to God and cooperating with him, hamper him by their indiscreet activity or their resistance. They resemble children who kick and cry and struggle to walk by themselves when their mothers want to carry them; in walking by themselves they make no headway, or if they do, it is at a child’s pace.”

The Active Night of Sense

Having clarified the need to trust in God as “the author of this enlightenment in the night of contemplation,” St. John explains in greater detail the active night of sense. It entails the “privation” (or deprivation) “of all sensible appetites for the external things of the world, the delights of the flesh, and the gratification of the will.” St. John considers this purgative experience a “sheer grace.” God takes the initiative to empty one of the illusions that this or that attachment can be wholly satisfying — a message every priest needs to convey in his personhood and to his parishioners.

In this active night of sense, one beholds all of creation as pointing to the Creator. Nothing is beheld as an idol or end in itself. Sense deprivation has the positive effect of dispelling forgetfulness of one’s dependency on God. One, so to speak, sees through the visible to the Invisible Reality that holds in being all that is, oneself included.

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John Paul II Connection

Pope St. John Paul II wrote his doctoral dissertation on the mysticism of St. John of the Cross. The monastic contemplation attracted John Paul II to the Discalced Carmelites, but he was turned away twice with the advice, “You are destined for greater things.” — usccb.org, “St. John Paul II”

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Going through this active night helps priests go beyond the surface meaning of existence to uncover the truth of one’s essence in God. St. John holds firm to his conviction that the light of divine union cannot be established in the soul unless inordinate attachments are eradicated: “The road and ascent to God, then, necessarily demands a habitual effort to renounce and mortify the appetites; the sooner this mortification is achieved, the sooner the soul reaches the top.”

Many harms plague souls caught in the stranglehold of appetites not in keeping with their calling in Christ. St. John says that these appetites weary, torment, darken, defile and weaken one to the point of preventing that individual from responding to God and others with a heart full of care and compassion. Harsh as it may sound, St. John holds that even the most trifling inordinate attachment, for example, to an article of clothing, to a book, to the way food tastes will make it impossible in the long run to progress to perfection. Therefore, he explains: “It makes little difference whether a bird is tied by a thin thread or by a cord. Even if it is tied by a thread, the bird will be held bound just as surely as if it were tied by a cord; that is, it will be impeded from flying as long as it does not break the thread. Admittedly, the thread is easier to break, but no matter how easily this may be done, the bird will not fly away without first doing so. This is the lot of those who are attached to something: No matter how much virtue they have they will not reach the freedom of the divine union.”

Everyone, and especially every pastor, needs to know that not to go forward on this way of purgation is to reverse the course intended by God; not to gain ground, in other words, not to embrace the cross, is to lose one’s way entirely. In the active night of sense, the motivation for giving up these attachments must not be fear of punishment or the presumption of merit, but rather the liberation rooted in faith, hope and love that results in the choice of a higher good.

The Active Night of Spirit

Here, St. John discusses the purification of the spiritual faculties — intellect, memory and will — which readies one to understand the true meaning of believing in God, hoping for the delights of friendship with God, and loving God with an intensity of intimacy hitherto unknown. Simply stated, “In order to journey to God the intellect must be perfected in the darkness of faith, the memory in the emptiness of hope, and the will in the nakedness and absence of every affection.”

Faith obscures in the midnight hour what one’s human intellect can grasp of the mystery of divine revelation and opens one’s mind and heart to what God wants one to know. Hope empties one’s memory of past hurts, disappointments and failures in regard to plans, projects and expectations, and readies the individual to receive that which God intends to give beyond what is now possessed. Love this pure lets go of affections for whatever is not of God and prepares one to obey the will to love God with one’s whole being.

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Spiritual Lessons from Masters and Mystics

A Feast for Hungry Souls” (Ave Maria, $24.95), by renowned scholar Susan Muto, introduces 30 Christian masters from the ancient, medieval and modern Church. Masters such as Benedict of Nursia, Clare of Assisi, Thomas Merton, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Teresa of Ávila answer pressing spiritual questions and satisfy the deepest cravings of the heart.

The book helps readers enter more deeply into the mystery of spiritual union with God. Muto leads readers from the simplicity and solitude of the desert mystics to the practicality and prayerfulness of medieval saints to the relatable sensibilities of modern masters.

Each chapter concludes with reflection questions for individual or group study.

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This night, says St. John, “provides complete security against the cunning of the devil and the power of self-love in all its ramifications.” Only purified faith, unblemished hope and sacrificial love can teach one to temper the blinding tendency to draw everyone and everything down to the level of ego gratification.

To embrace the cross is to travel lightly — not to be weighed down by our sensory nature and its false claims to fulfillment nor to be burdened by the spiritual illusion that we can master the mystery by mere knowing.

To seek and find God, we must soar to the freedom of loving without limit. This is the road on which the Savior walked. Are his disciples willing to follow? Are they courageous enough to conform to Christ?

“I should like to persuade spiritual persons that the road leading to God does not entail a multiplicity of considerations, methods, manners, and experiences — though in their own way these may be a requirement for beginners — but demands only the one thing necessary: true self-denial, exterior and interior, through surrender of self both to suffering for Christ and to annihilation in all things. In the exercise of this self-denial everything else, and even more, is discovered and accomplished,” St. John wrote in “The Ascent of Mount Carmel.”

Christ is the way, the truth and the life (cf. Jn 14:6). To embrace the cross is the best and only way to move from these midnight hours of sensual and spiritual purgation to the light of deep union with him and communion with the Trinity. Paradoxically, these dark nights of sense and spirit enable disciples to pass beyond what is comprehensible to the incomprehensible mystery in whom we live and move and have our being (cf. Acts 17:28).

The Passive Nights of Sense and Spirit

In “The Dark Night,” St. John discusses the way God purges one’s senses and accommodates them to the spirit (the passive night of sense) and the way God prepares the soul for union with God (the passive night of spirit).

One experience that signifies what occurs in the night of sense is aridity, with the dryness and interior feeling of emptiness it produces in the senses. One feels powerless to pray and meditate as one used to do, and yet is left with a longing for God that cannot be satisfied with anything less than God. The action God asks of souls at this state of deepening is to wait upon the mystery of felt absence and believe in faith that God is still present. As St. John says: “Let them trust in God who does not fail those who seek him with a simple and righteous heart; nor will he fail to impart what is needful for the way until getting them to the clear and pure light of love. God will give them this light by means of that other night, the night of spirit, if they merit that he place them in it” (“The Dark Night” in “The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross,” ICS Publications, $23.95).

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POEM OF BLESSING

St. John of the Cross transcribed with such poignancy at the end of his famous poem “One Dark Night” the following blessing:

I abandoned and forgot myself, /
laying my face on my Beloved; /
all things ceased; I went out from myself, /
leaving my cares /
forgotten among the lilies.

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What marks the passive night of spirit is “an inflow of God into the soul, which purges it of its habitual ignorances and imperfections, natural and spiritual, and which contemplatives call infused contemplation or mystical theology.”

Teresa of Calcutta

A saint in our time who experienced this paradoxical fullness in emptiness was Teresa of Calcutta. Of her, it could be said, in St. John’s words, “The brighter and purer the supernatural divine light is, the darker it is for the soul.” And yet, for both saints, this night darkens the spirit so as to give it light.

Mother Teresa
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It would be easy to assume that someone as holy as the saint of Calcutta knew nothing of aridity or desolation or dark nights of sense and spirit, yet the opposite is true. Throughout her life, she embodied the peace and joy of Jesus while herself having to endure the pain of misunderstanding and the scandal of indifference to human suffering. What was the secret behind her smile when she ministered to children emaciated by starvation and outcasts dying in the streets?

In the book “Come Be My Light” (Doubleday, $18), her confessor, Jesuit Father Joseph Neuner, explained the meaning of the dark night St. Teresa endured for most of her life: “There is no human remedy against it. It can be borne only in the assurance of God’s hidden presence and of the union with Jesus who in His passion had to bear the burden and darkness of the sinful world for our salvation. The sure sign of God’s hidden presence in this darkness is the thirst for God, the craving for at least a ray of His light. No one can long for God unless God is present in his/her heart. Thus the only response to this trial is the total surrender to God and the acceptance of the darkness in union with Jesus.”

We learn that the supernatural gifts of peace and joy that exuded from Mother Teresa did not preclude, on the human level, turmoil and tears. Her experience as told in “Come Be My Light” teaches us that “the night of her heart was the special share she had in Jesus’ passion … the darkness was actually the mysterious link that united her to Jesus. It is the contact of intimate longing for God … possible only through God’s own hidden presence.”

This privilege of sharing in the thirst of Jesus for souls became, in the darkness of desolation, her secret consolation and an integral part of her call to embody in her “ministry of the smile” the peace and joy of Jesus. She wanted the world to see that joyous smile of hers, and through it the pain of longing expressed in the words of Jesus from the cross, “I thirst.”

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Mother Teresa Writings

Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, MC, the postulator for her sainthood cause, compiled and presented letters from the spiritual journey of Mother Teresa in the book, “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta” (Image, $18). The letters reflect a mystic whose faith was tested by an intense trial of faith and a dark night of the soul.

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This phrase expressed her willingness to obey the Lord at any cost but to do so cheerfully. Jesus thirsted not merely for a drink, but for souls. This was the thirst she would share while at the same time becoming “an apostle of joy.” The root of her joy had nothing to do with ecstatic feelings; it stemmed from the certitude of her conviction of the ultimate goodness of God’s loving, providential plan for her life. As she explains: “Joy is not simply a matter of temperament. In the service of God and souls, it is always hard to be joyful — all the more reason why we should try to acquire it and make it grow in our hearts. … A sister who has cultivated a spirit of joy feels less tired and is always ready to go on doing good. … Joy is one of the best safeguards against temptations. … A sister filled with joy preaches without preaching. A joyful sister is like the sunshine of God’s love, the hope of eternal happiness, the flame of burning love” (“Mother Teresa, Essential Writings,” Orbis Books, $19).

Mother Teresa knew full well that our physical body shrinks as we age and disease overtakes us. Our capacity to produce grinds one day to a halt. Faced with the inevitability of death and dying and with the sense of loss that accompanies this existential reality, only one truth remains: He is risen! With the Blessed Mother, we, too, can proclaim, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; and my spirit rejoices in God my savior” (Lk 1:46-47).

As the suffering, yet forever joyful saint of Calcutta reminds us: “The world today is hungering for the joy that comes from a pure heart, because the pure of heart see God. … A smile costs little but it does so much good … Joy shines forth in the eyes and in the glance, in one’s conversation and in the expression of one’s countenance. When people see the happiness in your eyes, they will discover God within you.”

Toward the end of “The Dark Night,” St. John reiterates what St. Teresa of Calcutta would confirm, that this night is a great grace “for one who passes through it.” He wrote of these blessings so that both priests and people would not be frightened of them, and so that “they might take courage in the same hope of the many advantageous blessings obtained from God through these trials.”

SUSAN MUTO, Ph.D., is dean of the Epiphany Academy of Formative Spirituality in Pittsburgh and author of “Gratefulness: The Habit of a Grace-Filled Life” (Ave Maria Press, $15.95).

 
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