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| Eugene Delacroix, Christ on the Cross, 1853, painting, at wikiart.org. |
St. John of the Cross lived in a
period of spiritual reform for the Church and assisted St. Theresa of Avila in
reforming the Carmelites. A director of souls, mystic, reformer, and doctor of
the Church, he had great insight into the stages of spiritual development. His
Ascent of Carmel and Dark Night of the Soul expound the active and passive
stages of this development, respectively. In the Ascent, he states: "This
perfection consists in voiding and stripping and purifying the soul of every
desire."[1] All
desires to which the soul clings through self-love must be torn away so that
the soul can attain union to the divine love of God. This union is the ultimate
goal of spiritual development, which is ordered to the eternal life to come.
After the soul has sought, through grace, to purge itself to the best of its
ability, God must perfect the purging. This becomes a passive purging, without
the active participation of the soul. Near the beginning of Dark Night, St. John states: “For, however assiduously the beginner practices the mortifications in
himself of all these actions and passions of his, he can never completely succeed – very far from it – until God shall
work it in him passively by means of the
purgation of the said night.”[2] Active
purgation, covered in the Ascent, is insufficient unless God choose to Himself
purge the soul. Further, ss the soul nears perfection, the process of purging becomes
more exclusively God’s work. This purging, in which the soul is passive to God, the saint
discusses within the Dark Night.[3]
The beginning of Dark Night
introduces the poem which he will use to expound the dark night of the senses
and of the spirit to suggest the depth and mystery of that which he is seeking
to expound.[4] He
then proceeds to reveal imperfections still requiring purging after active
purgation to encourage the soul’s recognition of the dissatisfaction with which
one should view that current state. His style becomes that of encouragement,
fostering amidst this recognition of imperfection a sense of God’s great
calling for man and providing assurance in God’s loving Providence which
directs and never forsakes those who love Him. The message of St. John’s Dark
Night can best be recognized in the beautiful words of the Psalm: “I have said:
You are gods and all of you the sons of the Most High” (Ps. 81:6). God has
called man to a great union through Christ by which we can truly have the Divine
Life living in us, and we must choose whether to embrace the road, allowing the
old man to die in us, or to neglect it and die the death of unfulfillment.
St. John first explains that in the
state of beginner, God nourishes the soul as a mother tenderly providing sweet
milk from the breast. God teaches them to love the milk, the spiritual exercises,
through providing them delight from performing them so that they may become
strong. Then, He must assist their further development. They still perform
these spiritual exercises with great imperfections, relating to the seven capital
sins. In pride, they take satisfaction in works themselves, viewing their
enjoyment in them as a sign of their own greater perfection. They seek the praise
of others for their great works and underrate their faults, complaining
to God to remove them. Spiritual avarice, another common fault, motivates the beginner
to spend time acquiring many devotionals and to constantly switch between different
prayers or devotions according to which may provide pleasure during any period
instead seeking a few to say with great devotion. Through luxury, the soul’s sensual
powers, not yet purged and purified, causes imperfections and disordering of love
which hinders spiritual growth. Further, since the devil can create impure
images in this state of imperfection and seeks especially to do so during the soul's prayer, the soul sometimes becomes lax in prayer. Through the sin of spiritual wrath, the soul
acts on a feeling of vexation arising from the end of pleasure in a spiritual
thing, angrily reapproving others for sin; also, the soul may become vexed at his
own sins and indulge in a sinful impatience, lacking humility. Spiritual gluttony
strives after pleasures from acts rather than virtue and disregards the need
for proper self-knowledge to direct moderation in spiritual exercises; further, souls with spiritual gluttony also sometimes disobeys spiritual directors in these matters, thus
seeking their own will over God’s. They further tend to fail to recognize
proper reverence for the sacred, such that they might make careless confessions
and seek to approach the Eucharist without proper preparation. Spiritual envy fails
to rejoice at the spiritual growth in others and hates to hear others praised
instead of oneself. Spiritual sloth creates an aversion to that most spiritual through
desire for sensual pleasure in prayer and devotion rather than embracing the hard road of
suffering. The beginner holds these imperfection and sinful inclinations to
varying degrees and can only minimally purge himself on his own. These root
imperfections must be purged through a silencing of influence of the sensual
powers. For this end, God brings the soul into passive purgation of the
dark night of the senses and then of the spirit.[5]
First the soul experiences the
dark night of the senses. Herein, God removes the feeling of pleasure or consolation
in spiritual things and in anything at all. In this affliction, the memory
generally is turned to God, and the soul’s fears that it is not properly
serving God, since God has afflicted it. Afflicting the senses with this aridity,
God transfers the strength of the senses to the spirit. The spirit begins to develop,
and God introduces the spirit to the form of contemplative prayer, non-dependent
on the senses, through which God, in a limited way, begins to communicate Himself.
The soul’s faculties become incapable of assisting in this prayer; any active
attempt on the soul to pray hinders that which God is seeking to do in the soul.
Rather, the soul’s proper response should be to embrace the inclination to seek
silent, solitary prayer. This road can challenge the soul to give up progress,
but the soul must persevere in prayer, trusting in God. Persevering, the soul
will be enkindled in God’s love, growing in virtues and being healed of many
imperfections. At the end of this night, the soul will rejoice with God in the
blessings received, recognizing the passed aridity were a “happy chance,” freeing
it from itself. Thus, the beginner becomes a proficient.[6]
After this night, God gives the
soul some time before the dark night of the spirit through which the soul will
be more greatly purified in preparation for union with God. With the sensual
part of the soul purged and the senses not interfering in spiritual progress,
the spiritual part needs to prepare for purification. Root imperfections
through habitual sin still exist along with some actual imperfections, and all
must be purged before the soul can attain to perfect union with God; this union
cannot co-exist with imperfection. The soul is partially introduced within this
period to purification of the dark night to come. The spirit of fornication and
of blasphemy torment the soul, greatly tormenting the soul with temptations.
Further, the soul is buffeted by scrupulosity for which none can give counsel
to give it peace. However, since God does not call all to the second dark night, He
generally only provides these torments to those who He is preparing to bare the
dark night and receive the coming exaltation of union.[7]
The soul may from here be called
to the dark night of the spirit. Herein, the spirit is purged, but also the sensual
powers are more completely purged, for they could not obtain complete purging
without the purging of the spirit. In this night, God’s light of contemplation infuses
the soul, but at first, all the soul can see through this light is the darkness
of his imperfect soul. He is too week to see the blessing of light and is afflicted
by it, for the light and the evil of sin are in conflict as the light purges
and purifies: “Two contraries cannot co-exist in one subject,” St. John
explains.[8] Therefore,
when God imposes His light, the imperfections in the soul are being expelled. The
soul recognizes its imperfections by this light and is pained by its opposition
to God. Further, it suffers by nature of this light being imposed on its week
state. The soul further being reformed and renewed to make it Devine feels its
imperfect humanity being annihilated, and it seems as though the God whom he
so loves has abandoned him and as though he has been forsaken, likewise, by all creatures, especially friends. The soul further recognizes God’s majesty and its own wretchedness and
impoverishment of good. In all this affliction, God is compassionate, providing
strength and giving intervals of relief in which the soul can attain a glimpse
of the work God is performing within him. However, when the affliction returns,
the soul is again afflicted as before; except, as the soul reaches nearer to perfection,
purification becomes more interior and more painful; God purifies the
imperfections innermost to the soul, thereby making the soul feel more its
annihilation. God only afflicts the soul, however, to humble it so that it may
obtain the great exaltation of becoming one with the Spirit of God. In other
words, the soul will be provided with the blessing of sharing in the Divine
Nature insofar as its own nature, elevated through the Word’s Incarnation, can
obtain this share; the soul will have God alive within Him in the most perfect
manner.[9]
In this dark night, uprooting all
man’s natural attachments and afflicting man through complete lack of comfort,
God does not abandon man to temptation, but rather allows him to suffer in
security. In the darkness of the night, God puts to sleep all the soul’s spiritual
and sensual desires and affections such that the three enemies of world, flesh,
and devil cannot tempt the soul. Without affections, none has a means to grab
hold and seek to distract or mislead the soul. Further, fortitude provides the
soul with a determination to only do and restrain from doing to please God
alone. There is security within the darkness in which God places the soul, even
as the soul feels abandoned by God, fails to recognize that which is going on within him, and fears his own damnation.[10]
The affects of this purgation are
great, inviting the soul to participate more fully in the life of contemplative
prayer. God invites the soul to climb some, or all, of the ten steps of the
ladder through love and humility to perfect union of love with Him. God’s love is
infused within the soul, and the soul is purged of imperfection and sin. God becomes the soul's life. As St. Paul states, "And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me" (Gal 2:20). In other words, Paul's life had become more truly life fulfilled in Christ. Now, it was union in God which was his life, no longer subject to imperfect inclinations.[11]
St. John truly provides a
timeless work of instruction and encouragement. This book provides invaluable assistance
in growing in necessary self-knowledge and in more fully recognizing the blessings
of Christ call; not only does God offer blessings of Heaven hereafter beyond
human imagination, but He also offers the blessing of living Heaven while on
earth. Through this means, the writing encourages seeking spiritual growth in diligence,
performing the necessary initial active purgation and being open, without fear,
to God’s passive purgation of the soul. God is merciful; He wounds to prepare
the soul for blessings and works always with loving compassion towards His
suffering servants. I suggest this book to all Christians as an invaluable direction
and assistance in preparing for that which God plans for the soul. This book
places the goals of this life in proper perspective and encourages seeking
continual spiritual development.
[1] John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, cited in "Carmelite
Spirituality of St. Teresa of Jesus and St. John of the Cross," at Monks
of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, at www.carmelitemonks.org.
[2] John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, 28, at Monks of
the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, at www.carmelitemonks.org.
[3] "Carmelite
Spirituality of St. Teresa of Jesus and St. John of the Cross," at Monks
of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, at www.carmelitemonks.org.
[4] John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, 15-16.
[5] John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, 15-28.
[6] John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, 15-45.
[7] John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, 43-48.
[8] John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, 52.
[9] John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, 46-77.
[10] John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, 77-100.
[11] John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, 72-75, 86-91.
