Before God grants a grace He grants a hunger for it as a preparation. In the Early Persecution of the Church in Ancient Rome, Catholics generally had a huge hunger for martyrdom. A hunger which God granted in full.
I was just thinking last night coming from Mass about the Dark Night and it brings back many, many memories. One think I would say in general is that like any other deep topic the more we read about it the more we come to understand it. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. We may, for instance read one book and kinda think we understand. But there is a huge, huge amount written including by saints, mystics, poets and mystical theologians and the more we read the better if we seek understanding. In addition to this we can't beat experience and having gone through it ourselves just can;t be beaten for understanding. The danger is we might have a one fit understanding that leads us to think the Dark Night has to exactly the same for everyone it does not. One example id the time it lasts from person to person. For myself it lasted for around 24 years. For others just a few brief years, for others far less. The intensity of the experience will also vary greatly from person to person and even how they describe it. Another thing is the onset of the Dark Night,at which point in the Spiritual Life it happens. Generally it is taken as a preparation for the last stage of prayer, Mystical Marriage but this is not always so. Another thing is that there are two kinds of Dark Night . That which is Salvific and that which is Redemptive. The Dark night of inner purification to get out own pot scrubbed clean and suffering to save others. You can look at it as a chalice , it gets filled with wine and then it overflows to help others. So a Dark Night for your self then a Dark Night for others.
Another thing is that the Dark Night is that it comes to people of all ages and conditions and will be coloured by this. St Teresa of the Andes was a good example of this. She had just entered Carmel after leaving school but her Prioress considered she had already passed through the Dark Night and was in the Highest stage of prayer. Her novice mistress considered this incredible. But Teresa was to die very young and so God worked quicker, so to speak. God is Master in His own House and can do as He pleases, people forget this.
My own Dark Night started with a dream. I was in the monastery happy as Larry , the happiest I had ever been, praying constantly. A city boy in the country working on a farm. Living the dream. Then I had a dream and I dreamt I met a young man who was thinking of entering the monastery and he said to me @you will be gone from this plced within a month' I woke up laughing at the very idea. I was so happy there, the dream was ridiculous. The second thing that happened a few days later was I was in the oratory chapel when the Lord said to me very clearly, 'I want you to leave this place'. I thought he meant just to leave the Chapel that it was a lovely spring evening and I should take a walk. But so it happened . All of a sudden the lights went of. One day God was there bright as the sun. Next day not. Total dark. I was outside the monastery. No job. No money. Nowhere to live. No friends. No God. St Teresa of Avila wrote about this. She said when the Dark Night comes it often comes with loads of physical material problems alongside it. So it was with me . Just like Job in Scripture.
My mind at once turned to the question of what was going on. Was I mad? Was I imaging all this? Had I offended God? Had I taken a wrong Spiritual path? Was my entire Spiritual Way an illussion? Had I ever really converted at all? But over time and Discernment I came to see the positive signs God gave me. My Spiritual Director confirmed I was on the right track. My own spiritual reading confirmed this. Even in the Dark I was still doing all the right things, praying constantly , going to mass , confession,. praying all the time. Keeping the Commandments. Good spiritual reading. Still doing the best I could in utter darkess. As to mental illness I could see it was not. I was fully functional. It was not something like Chronic Depression. As to it being an illusion and my Spiritual Life being False I just handed that over to God. If I had taken a wrong path I was very happy to hand all this over to God and start all over again. If I had somehow offended God I begged Him to forgive me and begin again.
I have found the closer I try to come to God the more he leads me back through situations I thought were already dealt with, sometimes from years ago. It's like he is dusting me off. Also he asks, "who do you say I am?" The answer to this question has proved very difficult to find, and over the years I sometimes wonder do I actually believe in God at all, or do I believe in a figment of my or someone else's imagination. Still, something in me keeps me plodding on...
Prayer is a living relationship; sometimes God can appear to withdraw a little – He can seem distant, and a kind of ‘veil’ is drawn across our faith-life through which one must pass and ever more draw near to the Invisible One, in order to live in intimacy with the mystery. St John of the Cross refers to this as the ‘dark night of the soul’. In essence, faith means to journey ‘alone with the alone’ for God remains hidden in order for us to seek Him. The apparent fleeting absence of the Divine draws us closer as we thirst for his presence as psalmist could write, ‘as the deer pants for the water so my soul longs for you’ (Psalm 42v1). Like the lover we ask God ‘where have you hidden, beloved, why have you wounded my soul’’? (Song of Solomon 6v1). Believe in faith that God is always near, yet this can be a challenge for in the sorrowful moments of life we can feel abandoned. But God promises that He is always close, ‘Am I a God who is near?’ declares the Lord (Jeremiah 23v23), so we must trust in his holy Word.
Asking questions of the Lord and a spiritual advisor is fine. Letting frustration deter us from prayer is suicidal.
I think as we try to progress in our journeys that this a question for all of us. What is our faith based on?
I must admit at points in my life when I hit a low point and feel frustrated, the temptation comes simply to throw the towel in. The end goal seems elusive and perseverance not worth the struggle. All I can do is will myself to cry out to the Lord and entrust myself to Him in my emptiness. He has yet to fail me. O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me! Not the dark night, but a dark moment!
Every soul is different and so the experience of the Dark Night is different. For some much more intense to others. We are all called to come to heaven. But heaven consists of nine choirs of angels. So depending on our eternal destination the Dark Night will be more or less intense. St Therese of Liseaux understood this very well. She compared souls to different flowers. She herself sends roses which is symbolic of the highest choir of angels the Seraphim. This is symbolised by roses, the most beautiful of all flowers. Thus her suffering was so extreme. A really total Dark Night. But this intensity is of course not for all. The difficulty for many Spiritual Writers is that they do not take this difference into account and have a one fit for all , it does not. They can think the path they tread or trod is for everyone, but this is not so. An instance of this was when St Teresa of Avila's nuns approached her and asked why they did not have the visions and kind of experiences she had. But this was Teresa's path , not theirs.. In broad terms we can talk of seven stages of prayer. But this is a broad brush and within this there are many, many variations. We must not tie down the Holy Spirit . I would say everyone has to go through some form of Dark Night in this life or the next. Much, much better in this life than the next.
I believe the Spiritual condition of the soul before the Dark Night may be compared to childhood. The spiritual life may be seen as what God can do for us rather than what we an do for God. The Dark Night might be compared to adolescense or being a teen. It becomes more like bout standing on our own two feet and not being carried. It can be a time of great confusion and heart searching. A time of pain and separation. Of kinda going off on your own two feet,so to speak. As the Dark Night ends or matures we enter spiritual adulthood or a time of wisdom and inner maturity . I think this is what is meant in scripture: 2 Peter 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy, unto which ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts, This would be the time when people might have their own spiritual families so to speak, such as the Founders of Religious Orders.
