Pondering on The Dark Night Of The Soul - John Of The Cross

 

 

THU EP Reflection 121720 (John of the Cross: The Dark Night of the Soul)

On Monday this week, we celebrated the feast of John of the Cross. His name was Juan de Ypres y Alvarez was born in 1542. His father died soon after, and Juan was brought up in an orphanage. (His father was probably Jewish. It is remarkable how many of the most memorable Spanish Christians have been of Jewish background.) At seventeen, he enrolled as a student in a Jesuit college, and at twenty-one, he joined the Carmelite Friars. He was ordained in 1567, and almost immediately met Teresa of Avila, a Carmelite Nun who was undertaking to return the Order to its original strict rule, which had been gradually relaxed to the detriment, as she believed, of the spiritual lives of the members of the Order. Those who followed the strict rule as promulgated by Teresa went barefoot or wore sandals instead of shoes, and so became known as Carmelites of the Strict Observance. John undertook to adopt the stricter rule and encourage others to do so.

The most interesting book John of the Cross wrote is the Dark Night of the Soul. I have come to love and appreciate this book because I feel it penetrates the very depth of our spirituality. The simplest way to explain it is this: Have you ever felt alone in a meaningless universe, unable to bear going through the motions, having no sense of direction and feeling like you have lost all hope? You could be going through a ‘Dark Night of the Soul’. It can be seen as a rough patch we go through. The hardest part of the dark night of the soul is to face your shadow which contains the repressed parts of yourself such as your fears, desires, traumas, and beliefs. These moments may be rare but they are very much part of our life experience.

Let me read to you from chapter 5: The dark night is an inflowing of God into the soul, which purges it from its ignorances and imperfections, habitual, natural and spiritual… God teaches the soul and instructs it in perfection of love…He prepares it for the union of love with God. John finds the divine light to illumine and to purge the soul from its imperfections where divine wisdom within the light not only act as affliction and torment to purge it from its vileness and impurity.

Our experience of inner change, is not always something that is enjoyable. It is hard work and pain. The evil one tries every method possible to keep us from living fully in Christ. That’s why there is a battle within our soul. A battle to relinquish the things we have cherished for a long time and which we realize we should now part with. What kinds of battles do we face in our minds regularly? We should take a serious look at that. There must be a reason why those battles are there. Are those battles geared towards getting rid of evil and crooked ways? Often enough the saints’ journey is full of hardships and hard work on transformation of the self. What’s churning in their inner lives is often hidden from view. I am convinced that the Dark Night of the Soul can be a journey towards God’s light. This reminded me of Jesus’ example of the narrow path chosen by a few!

St John of the Cross is a mystic, and he teaches us about our need for contemplation and worship. We were created to worship God. These are questions that I pondered on as I thought of the profound meaning in what John’s words: How do we love God if we haven’t spent time with him?  Love God by savoring the beauty and the goodness of his wisdom. Perhaps, we need a pause in our non-stop busy lives and review a few things about ourselves. Maybe we have been after success in many areas of our lives, trying to fit into the regular motions of modern society where life seems like it is on autopilot, conditioned by the surrounding culture.

However, for some people there may be a rude awakening; A tragedy, where their faith gets knocked down: an adverse experience of a distrust in authority, an accident, or a career change, illness or realization that you don’t know who you really are or what you want to do in your life — or maybe you have everything you ever wanted and you are still unhappy. Ultimately something shakes you out of your day-to-day limited perception of life. 

Those are moments where God speaks to us the most! They are moments we should definitely write about, and journal our experiences. It is as if we are sitting with God outside our own mundane affairs of our lives and watching and perceiving the very purpose of our lives with objectivity.