Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, Post 3

This is the third post in a series on St. John of the Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul. 

Post #1 can be found here.  

Post #2 here. 

 

Summary

Part 1

Chapter 10: One should conduct themselves with patience, perseverance, and contemplation during a dark night.

Chapter 11: Exposition of lines two, three, and four of the poem’s first stanza.

Chapter 12: On the benefits that the dark night causes on the soul.

Chapter 13: More benefits the soul experiences from the dark night.

Chapter 14: Exposition of the last line of the poem’s first stanza.

Part 2

Chapter 1: Explains the dark night of the spirit.

Chapter 2: Describes the two imperfections of those undergoing the dark night of the spirit.

Chapter 3: Expounds on the need to purge the imperfections.

Chapter 4: An interpretation of the poem’s first stanza as it reflects the dark night of the spirit.

Chapter 5: Expounds on the first two purgations of the dark night of the spirit.

Chapter 6: Expounds on the third and fourth purgation of the dark night of the spirit.

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My Comment:

I'm now finished with Book 1, which I guess is about 40% of the book, but what I find stunning is that Christ has to my awareness not been mentioned once! Can you have a Christian classic without Jesus Christ? ;)

My Comment:

I'm having a hard time in those early chapters of Book 2. Has it suddenly gotten more difficult? He talks so indirectly I'm having a hard time following. Purging, dark night, path. It can be so abstract. Are others finding Book 2 more difficult as well?

Casey Replied:

Book 2, Ch 5 is a key chapter. the fulcrum. Spend some time there.

 

I'm trying to think of an analogy that might help some folks.... here's a gardening analogy:

 

Let's say you are planting your tomato or pepper seeds right now. That seed sits in your house in artificial heat and sprouts. It spreads its roots looking for the water you give it and it stretches out for the light of a lamp or window. In doing so it gets all leggy and spindly. As the weather warms the plant needs to be hardened off for outside conditions. So you take it out a little at a time. The sun burns the leaves, the wind and rain bash it about, and then you bring it back in. Then a little longer tomorrow. The little thing was doing just fine and now its getting all burned and beat up. Then it gets planted in unfamiliar soil. But as the weeks pass the plant settles in and discovers that the rain and the wind and the sun that consistently wash down upon it are making it stronger. It grows and grows without reaching and stretching. It has everything it needs to bear great fruit.

 

The hardening off period is "the dark night." The beginner period isn't a worse period than the others. The seedling is being what it ought to be at its time. It is a necessary period before the next and the next. We need to sprout and reach and stretch first so that we present ourselves to God. But there's this transition period where we learn to relax our will (because it is insufficient) and let God's will take over.

 

Does that help at all?

My Reply:

Yes, that makes sense Casey. My trouble is distinguishing a difference between a purgation of sense and a purgation of spirit.

Casey’s Reply:

OK, so like we initially desire the pleasures of the sense instead of God Himself, we now desire God's love instead of God Himself. I'm thinking something like a child learning to ride a bike to impress mom rather than riding a bike for riding a bike's sake.

Irene’s Reply:

Manny, Here is how I understand the difference, but I could be wrong.

 

The purgation of the sense is usually taken on by the individual deliberately to detach from bodily pleasures or psychological pleasures that we might desire sufficiently that they distract us from God. Food and alcohol, TV or other entertainment, social status or wealth accumulation, the pursuit of learning or excitement, sex or the affirmation of friends, etc., we let go of anything so we can approach God with open hands. It is not that any of these things are necessarily bad, but, like Job, if they were stripped from us, would they lessen our peace in God? People relinquish various attachments so that their truest love is God and God alone. Of course, sometimes these things are stripped from a person by illness or misfortune or war or whatever. But even in these situations, the individual can rage against or mourn the loss or willingly relinquish what is stripped away.

 

The purgation of the spirit is largely done by God as God withdraws the pleasurable experiences associated with initial religious fervor. Early in the spiritual life, most people experience peace or a sense of intimacy with God or joy or something else with their turning to God in prayer. If they did not, they would quickly lose interest, doubt that God was anything more than a figment of other people's psyche. But the joy, the peace, the sense of well-being, none of this is God. These sweetnesses might entice a spiritual novice to continue, but they are not God. So, when the soul is ready, God begins to remove these things so that the soul comes to desire and love God, not the promises of God or the sweetness God has bestowed.

 

For me, it is like a marriage. Early in the dating, the person needs something to validate the relationship. Some of this might be the physical attraction to the other person, the affirmation of peers that you make a great couple, and it is also the sweetness’s done, the thrill of the special Friday night dates, the gifts, the constant compliments and terms of endearment. But, over time, much of this will fade. Looks don't last, friends stop remarking on your relationship, Friday night dates turn into dirty diapers and broken water pipes and bills that can't be paid, compliments are replaced by pet peeves. If it is not love, the marriage often does not last, or if it does, it lasts under duress. If you loved the endearments more than the person, what will happen when the partner goes through a prolonged depression and can't offer them? If you loved the fun things you did together more than the person, what happens when the partner is felled by a stroke? None of us wants to think that the only reason our partner married us was because of our salary or our figure. We want to be loved because of who we are. In the same way, God asks that we do not love God because of the physical blessings God bestows, the pleasures we enjoy or because of the spiritual sweetness’s we have in prayer. God asks that we love God because God is God, the only true center of our life.

Casey’s Reply to Irene:

Irene wrote: "Manny, Here is how I understand the difference, but I could be wrong.

The purgation of the sense is usually taken on by the individual deliberately to detach from bodily pleasures or psychological..."

Actually, it is God who detaches us in both cases. What is being purged is not those things that distract us from God but those pleasures that we confuse for God.

So in our secular culture we may hear how science shows us that prayer is good for our emotional well-being. But praying for our well-being is the wrong aim for prayer.

God removes the emotional benefit and it seems to us that something is wrong but he's revealing something greater. And we now experience God's great love and we are spurred on.

But praying to receive God's love is not exactly right either. It is God Himself at which we ought to aim. This is the realm of the Saints.

 

Here's an article (“Musings On The Dark Night Of The Soul: Insights From St. John Of The Cross On A Developmental Spirituality”) I found that is a great and thorough explanation.  

My Reply to Irene & Casey:

In theory I understand the difference between the purgation of the senses and the purgation of the spiritual, but what I took from your comment and left above is also confusing me. I said I understand in theory, but someone has to give me examples. St. John never provides examples of anything, and such amorphous concepts require tangible examples. What is a tangible example of purging of the spiritual? Is he saying we shouldn't be praying? Or going to Mass? Or receiving communion? I doubt he's saying any of that. So what is he saying? In practice I have no idea.

Casey’s Reply:

The ultimate tangible example of the "final stage" (so to speak) would be the Blessed Virgin Mary. She did not have to go through these dark nights as we do but rather she was gifted with a simplicity of heart that allowed her to fully and totally cooperate with the will of God. There is no ego or desire or rebellion or pride etc in her. It is perfect cooperation.

 

Examples of the passage through the dark nights would be St. Paul in a linear sense or St. Peter in a seasonal sense. (linear and seasonal idea in the linked article.)

 

Thomas Merton's Seven Story Mountain is a tale about this very journey.

 

In a Lenten context, think of it this way. Say you gave up beer for Lent. On Ash Wednesday you are feeling very good about that. 10 days in you've not touched a drop and are thinking this isn't as hard as you thought. 10 days after that, still a perfect record, and you start thinking about how great it will be to sip that cold beer with Easter dinner. You see, you've given up the thing and you are doing good but you haven't given up the desire of the thing. By the end of Lent, you hope to have purged that desire for the thing such that you have a right relationship with it. You have that relationship with the beer that God himself has with the beer. You approach that beer the way Mary would approach it.

 

Maybe think of it like, in the dark night of the sense God is dealing with our sin. In the spirit, he is dealing with our original sin.

My Reply to Casey:

Casey that's brilliant. I think I get it now. It also shows how hopeless I'll be. I can't imagine ever giving up the desire for a good glass of wine. Thanks. It definitely helps.

Casey’s Reply:

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me." Psalm 51:10

 

Imagine a young man in his 20s who it taken with strong drink. In his 30s he moves away from the drink and by 40 drinks no more. In his 40s, however, he longs for the days of his youth and wishes he could have those wild nights again. You see, he's no longer drinking but he still has the longing for drink. That root is still alive in his heart. This is what need to be purged in the second night.

 

Here is another article I found that might work better. Haven't read all of this one either but it seems good:  “Chapter Four—A Third Conversion—ThePassive Night of the Spirit.”    

My Reply to Casey:

Casey, you've saved the book for me! I don't think I would have gotten this without your help. And that website really helps too. I can identify with that young man. Perhaps as we read on it will say, but how does one purge that past out of the heart?

Casey’s Reply:

Great, I'm glad. This has really struck a chord with me. I had never even heard of it before. It's been amazing.

 

I think the idea is that God purges the roots of desire from our hearts with his blinding love. We cannot will ourselves to deserve it. We can only learn to cooperate with His will.

My Comment:

I know Casey, its taking me a while to get through it. Half the time it feels like he’s repeating himself with an ever so subtle a nuance that I can’t make a distinction from one chapter to another or even one paragraph to another.

Casey’s Reply:

Regarding the seeming repetitiveness:

 

"For the most important part of my task, and the part which chiefly led me to undertake it, was the explanation of this night to many souls who pass through it and yet know nothing about it," (XXII 2.)

 

I think it's something like painting the same bowl of fruit from different angles through time. From the north angle we see more grapes and less banana and from the south more banana and now an orange etc. So there's a repetitiveness in that it is always the same bowl of fruit. But when you get to a depiction of your particular angle, then you say "A-Ha! That's it!"

 

And then through time meaning like an artist's eye continually improves. You see more than bananas and grapes. You see shadow and texture etc.

 

So I do think that one individual reader is likely to "get" the book up to that point where one is in their journey. A saint would get the whole book and the beginner would see this as entirely intangible. To a newly excited convert, the idea of aridity and a coming dark night would be like the idea of desert air to a fish.

My Reply to Casey:

Casey wrote: "I have a question regarding the terms "soul" and "spirit." An example here from Book 2, Chapter 2:

"Are those terms theologically distinct or is soul being used like we might say "the poor soul" and spirit like the soul soul?"

I don't know Casey. I have been reading it as if they are synonymous. I don't see a distinction but I'm not confident I've been understanding him throughout the book.

Casey’s Reply:

Regarding soul and spirit - here's a clue:

 

"For, when there is a naked contact of spirit with spirit, the horror is intolerable which the evil spirit causes in the good spirit (I mean, in the soul), when its tumult reaches it." (XXIII - 5.)