Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, Post 4

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

Post #1 can be found here.  

Post #2 here. 

Post #3 here. 

 

 

Summary

Part 2

Chapter 7: Describes the afflictions on the soul during the dark night of the spirit..

Chapter 8: Associates Biblical passages with the dark night of the spirit.

Chapter 9: Explains how the purgative passage leads to an illumination.

Chapter 10: Describes the purgative passage with the analogy of the burning log.

Chapter 11: Explains the second line of the first stanza.

Chapter 12: Explains how the illumination of men on earth is the same as the illumination of angels in heave.

Chapter 13: Explains the divine love that enkindles in the soul from the illumination.

Chapter 14: Explains the last three lines of the first stanza.

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 Notable Quote:

These souls turn back at such a time if there is none who understands them; they abandon the road or lose courage; or, at the least, they are hindered from going farther by the great trouble which they take in advancing along the road of meditation and reasoning. Thus they fatigue and overwork their nature, imagining that they are failing through negligence or sin. But this trouble that they are taking is quite useless, for God is now leading them by another road, which is that of contemplation, and is very different from the first; for the one is of meditation and reasoning, and the other belongs neither to imagination nor yet to reasoning. (Pt 2, Chpt 10, Para 2)

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I think my favorite part of the book is when St. John brings up examples from the Bible to support his argument.  I’ve been trying to track references to Biblical personages who St. John identifies as going through this dark night.  He mentions King David, Job, St. Paul, Tobias, Jerimiah, and even Mary Magdalene.  He quotes from Ezekiel, Psalms, Exodus, the Gospels, Paul’s letters, Isaiah.  I’m sure there are more personages and Biblical books quoted. 

If he had pointed to examples like this more often, I think I would understand the book better.

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Casey Commented:

"it suffers great pain and grief, since there is added to all this ... the fact that it finds no consolation or support in any instruction nor in a spiritual master. For, although in many ways its director may show it good reason for being comforted because of the blessings which are contained in these afflictions, it cannot believe him. For it is so greatly absorbed and immersed in the realization of those evils wherein it sees its own miseries so clearly, that it thinks that, as its director observes not that which it sees and feels, he is speaking in this manner because he understands it not; and so, instead of comfort, it rather receives fresh affliction, since it believes that its director’s advice contains no remedy for its troubles." (VII. 3.)

 

This chapter really struck me. In my early 20s I went through a period of what I now know was depression. I understand it now as losing my rose colored glasses. And everyone who still wore their glasses would try to cheer me by telling me to look at life's rosiness. But that just made me feel worse because I knew they couldn't see what the world really looked like without the glasses. What I really needed was someone who understood what I was seeing.

 

I think that's why I am drawn to this book. St. John is speaking to me and confirming that what I'm seeing is accurate. But he's also showing me that when my eyes adjust, the world will be rosier than it was with the glasses.

My Reply to Casey:

That's great Casey. For me it seems I can almost reach that moment of connection but alas it falls short. I don't think it's St. John's fault. There's just something I'm not getting or perhaps better put blocking me from connecting.

 

It has to be me because Casey's experience seems to be echoed with others. Let me share a comment in an email exchange I had with a young friend (who I will leave nameless) who fell in love with this book. Her comments to me about it was the major reason for me to nominate the book. Mind you she is not Catholic, but of late has been falling in love with Catholicism. This from her email to me about the book.

 

"However, the way it clicked for me was in the sense of recognition; not only do I, as a young American woman in the 21st century, recognize what he's talking about as something I've experienced and seen in my own walk as a believer, but also I love how what he talks about constellates through so much of literary history. I think you can argue for St. John of the Cross as a literary descendant of Dante's (though I don't know if he ever actually read him), and I see echoes of his ideas in Donne, Herbert, T.S. Eliot, perhaps even Auden and Yeats, and I'm sure there are others with a connection that I don't know about. He works in my mind as a sort of bridge between literature and belief."

 

And later in that email she says,

 

"In another way, this whole year has also been a dark night of the soul for me and my family (I think I've told you about all the horrible things that have happened over the past year?). But looking back and thinking and processing through it all, I've again felt that sense of kinship with St. John--of being able to look back over it and read it as God shepherding us closer to him and showing us more of his heart for us, and really feeling like I know God more intimately because of it."

 

She's a very bright young lady and a sensitive one. Clearly she connected with the book as Casey has. I'm wondering if anyone else reading with us has had this same connection with the book.

My Reply to Bruce:

I think we discussed who the intended audience was, but I can't seem to find it. I think we said it was mostly Carmelite religious (monks and nuns) but I think he is also speaking to anyone who is devout. I don't think he's limiting. However, I don't know about competition between people in monasteries. I've never met a religious person I thought was competing for who was the most devout.

The more I read, the more Biblically based I'm finding St. John's ideas. I wouldn't have thought that at the beginning.

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Summary

Part 2

Chapter 15: Expounds on the poem’s second stanza.

Chapter 16: Describes how the soul, though in darkness, makes progress.

Chapter 17: Explains how the how the dark contemplation leads to secret wisdom.

Chapter 18: Explains how this secret wisdom is actually a ladder of mystical steps.

Chapter 19: Describes the first five steps of the mystical ladder.

Chapter 20: Describes the second five steps of the mystical ladder.

Chapter 21: Explains why the soul is disguised during its mystical journey.

Chapter 22: Explains the third line of the second stanza.

Chapter 23: Explains the fourth line of the second stanza and the soul’s concealment.

Chapter 24: Explains how the soul reaches a state of rest.

Chapter 25 Expounds on the poem’s third stanza.

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The ending chapters cleared up a number of things for me, though it perhaps muddied other things.  First the things it cleared up.  For instance, the very first sentence of the last chapter:

The soul still continues the metaphor and similitude of temporal night in describing this its spiritual night, and continues to sing and extol the good properties which belong to it, and which in passing through this night it found and used, to the end that it might attain its desired goal with speed and security.

Ha!  So the dark night and the journey through it was a metaphor.  You guys were right!  I was wrong.  Now he tells us in the last chapter.

I particularly liked the ten steps of the mystical ladder as presented in chapters nineteen and twenty.  I wound up putting them into bullet summary. 

1. The soul languishes.

2. The soul seeks God without ceasing.

3. The soul works in fervor so as to fail not.

4. The soul goes into a habitual suffering because of the beloved.

5. The soul desires and longs for God impatiently.

6. The soul runs swiftly to God and repeatedly touches Him.

7. The soul becomes vehement in its boldness of love.

8. The soul seizes God and holds Him without letting go.

9. The soul burns perfectly, sweetly in God.

10. The soul becomes holy, assimilated to God.

So a question for those who are understanding better than me, so in the first step where the soul languishes, is that both the dark night of the senses and the spirit, or just one of the two?

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My Comment:

Some other concepts that St. John brings up that I don't get. What is he talking about when he speaks of the soul as "disguised" and "concealed"? I don't get this?

My Reply to Bruce:

Bruce wrote: "I do not know if anyone is monitoring the discussion, but anyway, here this post is:."

I'm tracking! Very good comments Bruce. Normally I'm more active in discussions but I have to admit I found Dark Night a difficult read. I think I get the overall gist of the work but I can't say that any given paragraph I get what St. John is after. It always feels like I'm not fully connected, and so I'm reluctant to say much on this book.

Yes, it is interesting that purgation for St. John is a darkness. Normally we think of purgation as a fire, and fire implies light. But not so here. The only light is the light of Christ which lights up the dark.

The ten steps of a ladder that St. John speaks of seems analogous to St. Teresa of Avila's rooms of the interior castle. I think she had eight rooms if I remember correctly, but it's been some time since I read it. I wonder if they exchanged thoughts at some point. I understood St. Teresa's work much better than this one. Personally I think she's a better writer.

My Reply to Frances:

Frances wrote: "Bishop Barron, in his You Tube video, asks, "How many people write a poem and then add a 200 page treatise explaining it -- as if T.S.Eliot wrote The Wasteland" and then a 500 page commentary to ac..."

No one but St. John of the Cross...lol. I'm actually more confused from the two works than if I had read each without being aware of the other.

My Reply to Gerri:

Gerri wrote: "I just want to say a big thank you to everyone for their comments, thoughts, and explanations about St. John and 'Dark Night' and for suggestions of additional tools for deeper understanding. It's ..."

Me too! When I told my friend that I quoted in one of these discussions on the book that I had a hard time understanding she was taken aback. I don't know why but this book does not seem like it communicates well to me. The concepts are not all that hard. It's the way St. John expounds on them.

Frances Comment:

In John Paul II’s letter (above) one sentence stood out as a possible source of contemporary confusion: “The term dark night is now used of all of life and not just one phase of the spiritual journey.” St. John of the Cross, however, wasn’t attempting to address the problem of human suffering.

My Reply to Frances:

That disconnect between the common notion that has developed of "dark night of the soul" and what St. John really means hindered me from a greater understanding of the book. I need to be dispelled of that notion before I could understand.

Casey Comment:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.

He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit."

That's really what this was all about, right? The dark nights are just prune jobs. It seems harsh, it seems drastic. Cut down to nothing. But when it comes back it's better and stronger than it was before.

My Reply to Casey:

Yes! Casey, you are so on top of this book. I'm so glad you were part of this discussion.

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My Goodreads Review:

This is a difficult book but certainly a valuable book in discerning your spiritual journey.  Once someone explains the concepts, they are not very hard to grasp: there is a denial of sensual consolations and then there is a higher order of denial, the denial of spiritual consolations.  Both are steps toward union with God.

So what makes this a hard read?  (1) There is a disconnect between the common understanding of “dark night of the soul” and what St. John of the Cross really means.  Try not to start with expectations.  (2) There are times where St. John is not clear.  Perhaps it was me, but I could not understand why a soul would be disguised or hidden.  There are concepts like that that baffled me.  (3) 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.  St. John gets rather tedious. 

I think my favorite part of the book is when St. John brings up examples from the Bible to support his argument.  At some point I started tracking references to Biblical personages who St. John identifies as going through this dark night.  He mentions King David, Job, St. Paul, Tobias, Jerimiah, and even Mary Magdalene.  He quotes from Ezekiel, Psalms, Exodus, the Gospels, Paul’s letters, Isaiah.  I’m sure there are more personages and Biblical books quoted.  If he had pointed to examples like this more often, I think I would understand the book better and made it a more enjoyable read.

I gave the book four stars.  It is an important work, and many find this work resonates with their experience.  It didn’t resonate with me.  Perhaps my spirituality is much more analytical.  But once I understood what St, John of the Cross was articulating, I did see the importance of it.  I for one found St. Teresa of Avilla’s The Interior Castle, a work that covers similar ground, to be better articulated and a finer work.  But Dark Night of the Soul may be the greater work.