Saint John of the Cross has for many years been one of my favorite mystics, one of the ones I connect with the most. He understands what it is like to be in the dark night. He understands what it feels like to be taken apart in the hands of God. I read his book, Dark Night of the Soul, when I needed it the most; it was a great comfort to hear his voice and to hear him explain just where I was at.
One of the questions I've always wanted to ask John concerns his opinion that the soul feels God is absent in the dark night for their senses are shut off to the Divine presence. It is the one big point of the dark night I diverge on. I have never felt God's presence more intimately than I did when his hand was the only thing I could feel. Even today, when I am searching, exploring, asking questions, I still can feel his hand holding mine; I know God is there and that he loves me even when I have nothing left to give him in return. Did John ever ask that question or was he quite sure that, as he says, "These souls do not get satisfaction or consolation from the things of God."?
That whole time in my life is still so real to me and I am so grateful to have gone through it. As John so aptly says, it is a dry time of purgation and emptying. But I needed that emptying, I needed to be taken apart and put back together and John is right, it is a very passive process. The soul is acted upon, it does nothing. "They will be doing a great deal without activity on their part. All that is required of them here is freedom of soul....They must be content simply with a loving and peaceful attentiveness to God."
In the end, even when it's dark, John says God is still there. Whether we can see him or not, whether we can feel him or not, he is there in the night transforming our souls to see what is truly light.
365-09 #338Labels: 365-09 Challenge, Dark Night of the Soul, Mysticism