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In The Dark Night, St. John of the Cross treats of the
conduct to be observed in the night of the senses.(1) He gives
there, first of all, rules for direction, then he speaks of the
trials which ordinarily accompany this state. We shall set forth
here the essential part of his teaching on this point. This teaching
may, moreover, be useful not only for those who are in this period
of obscurity and prolonged aridity, but also for those who observe
that in their interior life day and night alternate somewhat as they
do in nature. The author of The Imitation frequently points out this
alternation. As in nature it is good that night succeed day, so also
is it suitable in the life of the soul. Furthermore, one must know
how to conduct oneself in these two phases that differ so greatly;
especially is this knowledge necessary when the obscure phase is
prolonged, as it is in the period we are considering.
FOUR RULES OF DIRECTION RELATIVE TO THIS STATE
The mystical doctor points out first of all in regard to those who
are in this period of transition: "If they meet with no one who
understands the matter, these persons fall away and abandon the
right road; or they become weak, or at least put hindrances in the
way of their further advancement, because of the great efforts they
make to proceed in their former way of meditation, fatiguing their
natural powers beyond measure." At this time, it is advisable for
them to seek counsel from an enlightened director because of the
difficulties which arise in the interior life by reason of the
subtraction of sensible graces, the growing difficulty in
meditating, and also by reason of the concomitant temptations
against chastity and patience which the devil then awakens rather
frequently in order to turn the soul away from prayer.
In the second place, says St. John of the Cross: "It behooves those
who find themselves in this condition to take courage and persevere
in patience. Let them not afflict themselves but put their
confidence in God, who never forsakes those who seek Him with a pure
and upright heart. Neither will He withhold from them all that is
necessary for them on this road until He brings them to the clear
and pure light of love, which He will show them in that other dark
night of the spirit, if they shall merit an entrance into it."
Consequently, in this aridity and powerlessness one must not become
discouraged or abandon prayer as if it were useless. On the
contrary, it becomes much more fruitful if the soul perseveres in
humility, abnegation, and trust in God. Prolonged sensible aridity
and growing inability to meditate are the sign of a new, higher
life. Instead of grieving over this condition, a learned and
experienced director rejoices; it is the generous entrance into "the
narrow way" which ascends as it broadens, and which will become
increasingly wide, immense as God Himself to whom it leads. At this
stage the soul is under the happy necessity of not being content
with weak acts of faith, hope, and love. Imperfect acts (actus
remissi) of these virtues no longer suffice here; more lofty and
more meritorious acts are necessary. According to St. Thomas, it is
characteristic of these acts to obtain immediately the increase of
grace and charity which they merit.(2)
The spiritual man who has reached this stage is like a man who in
climbing a mountain comes to a difficult spot where, to make
progress, he must have a keener desire for the goal to be attained.
We are here at the aurora of the illuminative life; it richly
deserves that we show generosity in our passage through the dark
night which precedes it. Here it is a question of being purified
from the remains of the seven capital sins that stain the spiritual
life; if one is not purified from them on earth while meriting, one
must be
cleansed in purgatory without meriting.
The passive purification which we are speaking of is in the normal way of sanctity, which may be defined as union with God and sufficient
purity to enter heaven immediately. This degree of purity
is certainly in the normal way of heaven, whether a person obtains
it on earth, or only at the end of his purgatory. Purgatory, which
is a penalty, presupposes sins that could have been avoided.
Therefore the soul should trust in God while this painful work of
purification is being accomplished.
In the third place, as St. John of the Cross points out here,(3) when
persons can no longer meditate discursively: "All they have to do is
to keep their soul free, . . . contenting themselves simply with
directing their attention lovingly and calmly toward God." To wish
to return at any cost to discursive meditation, would be to wish to
run counter to the current of grace instead of following it, and to
give ourselves great trouble without profit. It would be like
running toward the spring of living water when we have already
reached its brim; continuing to run, we withdraw from it. It would
be like continuing to spell when we already know how to read
several words at a glance. It would be to fall back instead of
allowing ourselves to be drawn, to be lifted up by God. However, if
the difficulty in meditating does not increase and makes itself felt
only from time to time, it is well to return to simplified,
affective meditation whenever possible: for example, to the very
slow meditation of the Our Father.
St. John gives a fourth rule of direction for those who, having
reached this state of prolonged aridity, wish, not to return to
reasoned meditation, but to feel some consolation. St. John of the
Cross says on this subject: "All they have to do is to keep their
soul free, . . . and all this without anxiety or effort, or
immoderate desire to feel and taste His presence. For all such
efforts disquiet the soul, and distract it from the peaceful quiet
and sweet tranquillity of contemplation to which they are now
admitted.(4) . . . If they were now to exert their interior faculties,
they would simply hinder and ruin the good which, in that repose,
God is working in the soul; for if a man while sitting for his
portrait cannot be still, but moves about, the painter will never depict his face, and even the work
already done will be spoiled. . . . The more it strives to find help
in affections and knowledge, the more will it feel the deficiency
which cannot now be supplied in that way." (5) In other words,
natural activity exercising itself counter to the gifts of the Holy
Ghost, through self-seeking opposes an obstacle to their most
delicate inspirations. In prayer, we should not seek to feel the
gift of God, but should receive it with docility and
disinterestedness in the obscurity of faith. Spiritual joy will be
added later on to the act of contemplation and love of God; but it
is not joy that should be sought, it is God Himself, who is greatly
superior to His gifts.
If the soul that has reached this period of transition is faithful
to what has been said, then will be realized what St. John of the
Cross affirms: "By not hindering the operation of infused
contemplation, to which God is now admitting it, the soul is
refreshed in peaceful abundance, and set on fire with the spirit of
love, which this contemplation, dim and secret, induces and
establishes within it." (6)
As the mystical doctor says: "The soul should content itself simply
with directing its attention lovingly and calmly toward God," with
the general knowledge of His infinite goodness, as when after months
of absence, a loving son again meets his good mother who has been
expecting him. He does not analyze his sentiments and his mother's
as a psychologist would; he is content with an affectionate,
tranquil, and profound gaze which in its simplicity is far more
penetrating than all psychological analyses.
This beginning of infused contemplation united to love is already
the eminent exercise of the theological virtues and of the gifts of
the Holy Ghost which accompany them. In it there is an infused act
of penetrating faith; (7) therein the soul discovers increasingly
the spirit of the Gospel, the spirit which vivifies the letter. Thus
are verified Christ's words: "The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom
the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and
bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you."
(8) St. John also wrote to the faithful to whom he directed his first
epistle: "And as for you, let the unction, which you have received
from Him, abide in you.(9) And you have no need that any man teach
you; . . . His unction teacheth you of all things." (10) In the
silence of prayer, the soul receives here the profound meaning of
what it has often read and meditated on in the Gospel: for example,
the intrinsic meaning of the evangelical beatitudes: blessed are the
poor, the meek, those who weep for their sins, those who hunger and
thirst for justice, the merciful, the pure of heart, the
peacemakers, those who suffer persecution for justice, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven.
In this way, as a rule, begins infused prayer, the spiritual
elevation of the soul toward God, above the senses, the
imagination, and reasoning; it is adoration "in spirit and in
truth," which goes beyond the formulas of faith to penetrate the
mysteries which they express and to live by them. The formulas are
no longer a term, but a point of departure.
Nevertheless we should remember here what St. John of the Cross says
in The Ascent of Mount Carmel: "The beginning contemplative is not
yet so far removed from discursive meditation that he cannot return
occasionally to its practice," (11) when he is no longer under
the special influence of the Holy Ghost, which facilitates
recollection. St. Teresa, in her Life (chap. 14), also speaks of the
necessity at the beginning of the prayer of quiet of having recourse
to a simplified meditation, symbolized by the hydraulic machine
called a noria. This passage from St. Teresa's life corresponds to
what St. John of the Cross has just said about the work of the
understanding, which prepares the soul to receive a more profound
recollection from God. Thus it is fitting at the beginning of
prayer to meditate slowly on the petitions of the Our Father, or to
converse in a childlike manner with Mary Mediatrix that she may lead
us to close union with her Son. It is well for us to recall how He
Himself gave His life for us and how He does not cease to offer Himself for
us in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. If we follow this way
faithfully, we shall receive, at least from time to time, an
interior light that will give us the profound meaning of the
Passion, and also of the infinite riches contained in the Holy
Eucharist. Thus our interior life will grow more simple while
becoming more lofty, which is essential if it is to radiate and to
bear fruit.
We may sum up the conduct to be observed in the passive
purification of the senses, called also the night of the senses, as
follows: docility to the director, trust in God, a simple and loving
gaze on Him, abstention from seeking to feel consolation. To
complete this chapter, we must also speak of the trials which
frequently accompany this period of transition.
TRIALS WHICH ORDINARILY ACCOMPANY THE NIGHT OF THE SENSES
To this painful purification in which, under the influence of the
gift of knowledge, we experience the emptiness of created things,
are customarily added temptations against chastity and patience.
These temptations are permitted by God to provoke a strong reaction
of these virtues, which have their seat in the sensible appetites.
This reaction should strengthen these virtues, root them more
deeply, and thereby purify more profoundly the sensibility in which
they are located, and subject it increasingly to right reason
illumined by faith. For a like reason, there will be in the night of
the spirit temptations of the same kind against the virtues which
are in the highest part of the soul, especially against the
theological virtues.
These concomitant trials have an attenuated form in many souls; in
others they are more accentuated and then they announce that
God wishes to lead these souls to the full perfection of Christian
life if they are faithful.(12)
The struggle against the temptations of which we are speaking
necessitates energetic acts of the virtues of chastity and patience;
as a result these virtues then take deeper root in the sensibility
that has been tilled and upturned. They become in it like very
fertile seeds of a higher life. The acquired moral virtues cause the
direction of right reason to descend, in fact, into the sensibility,
and the infused moral virtues cause the divine life of grace to
penetrate into it. Thus conceived, this struggle against temptation
has a great and beautiful character. Without it we would often be
content with a lesser effort, with weak, less intense, virtuous
acts, actus remissi, as theologians call them, that is, acts
inferior to the degree of virtue that we possess. Having three
talents, we act as if we had only two. These weak virtuous acts, as
St. Thomas points out,(13) do not immediately obtain the increase of
charity which they merit, whereas intense or perfect acts obtain it
immediately.
Temptation places us in the necessity of producing these very
meritorious acts, occasionally heroic, which root the acquired
virtues and obtain immediately for us a proportionate increase of
the infused virtues. For this reason, the angel Raphael said to
Tobias: "Because thou wast acceptable to God, it was necessary that
temptation should prove thee." (14) St. Paul also says: "God is
faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you
are able; but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be
able to bear it." (15) Isaias speaks in like manner: "It is He that
giveth strength to the weary, and increaseth force and might to them
that are not. . . . But they that hope in the Lord shall renew their
strength. They shall take wings as eagles." (16)
Temptation reveals to us our misery and our need of the grace of
God: "What doth he know, that hath not been tried?" 17 Temptation
obliges us to pray, to beg God to come to our aid, to place our
confidence in Him and not in ourselves. Because of this trust in God
which the man who is tried should have, St. Paul writes: "For when
I am weak, then am I powerfuL" (18) The apostle St. James also
says: "My brethren, count it all joy when you shall fall into divers
temptations; knowing that the trying of your faith worketh patience. And patience hath a perfect work; that you may be perfect."
(19)
To these temptations against chastity and patience is also added at
times in this period of the interior life the loss of certain temporal goods, of fortune, honors, friendships on which we dwelt too
much. God comes at this time to ask us to give Him the lively
affection which we have not thought of giving to Him. Sometimes He
also permits illnesses, that we may learn to suffer, and also that
we
may be reminded that of ourselves we can do nothing and that we
need the divine favors for the life of the body and that of the
soul.
THE EFFECTS OF THE PASSIVE PURIFICATION OF THE SENSES
If we bear these trials well, they produce precious effects in us.
It is said that "patience produces roses." Among the effects of the
passive purification of the senses, must be numbered a profound and
experimental knowledge of God and self.
St. John of the Cross points out: "These aridities and the
emptiness of the faculties as to their former abounding, and the
difficulty which good works present, bring the soul to a knowledge
of its own vileness and misery." (20)
This knowledge is the effect of nascent infused contemplation, which
shows that infused contemplation is in the normal way of sanctity.
St. John of the Cross says: "The soul possesses and retains more
truly that excellent and necessary virtue of self-knowledge,
counting itself for nothing, and having no satisfaction in itself,
because it sees that of itself it does and can do nothing. This
diminished satisfaction with self, and the affliction it feels
because it thinks that it is not serving God, God esteems more
highly than all its former delights and all its good works." (21)
With this knowledge of its indigence, its poverty, the soul comprehends better the majesty of God, His infinite goodness toward
us, the value also of Christ's merits, of His precious blood, the
infinite value of the Mass, and the value of Communion. "God
enlightens the soul, making it see not only its own misery and
meanness, . . . but also His grandeur and majesty." (22)
St. Teresa speaks in like manner: "For instance, they read that we
must not be troubled when men speak ill of us, that we are to be
then more pleased than when they speak well of us, . . . with many
other things of the same kind. The disposition to practice this must
be, in my opinion, the gift of God, for it seems to me a
supernatural good." (23) "People may desire honors or possessions in
monasteries as well as outside them (yet the sin is greater as the
temptation is less), but such souls, although they may have spent
years in prayer, or rather in speculations (for perfect prayer
eventually destroys these vices), will never make great progress nor
enjoy the real fruit of prayer." (24)
St. Catherine of Siena, too, taught the same doctrine: that the
knowledge of God and that of our indigence are like the highest and
the lowest points of a circle which could grow forever.(25) This
infused knowledge of our misery is the source of true humility of
heart, of the humility which leads one to desire to be nothing that
God may be all, amare nesciri et pro nihilo reputari. Infused
knowledge of the infinite goodness of God gives birth in us to a
much more lively charity, a more generous and disinterested love of
God and of souls in Him, a greater confidence in prayer.
As St. John of the Cross says: "The love of God is practiced,
because the soul is no longer attracted by sweetness and
consolation, but by God only. . . . In the midst of these aridities
and hardships, God communicates to the soul, when it least expects
it, spiritual sweetness, most pure love, and spiritual knowledge of
the most exalted kind, of greater worth and profit than any of which
it had previous experience, though at first the soul may not think
so, for
the spiritual influence now communicated is most delicate and
imperceptible
by sense." (26)
The soul travels here in a spiritual light and shade; it rises above
the inferior obscurity which comes from matter, error, and sin; it
enters the higher obscurity which comes from a light that is too
great for our weak eyes. It is the obscurity of the divine life, the
light of which is inaccessible to the senses and to natural reason.
But between these two obscurities, the lower and the higher, there
is a ray of illumination from the Holy Ghost; it is the illuminative
life which truly begins. Then are realized the Savior's words: "He
that followeth Me walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light
of life," (27) and he already has it.
Under this light, affective charity becomes effective and generous.
Through the spirit of sacrifice it more and more takes first place
in the soul; it establishes peace in us and gives it to others. Such
are the principal effects of the passive purification of the senses,
which subjects our sensibility to the spirit and spiritualizes that
sensibility. Thus this purification appears in the normal way of
sanctity. Later the passive purification of the spirit will have as
its purpose to supernaturalize our spirit, to subject it fully to
God in view of perfect divine union, which is the normal prelude to
that of eternity. These are the superior laws of the life of grace,
or of its full development, in its relation to the two parts of the
soul. The senses should, in the end, be fully subjected to the
spirit, and the spirit to God.
Finally, it should be pointed out that the passive purification of
the senses, even for those who enter it, is more or less manifest
and also more or less well borne. St. John of the Cross points out
this fact when he speaks of those who show less generosity: "The
night of aridities is not continuous with them, they are sometimes
in it, and sometimes not; they are at one time unable to meditate,
and at another able as before. . . . These persons are never wholly
weaned
from the breasts of meditations and reflections, but only, as I have
said, at intervals and at certain seasons." (28) In The Living Flame,
the mystical doctor, explaining why this is so, says: "Because these
souls flee purifying suffering, God does not continue to purify
them; they wish to be perfect without allowing themselves to be led
by the way of trial which forms the perfect." (29)
Such is the more or less generous transition to a form of higher
life. We see the logical and vital succession of phases through
which the soul should pass to reach the perfect purity that would
permit it to enter heaven immediately. It is not a mechanical
juxtaposition of successive states: it is the organic development of
life. In his discussion of this point St. John of the Cross caused
spiritual theology to advance notably, by showing the necessity and
the intimate nature of these purifications, which are an
anticipated purgatory in which one merits and advances, whereas in
that after death, one no longer merits. May the Lord grant us the
grace thus to suffer our purgatory before death rather than after
our last sigh. In the evening of life we shall be judged on the
purity of our love of God and of souls in God.
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1. Cf. Bk. I, chap. 10.
2. Cf. IIa IIae, q.24, a.6.
3. The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 10.
4. The word "quiet" used in this connection on several occasions by St.
John of the Cross, shows that the state to which he refers corresponds
to the fourth mansion of St. Teresa, that of passive recollection and
quiet, in which the will is captivated and rests in God under a
special inspiration of the Holy Ghost. During this time a certain
involuntary wandering of the imagination may be produced, since the
imagination, which is not yet lulled, cannot become interested in a
purely spiritual object.
5. The Dark Night, loco cit.
6. Ibid. At the beginning of this same chapter, St. John declares that
it is
thus "God makes the soul pass from meditation to contemplation," that
is, to infused contemplation, as has been affirmed. He is not
concerned here with acquired contemplation, but with the infusion of
the sweet light of life.
7. This act is called infused because it would not be produced without
a special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, an inspiration which the
gifts dispose us to receive. In it there is an influence of the gifts
of knowledge and of understanding, which render faith more penetrating
and certain. It is one
and the same act, which is an act of faith and an act of penetrating
faith;
there are in it the two subordinated formal motives of the virtue of
faith
(the authority of God revealing) and of the gift of understanding (the
special illumination of the Holy Ghost, as an objective regulation).
We have here something analogous to what is produced in a real
musician who, in an artistic rendition of a symphony of Beethoven,
receives at a given moment a musical inspiration that makes him
penetrate more deeply into the soul of this symphony. Similarly the
act of living faith has a meritorious modality which comes to it from
charity, a modality which is not in the act of infused faith of a
Christian in the state of mortal sin.
8. John 14:26.
9. The unction received remains in effect permanently even during our
sleep, under the form of sanctifying grace and of the habitus infusi,
which spring from it, that is, the infused virtues and the seven
gifts: the sacrum septenarium which the liturgy speaks of, and which
is always in all the just.
10. Cf. I John 2:27.
11. Bk. II, chap. 13.
12. The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 14.
13. Cf. Ia IIae, q.52, a.3; IIa IIae, q.24, a.6 ad Ium.
14. Tob.12:13.
15. Cf. I Cor. 10: 13.
16. Isa. 40:29,31.
17. Ecclus. 34:9.
18. Cf. II Cor. 12: 10.
19. Jas. 1:2-4.
20. The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 12.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Life, by herself, chap. 31.
24. The Way of Perfection, chap. I2, par. 5.
25. The Dialogue, chap. 4: "In self-knowledge, then, thou wilt humble
thyself, seeing that, in thyself, thou dost not even exist; for thy
very being, as thou wilt learn, is derived from Me, since I have loved
both thee and others before you were in existence." Ibid., chaps. 7,9,
and 18: "I am who am; you are not in yourselves."
26. The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 13.
27. John 8: 12.
28. The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap, 9.
29. The Living Flame, st. 2, v. 5. It is clear that in the opinion of
St. John of the Cross these souls show a lack of generosity, which
does not appear in those predestined from all eternity to a high
degree of perfection, the requisite condition for the special degree
of glory which God willed for them. St. John of the Cross speaks of
predestination in the same terms as St. Thomas, when he says: "Every
soul, according to its measure, great or little, may attain to this
union, yet all do not in an equal degree, but only as our Lord shall
give unto each, as it is with the blessed in heaven" (The Ascent of
Mount Carmel, Bk. 2, chap. 5).
On this point see what we have said elsewhere, Perfection chretienne
et contemplation, 7th ed., II, 472-76; appendix pp. [121J-[125J.
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