September 12, 2005 

"Dark Night of the Spirit, Part I"

Deeper purification is still needed, and it does require the soul's cooperation.  The soul at this time is practicing the deeper virtues, especially Faith, Hope, and Love.  These have been rekindled at a much deeper level which is necessary to enter into this Night of the Spirit because we need that burning desire for union with God.  We must be willing for union no matter what the cost.  These virtues will continue to be practiced even in the Night of the Spirit, when this aridity and suffering comes.  It is the cross.  It's really the cross.  We feel that the prayer of union which we were beginning to experience in the Illuminative Way is lost.  The soul feels that union with God is lost because of the prayer itself.  We feel very much as Jesus did, "Father, why have You abandoned me?"  "Where are you?  What have I done?" 

There is a painful longing for God now, but even more so, there is a painful fear that the soul may not be serving God, that the soul has done something to displease God, or even deeper, that God has forsaken us because of some infidelity.  We'll cry out, "Why?  Why have You left me?"  It is a state of tremendous obscurity, and God may give deep, secret inspirations so we won't give up.  He'll let us know that this is the trial.  "I am loving you to death.  Let me love you to death.  Don't be afraid to die."  We can walk around and it is so deep, it is so hidden, it is so interior, that we can say, "Lord, I am dying and nobody even knows it!"  But we do.  He said, "This is what I want so I can totally live fully within you."  So God might give us these little glimpses, these little lights, "Yes you are dying.  It's all right because I'm with you in the dying process.  You're not on the Cross alone."  Then the soul  can return to the darkness because it knows (only through faith) that somehow God is with it and that God has the surety.  God knows we're going to pull out of it.  We switch to totally trusting God because of what He has said. 

This Night can get very, very dark.  The soul feels its poverty.  It feels quite miserable.  It's left in darkness and dryness.  God doesn't want any activity.  The Divine Surgeon is doing everything.  He is removing the imperfections that are deeply imbedded in our spirit with the fire of His love.  Because of all these imperfections within us, we feel the pain.  We're dying.  When a fire burns something it starts to disintegrate.  Well, this is what's happening to us.  It isn't until later when there isn't any more stuff to burn away that we will realize that this fire doesn't leave us.  It's just that there isn't any more stuff to burn away so now we'll begin to feel the love of that fire and how sweet that fire is.  But it is still the same fire.  But for now, it is God's love very gently removing these stains of sin and calling us, in the depth of this darkness, higher.  He's calling us higher. 

Occasionally there will be times of being illuminated.  There will be, even in the Dark Night, little breakthroughs of peace and loving friendship with God.  That has to be, and it was even so for Jesus on the Cross, but each time we receive these little lights, we'll return to the Night, and the pain and the purification can become more severe.  He regulates it.  There is an appointed time for everything.  He knows when we need more love, more healing, and more touches of His presence so we can let go then and go even deeper.  As we go deeper, it might last a little bit longer because the surgery is going very deep now. 

Now the soul becomes aware of how fragile it is and because it's fragile, self-knowledge is coming in the interior.  Inner wisdom is starting to come and a gratitude will start to come (even though we're not receiving consolations now) because "God loves me this much to want me to be in this kind of union with Him."  The beautiful baptismal gift of hope is coming in a deeper way and is being purified.  Maybe, at this stage, I'm hoping that it will end pretty soon, but I'm hoping, "Oh God." We live out of the hope that there is more, and this will not last forever.  Even though the spiritual director is there for us, the soul can begin to think, "They don't understand.  They haven't any idea.  He just doesn't know.  She hasn't been there."  Whatever it is, we feel alone.  "Nobody understands how really bad this is."  Possibly they don't.  God allows this because it is a total stripping process, and we can't do anything.  There's no consolation, even from people, until God moves.  The saints tells us that it is very much like being imprisoned in a dark dungeon.  We're bound hand and feet.  We don't see.  We don't feel.  We don't know anything.  We don't find favor from heaven or friends or spiritual directors.  In one way it is beyond the Cross - it's very much like being in the Tomb. 

We don't hear a lot about what happened in the Tomb.  When the soul begins to experience the Night, there is still an incredible darkness.  Even on the Cross, there were people for Jesus.  There was His Mother and very close friends. But in the Tomb, there isn't anybody.  So for us, it is a time of tremendous, very deep purification, and all the soul can do here is to wait and to wait patiently.  But patience has been tried through some of the previous trials and so the soul can totally let go, literally rest in peace knowing that at God's appointed time the soul, too, will be raised up by the Spirit as Jesus was.  Jesus didn't come out of that Tomb on His own.  He didn't roll away that stone on His own.  Scripture says that He was raised up by the Spirit.  There is an appointed time and only God really knows the time. 

Excerpt from  Mother Nadine's "New Spirit," Omaha, NE, 2004.