Connecting with St John of the Cross

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“Inasmuch as God here purges the soul according to the substance of its sense and spirit, and according to the interior and exterior faculties, the soul must needs be in all its parts reduced to a state of emptiness, poverty and abandonment and must be left dry and empty and in darkness.” DNS Book 2, Chapter VI, Paragraph4

As I age (now 65) maybe it is the loss of friends, maybe it is closer to my end, maybe it is all sorts of things, but I feel more of an existential angst. It comes and goes. Then yesterday, out of the blue, I was reminded of John of the Cross and his Dark Night of the Soul. Of course I have read it years ago and several times but it did not really click as it seems to be doing now. It is providing my a different context to understand my current moods. It actually provides some hope. Purgation in this life is real and can be dark.

So i am wondering about the experience of others, especially as related to aging. anyone care to share their journey?

http://www.carmelitemonks.org/Vocation/DarkNight-StJohnoftheCross.pdf
 
Hi, I am just 20 years old, but I thank you for opening this thread. The Spiritual Stages is something in which I have been interested from some time; but it’s difficult to find something outside of the theoretical frame.
 
It is significant for me that most of my life the writings of St John were merely theoretical, kind of like some Psalms. But as I got and get older I find more application. The aches and pains Dorothy speaks of, physical and emotional, are indeed purgation, part of a dying process. But I find hope in something John says.

"The soul suffers all these afflictive purgations of the spirit to the end that it may be begotten
anew in spiritual life by means of this Divine inflowing, and in these pangs may bring forth the
spirit of salvation, that the saying of Isaiah may be fulfilled: ‘In Thy sight, O Lord, we have
conceived, and we have been as in the pangs of labor, and we have brought forth the spirit of
salvation.’

Not just nice sounding words anymore… but a realized truth.
 
I accidentally deleted my post above…I was trying something out at the bottom of my post and it happened!

Am not very savvy with computer!
 
Dear AlbMagno,

You may be interested in a really excellent book written by a Layman concerning The Spiritual Stages. The title of his book is: “The Ordinary Path to Holiness”. The Introduction was written by the late Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR and Father’s final words in the Introduction says it all:
“This is one of those rare books that is to be lived as well as read. But read it with your soul as well as your mind and with your heart as well as your eyes.”
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It is available at Amazon, see: HERE - More about the author from Amazon link:
There are stages of human growth, stages common to our growth both in natural human life and in supernatural spiritual life. We have an “interior” life ordered to our calling to true, personal communion with God the Holy Trinity. That interior life is intended to grow, develop and mature. And if we will follow Truth, we will find all that we seek. This book is offered to help the sincere seeker find, and grow, toward the “all” He created us for: beatitude in Him. Author:R. Thomas Richard, Ph.D., has earned degrees in ministry and theology, as well as in physics. He has taught at the college and high school levels, has served as a Protestant pastor, and in missionary work among migrant farmworkers. After returning to the Catholic Church and earning a graduate degree in Catholic theology and ministry, he began work in religious education and especially the formation of adults. He is author of the book, The Interior Liturgy of the Our Father, and serves the Church today with his wife Deborah in adult faith formation.
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I’ve read this book more than once and learned more each time. I hope you will too! 🙂
 
No I didn’t try flagging it. I am very limited in how I understand all this modern technology…I don’t seem to understand the “language” of it. 😄 As it turns out I press some wrong buttons.
 
That “angst” - which I can relate to! - seems to me a certain sign of our age (I am over 65…); judgment day is near, the time to give account of our lives draws near… The “Senior Years” are a great trial, I discovered, for many reasons. “Getting old ain’t for sissies”, I have heard many times…

As for the Night of Senses, the book you link to is the definitive source to read and learn from. Especially important - but the whole book is important, as is the whole of “Ascent of Mt Carmel.” The “three signs of the Dark Night” in this book I was ecstatic to find, when I was greatly troubled and in ignorance of what had come upon me. This sharing of the learned wisdom of this Saint became an anchor of hope, that I was not going crazy, but rather this was a normal work of God, which made it not only tolerable but deeply encouraging. Yet, at the same time, very very difficult.

These signs are in your linked book - p. 30 - but I’ll quote portions here in case they “ring a bell” for some reader, and drive him/her to get that book and devour it all.

The three signs of the 1st Dark Night, the Night of the Senses:

(Beginning page 30)
  1. The first is whether, when a soul finds no pleasure or consolation in the things of God, it also fails to find it in any thing created; for, as God sets the soul in this dark night to the end that He may quench and purge its sensual desire, He allows it not to find attraction or sweetness in anything whatsoever. …
  2. The second sign whereby a man may believe himself to be experiencing the said purgation is that the memory is ordinarily centred upon God, with painful care and solicitude, thinking that it is not serving God, but is backsliding, because it finds itself without sweetness in the things of God. …
  3. The third sign whereby this purgation of sense may be recognized is that the soul can no longer meditate or reflect in the imaginative sphere of sense as it was wont, however much it may of itself endeavour to do so. For God now begins to communicate Himself to it, no longer through sense, as He did aforetime, by means of reflections which joined and sundered its knowledge, but by pure spirit, into which consecutive reflections enter not; but He communicates Himself to it by an act of simple contemplation, to which neither the exterior nor the interior senses of the lower part of the soul can attain. …
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It is important that these three must come upon the soul all together. Two out of three, but one of the three is absent, does not indicate this Night but some other situation. If all three are there, enduring together for some time, chronically, then this is the very strong indication of this crucial “bridge” in the interior life - the “bridge” from ascetical prayer to mystical prayer; from vocal and discursive prayer to infused contemplation. Here, the soul must wait on the Lord: a new sunrise is near.

I encourage, for anyone in or near this Night, seek wise counsel! Find good books, of which there are a few, and/or a good spiritual advisor, of which there are a few.
 
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Wonderful! May you be blessed in abundance by all you read, remembering the words of Fr. Groeschel, CFR:
“This is one of those rare books that is to be lived as well as read. But read it with your soul as well as your mind and with your heart as well as your eyes.”
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I am new to the Catholic Answers Forum. I am only 35 years young, a traditional Roman Catholic, Theology Major, aspiring mystic and am happy to learn.

I wholeheartedly agree with Dorthy in her saying that we must continue in our faith and prayers even when we don’t feel like it… or when we are tempted with bad thoughts (sometimes very vile and nasty ones); and here, by “bad thoughts,” I do not mean the ones a person intends or provokes in his heart… I mean the ones that arise out of (seemingly) nowhere that are unprovoked by us i.e. I didn’t will them, entertain them, delight in them… they just kind of “pop up”. Yes, we must surely reject them immediately even in spite of their persistence. This can be very difficult to be sure, but something we can offer up. Take courage. I believe your existential angst is a beautiful reflection of where you are at spiritually… it is a good suffering you have and I pray it inspires more of a holy desire in you for God Himself. In fact, what is more torture-some than the feeling of one’s own being (existence) not united to God in final self-forgetting love?!

The Three Ways of the spiritual life comes to mind. Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, St. John of the Cross, St. Therese etc have eloquently described and outlined these, in more or less the same way, but alas! I am still but a babe. They are the holy ones who are best at describing these and, as for me, it is better that I leave its healing and fragrant balm in their hands to share and simply point others to them. However, I can perhaps share what I understand with the help of the Holy Spirit.

I understand that these ways aren’t so cut and dried. We, or rather I, am often tempted to like things laid out in nice and neat boxes for us to sort and compartmentalize our ideas. This is our tried and true human logic and thinking seemingly trying to take hold of God with our own power. While good for things of human origin, maybe not always so good for the things of the Spirit. Scholasticism can do more harm than good. Far be it from me to say that good formalized Catechesis or Theology is not good! It is! What I mean to say is that Christian Mysticism is “beyond” human knowledge and thinking. It seems to me that the Saints would agree that these ways will certainly overlap one another albeit in the general progression of purgation, illumination, and Union with God. However, these phases (or rather our human thinking) can lead one to believe that we are not united to God until we reach some certain stage by human effort or that God needs years worth of painful, dry, boring purifying darkness in our lives for us to taste (retain?) the sweetness of Union with Him. God, as we know, is not bound by anything created. I am the hindrance and God is always offering Himself to me. If it takes years, it is I who wasn’t willing all this time… St Augustine comes to mind: “late have I loved You, O Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!” or perhaps He desires that we share in Jesus’ sufferings a bit longer for the sake of His Church. This is best discerned by a Spiritual Father; certainly someone greater than I! Continued…
 
Yes, the possibility that these mood episodes might be with work of God is encouraging. I was even beginning to think that a dark spirit was pestering me. I am glad I still had John’s books because now they seem relevant and make more sense.
 
Continued…
All of us are already united to Him (in varying degrees/perception based on our faith and love of God… and we understand that faith and love is a Gift from the Holy Spirit). Are we not united to God even during the Purgative Phase since it is God who united us to Himself in Christ at the Incarnation, first called us, and we know that without Christ we can do nothing (John 15:5); does not the Spirit testify that “the kingdom of God is within” (Luke 17:21)? For when I am in the Unitive way, am I not being purified (the fullness of which is not seen until the next life… for we only “see dimly as though in a mirror” (1 Cor 13:12)) of the remembrance of myself in the vision of God?

In union with God, as I understand it, our gaze is so fixed on God that we “forget” ourselves and, paradoxically, find ourselves… our true “self” or life in God. The Cross is then clearly understood as the Tree of Life. “Let go and let God.” “Be Still and know that I Am God” (Ps 46:10). As Jesus says, “…whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matt 10:38-39; emphasized in Matt 16:25 too). St. Paul also testifies to this when he says, “…whatever gains I had, these I consider a loss because of Christ. More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him…” (Phil 3:7-9).

I pray that I have not been too verbose in trying to communicate what those greater than I have already laid out and have fallen into the very thing I desire to avoid: being controlling. I am but a small one who gets a little too excited in my immaturity when speaking of these beautiful things; much like a young pup who is so eager to go outside, I piddle before my master opens the door. Lord, have mercy!

Have you heard of or read The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counseling? My Spiritual Director once called it “the poor man’s St. John of the Cross.” I believe you may find great joy in it as I believe it to be simpler to understand and follow than St. John of the Cross. I, once again, point to another greater than I!

Praised be Jesus Christ, both now and forever! Amen.
 
Theosis said:
The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counseling ?
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Yes, a delightful little book. St John’s style is unappealing to me and yet the substance of what he has to say is so important. Very helpful to me as I get older.
 
I do wonder though, not all depression is Dark Night. Other factors and even medicTions can come into play. Thus the need for competent guidance.
 
Today was rough. I tried to view it as a gift and blessing. Not easy.
 
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