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traillius
Guest
What is a dark night of the soul?
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S
Stylites
Guest
A mystical experience related to a final purification, before Union with God, as written about by St. John of the Cross. It is much different in scope than clinical depression or spiritual dryness.
What is the prerequisite for the Dark Night? Seeing God, face to face, in heaven.
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Apollos
Guest
It’s a stage of spiritual maturity in which God deliberately withholds spiritual consolations in order to make you do things for the love of God instead of because they make you feel good. It follows the dark night of the senses during which minor imperfections are raked out of you and precedes the stage during which you experience union with God in this life. The dark night is not the same as frustration or boredom with your spiritual life.
The best explanations come from St John of the Cross’ book Dark Night of the Soul, starting with Book One Chapter VIII: ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/dark_night.toc.html
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Apollos
Guest
Hold on - I think you meant the other way around.
S
Stylites
Guest
Seeing God is not the same as Union with God.
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Apollos
Guest
Yeah, um, it’s a minor point, but if seeing God face to face in heaven is a ***prerequisite ***for entering the Dark Night, then you would have to die and go to heaven and see God face to face ***before ***you enter the Dark Night, which makes no sense because the Dark Night is something that happens in this life, not in the next.
S
Stylites
Guest
Seeing God can happen in this life. Getting there requires giving up all, which is the process of death, and then there’s resurrection. “Ecstacy” is what the Christian mystics have called the direct vision of God.
“He who loses his life for My sake shall find it.”
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Apollos
Guest
Okay, we’re working with different definitions.
D
DBT
Guest
I guess I’m not following this either
You describe ecstacy as a direct seeing of God. Well, I suppose, that all comes down to what one means by “seeing.”
Regardless, any sort of extraordinary phenomena (imaginative visions, ecstacy, rapture, flights of spirit etc) . . . while they might occur in souls going through the Dark Night . . . they are not in any way a prerequisite for it. These things occur quite independently of the Dark Night itself. In fact, the Dark Night rids the soul of these phenomena . . . for they are really just very profound spiritual imperfections.
The “ordinary way” of infused graces provides a pathway through all stages of St. John’s nights and is based on experience with St. Teresa’s contemplative prayer states (recollection, quiet and union) that are a possibility open for all souls. The “extraordinary” might or might not accompany this . . . depending on the work God chooses to do in the soul.
Incidently, I agree with your statement that the Dark Night is really a “death to self.” Carrying that statement a bit further, one of St. John’s depictions of the Dark Night is simply . . . Faith. And this is grounded in believing rather than seeing.
So not to beat a dead horse . . . but maybe you can explain what you mean by “seeing” and why you consider that to be a pre-requisite?
Thanks!
Dave
S
Stylites
Guest
Dave,I guess I’m not following this either
You describe ecstacy as a direct seeing of God. Well, I suppose, that all comes down to what one means by “seeing.”
Regardless, any sort of extraordinary phenomena (imaginative visions, ecstacy, rapture, flights of spirit etc) . . . while they might occur in souls going through the Dark Night . . . they are not in any way a prerequisite for it. These things occur quite independently of the Dark Night itself. In fact, the Dark Night rids the soul of these phenomena . . . for they are really just very profound spiritual imperfections.
The “ordinary way” of infused graces provides a pathway through all stages of St. John’s nights and is based on experience with St. Teresa’s contemplative prayer states (recollection, quiet and union) that are a possibility open for all souls. The “extraordinary” might or might not accompany this . . . depending on the work God chooses to do in the soul.
Incidently, I agree with your statement that the Dark Night is really a “death to self.” Carrying that statement a bit further, one of St. John’s depictions of the Dark Night is simply . . . Faith. And this is grounded in believing rather than seeing.
So not to beat a dead horse . . . but maybe you can explain what you mean by “seeing” and why you consider that to be a pre-requisite?
Thanks!
Dave
As I understand it, a saint receives actual grace and comes into direct contact with the Divine, in what is called ‘ecstasy’. There is duality in ecstasy, the soul is illumined, seeing her Creator in all His splendor, and nothing else. It is the Beautific Vision which alone fulfills the soul. Getting there requires a process wherein the soul surrenders everything, akin to death. Perhaps it is death, perhaps it is of like kind. As a magnet’s poles can suddenly change, so the soul returns to earthly life. The arrow hits the target, but bounces out. Death without a sting, and resurrection.
After a number of ecstacys, the soul gets removed from this experience for a final purging, going from Light into darkness, hence the term “Dark Night” after a Day of Light, so to speak. What occurs after the Dark Night is the Unitive experience, which is not duality.
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D
DBT
Guest
Well . . .
Ecstasy is a particular type of infused prayer . . . perhaps a very deep form of the Prayer of Union in which all the senses are momentarily held captive by the Lord. As St. Teresa describes, the individual is left as though dead . . . breathing slows, heart rate diminishes, body grows cold. There’s a wonderful scene in the movie of St. Teresa’s life that shows her becoming enraptured in this way. One minute she’s speaking to another sister . . . the next she’s frozen in a trance like state oblivious of the other nun’s presence.
In the prayer of union, all the interior faculties (intellect, will and memory) are temporarily suspended by God . . . even to the point of losing awareness of thoughts and feelings. With ecstasy, this binding carries over to the body as well. For this reason, ecstasy is a very refined type of spiritual imperfection . . . for the body can’t withstand the blinding encounter with God. Later, as the soul as brought to the transforming union, such phenomena ceases almost entirely.
And what we’re talking about here is not the beatific vision . . . for that is the direct “seeing” of God that only takes place in heaven. Any “seeing” in this life will be dark and obscure in relationship to that.
Lastly, ecstasy is not a pre-requisite at all for entrance into the Dark Night. However, it is cured by it. Perhaps this is a bit confusing because St. Teresa speaks of these things in the same mansion of “Interior Castle” as she does her version of the passive night of spirit.
Most souls are led through the Dark Night through the “ordinary way” . . . relatively few by “extraordinary” means. Two good Carmelite examples: St. Therese of Liseaux and Brother Lawrence. Both are known to have experienced the full Dark Night and entered the transforming union. Neither is known to have experienced much, if any, by way of the things we’re talking about here.
Does this help??
Dave
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