Is the Dark Night Purgatory on Earth?

[BarbaraTherese]

While many contemplatives and mystics go through similar experiences, it is much more salutary to walk according to the path along which the Lord is leading us individully (which may involve something as mundane as rotating the tires and cooking dinner) than to try to figure out which room of the castle we are in or which rung of the ladder are on . . .

…a very important point!
But I dont think this precludes pondering in an objective way The Dark Night as a theological mystical process.

If you’re engaging language like “dark night of the soul” you need to be under the direct personal supervision of a spiritual director who has sound experience with this sort of thing.

If a person is claiming the theological mystical state of The Dark Night, then yes, it would be best to have such stated by a good spiritual director. This however is not always given to every soul. And I think probaly for a person actually undergoing the mystical process to have a good director state it was THE Dark Night of the Soul would be cold comfort and no real consolation to that person. Rather confusion that such a lofty state could be ascribed to such barren suffering being endured…such is The Dark Night.

And as I think I have stated previously, personally I dont really have any problems at all if a person says that they are in the Dark Night…it does seem to be in some instance one of our sacred cows that create undue concern (almost panic!)to my mind. If a person is encouraged in personal suffering by using the term it is not problematic to me…it would however become problematic perhaps if I was writing a theological paper about the person.

Peace…Barb

 

[Jenlyn]

Augustine:

Hi, Jenlyn.

I wouldn’t say that it’s a choice, rather a gift. No, it’s a grace, as St. Therese would say, like everything is.

And, from your quote, by all means, a great favor by the Merciful towards a poor soul.

Then again, I’m less than a novice in Carmelite spirituality. Have I said how much I love you guys for so generously sharing your spiritual insights with us here? :getholy:

Thank y’all.

You are right. This is only from God as God wills.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Jenlyn:

You are right. This is only from God as God wills.

…an important point!
The goal of all spirituality is Unity with God…with His Will …and a real shift occurs when God’s Will is loved, no matter where in the scheme of things one may be or what that Will of God may be.

An important point.

Quoting Augustine and another important point…

a great favor by the Merciful towards a poor soul.

All that is good in life comes to us by virtue of God’s Merciful Love of us…who without Him are naught and all that is good whether it proceeds from another or myself is not another’s or my work and hence credit, but God’s to whom all glory hence is due.

Above all things God works to achieve our sanctification and at times my view of where I should be (want to be or would like to be)and where God Wills I be conflict…and at times I may find it hard to abandon my own ideas in favour of God’s Will in which sanctification is assured. My idea of my own sanctity or whatever is a pie in the sky more or less!

Peace…Barb

 

[Aurelio]

Hello, Augustine!

Forget all about this Dark Night Purgatory on Earth, if only for a while?

Why not?

Because along with talking about spirituality and St. Theresa of Avila and St.John’s Dark Night of the Soul, why not also take advantage of your Austin location to more or less consult one on one with both good people?

Just hook’em down IH 35 South to San Antonio, cut south-south-west on down through Sabinal, Uvalde, Brackettville and you’ll be in Del Rio in maybe 3 1/2 hours from leavng downtown Austin, Texas.

There are good hotels in Del Rio: Holiday Inn, Howard Johnsons, you name it.

Cross at Ciudad Acuna and don’t even slow down until you hit Morelos, Coahuila, maybe an hour and a half south.

When you get there know this: that you will be literally entering another place and time as you drive through the city gateway arch, and yet you will also be granted a vision of a future when the Catholic Faith will be once again triumphant world wide.

When EVERY small town of 2,000 or so will have what Morelos already had in 2001:

Three orders of religious sisters:

A) One order to take care of the very old of the town.

B) One order to take care of the very young, orphaned, abused and neglected children.

C) The Carmelites, who built their mini-St. Peters one homemade brick at a time, and who had the relics of St. Theresa the Little Flower brought to the building site in solemn procession around February 4, 2001, and whose bishop drove maybe 250 miles north to offer the Tridentine Mass of the Angels at around 3 am in solemn celebration of the event.

And whose 11 young sisters say 15 decades of the rosary daily while counseling troubled young women and praying for lapsed priests.

Amigo Augustine, don’t come alone: bring your friends and neighbors and most importantly of all your Youth Group…

I have been there. I have seen all this. And thus I know what I tell you is so.

Plus, the Carmelite sisters homemade marmelade and bread and coffee is delicious! I’ll guarantee it!

Leave the books aside, better yet leave them in the Perry-Castaneda Library, and return to a simpler place and time, a place, moreover, whose “time” is fixed for all eternity, so that just by being there you will be granted a vision of the future that Pope John Paul II worked so hard to gain.

And in Morelos, Coahuila, this viison of Pope John Paul II is already well on its way to becoming an accomplished fact.

If you like, contact us when you are ready and we’ll be glad to pass on local contact information to you and yours.

See you all there!

Aurelio

“For I, too, have been to the Mountain Top!”

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Hello, Augustine!

Forget all about this Dark Night Purgatory on Earth, if only for a while?

Why not?

Because along with talking about spirituality and St. Theresa of Avila and St.John’s Dark Night of the Soul, why not also take advantage of your Austin location to more or less consult one on one with both good people?

Just hook’em down IH 35 South to San Antonio, cut south-south-west on down through Sabinal, Uvalde, Brackettville and you’ll be in Del Rio in maybe 3 1/2 hours from leavng downtown Austin, Texas.

There are good hotels in Del Rio: Holiday Inn, Howard Johnsons, you name it.

Cross at Ciudad Acuna and don’t even slow down until you hit Morelos, Coahuila, maybe an hour and a half south.

When you get there know this: that you will be literally entering another place and time as you drive through the city gateway arch, and yet you will also be granted a vision of a future when the Catholic Faith will be once again triumphant world wide.

When EVERY small town of 2,000 or so will have what Morelos already had in 2001:

Three orders of religious sisters:

A) One order to take care of the very old of the town.

B) One order to take care of the very young, orphaned, abused and neglected children.

C) The Carmelites, who built their mini-St. Peters one homemade brick at a time, and who had the relics of St. Theresa the Little Flower brought to the building site in solemn procession around February 4, 2001, and whose bishop drove maybe 250 miles north to offer the Tridentine Mass of the Angels at around 3 am in solemn celebration of the event.

And whose 11 young sisters say 15 decades of the rosary daily while counseling troubled young women and praying for lapsed priests.

Amigo Augustine, don’t come alone: bring your friends and neighbors and most importantly of all your Youth Group…

I have been there. I have seen all this. And thus I know what I tell you is so.

Plus, the Carmelite sisters homemade marmelade and bread and coffee is delicious! I’ll guarantee it!

Leave the books aside, better yet leave them in the Perry-Castaneda Library, and return to a simpler place and time, a place, moreover, whose “time” is fixed for all eternity, so that just by being there you will be granted a vision of the future that Pope John Paul II worked so hard to gain.

And in Morelos, Coahuila, this viison of Pope John Paul II is already well on its way to becoming an accomplished fact.

If you like, contact us when you are ready and we’ll be glad to pass on local contact information to you and yours.

See you all there!

Aurelio

“For I, too, have been to the Mountain Top!”

Scuse me for butting in Aurelio…but the above sounds like Heaven in all this ‘talk of darkness’…
Not to often I regret living in Australia, but if I were you, Augustine, I’d be hightailing it to Morelo if you live anywhere near it!

Barb:wave:

 

[Augustine]

Aurelio:

Forget all about this Dark Night Purgatory on Earth, if only for a while?

Well, I don’t think it’s gotta be either this or that.

Yet, I am intrigued by your invitation. As a Brazilian, I know that kind of community, unlike most Americans, who I’m afraid have no idea what poverty is. As a matter of fact, those who are called poor in America are called middle-class in Brazil.

But I digress. At the risk of freaking my wife out, as if I didn’t freak her out enough, please, do get in touch with me so we can talk more about this invitation.

 

[Aurelio]

Hola, Amigo Augustine!

In regards to your interest in more information on Morelos, Coahuila:

“Falando im dogma igreja, sim!” Which, if I remember correctly, translates something like “Speaking of Church doctrine, yes!”

And now that we’ve exhausted my somewhat limited stock of “Brazilian” Portuguese, back to Morelos:

A town about thirty miles to the northeast of Morelos is called Piedras Negras – “Black Rocks.”

Its paper is called “El Zocalo,” and can be reached at:

www.zocalo.com.mx

And when you click on, you can see several phone numbers at the bottom, plus if you click on the right button for the Piedras Negras edition, there should be a button with something like “contact us” on. Everything is pre-formatted in what looks like an old-fashioned “Access” -type foremat.

So, all you have to do is fill in the spaces.

For Morelos, itself, just click on YAHOO’s search engine and in the empty box type in like this: “Morelos, Coahuila,” then scroll down to number 6:

“Bienvienido a tu region en linea. Cononce Coahuila!”

And, look, you guys in New Zealand and Australia: this is for all you good people too, as there are plenty of colored pictures spliced amongst the statistical data.

Anyway, Amigo Augustine, this should help you get a feel for things down there.

Oh, yeah! Anybody with teenagers in their house who might like to see what “young people like US are doing in such a small place so far away.”

Tell 'em (after checking yourself, just in case!) to click on:

www.turopero.com

This is something like “www-your very own closet .com”-so to speak!. Although, come to think of it, since I can’t recall ever seeing a house in those parts with a “real closet” in it, a “ropero” is most likely one of those old fashioned things that Great -grandma used to have.

A sort of big, free-standing upright deal, with the smell of cedar in it, and a perfect place for hide and seek games.

Good luck!

Aurelio

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I think the Dark Night does the same sort of thing as purgatory – it prepares our souls for purification. Who would pour new wine into old wineskins? Likewise, a person’s soul has to be conditioned to accept blessings and union with the Lord. This, I think, is preparatory work to true contemplation in an increasingly powerful way. I even like the terminology, “purgative contemplation.”

Alan