+There is within the Dark Night, as I may have mentioned, a yet Darker Night..as though after being thrown into a Dark Prison you are thrown into , 'The Hole' with no bread, no light no food, no company ..nothing! {I think St John of the Corss may have mentioned this somewhere}. It is only in the gold of intense suffering that the soul can be melted (for our hearts are so very hard) and like liquid gold made anew. St Teresa of Avila comments that such souls are to be greatly pitied and this is very much so. In any case here are a few suggested aids for when times get rough in the prison of prisons, the Darkest Nights. The first is the Bread of Life the Eucharist. We may judge that it has no effect for things are so Dark. However its a mistake to judge spiritual things on pure , 'Feel good' emotinons. This is bread for the journey and without it there will be very little travelling done , believe me. But in a simliar vain all spiritual efforts, especially prayer itself is no to be judged by, 'feel good' most especially so at this dark time. If feeling good was a mark of sucess then as Jesus died upon the Cross, praying for us, He was going through the ultimate failure. But not at all this time of ultimate 'failure' was the moment of His ultimate sucess, the moment in which He saved you and me , the moment of His greatest success.
Another great aid, during the Night (or at any other time) is having a good spiritual director. I used to go down to see him and he used to assure me I was not nuts, imagining things or on the orad to hell. FOr a while it seemed while I was there that things were fine. But as soo nas I got out of the gates of the monastery back into again I went. It was a bit like being up to my neck in freezing Irish bog water m getting haulked out warmed up ,fed encouraged nd then dumped right back in again. But a lot of his words stayed with me. Like a light house in a foggy sea or a star at night. . Things like this are as though they were rail road tracks on which the soul runs. Linked to this are any kind of friends , family members of prayer groups or sodalities who can listen and encourage. But again you have to be careful, if you tell someone you fear you are nuts you better be careful he/she does not agree with you But in Ireland we discribe a certain relationship as an Anam Chara..a soul friend. Someone who will listen and understand, or at least just listen with out gicen mad 'advice'. I remmebr one bad time at the sea side and jsut feeling so over whelmed I went up to this Evangelical Minister who was preaching at the road side. I told him what I was going through and he diagnosed that Christians are never, ever unhappy and that my main problem was that being a Cahtolic I was not a Christian and a heathen that was what was wrong with me. This peice of nutty advice made me at least laugh.
I would say, as a general rule in the Spriitual Life, the Pilgrm Road of Prayer that the further you trudge your way up the mountain the more alone and the less understood you get. When after leaving prison I went to see my Spiritual Director he wanted to stop giving me Direction. He said this was because the type of prayer I was in was he had only read about in books (I was in the Prayer of Union then , the 5th garden). Similiarly when I my Novice Master asked me about my prayer life and I told him he said it was impossible that I would have to have been in a monastery 40 or 50 years to be praying in such a way. The same goes for the Night. No one is going to understand really but someone who has gone through it or someone who is going through it and you have about ...in the general run of things , in my experience about as much chance of that as flying to the moon. But so it is for prayer life geenrally. The further we go up the mountain the less folks we see. You could thing of the Night as cliff climbing so you will see even fewer people uot with ropes grappling. In fact I would bet on it you will meet no one at all. However no matter how misunderstood we are and no matter how dark and difficult things get the Holy Spirit is there. The Holy Spirit is always there. The Great Cousellor is always, always there. It might not seem like it; but he always is. We are never,ever alone. John 14 [16] And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever. [17] The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, nor knoweth him: but you shall know him; because he shall abide with you, and shall be in you. [18] I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you. [19] Yet a little while: and the world seeth me no more. But you see me: because I live, and you shall live. [20] In that day you shall know, that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
I think now I will skip along past the Dark night to the second to last Garden of prayer which is sometimes called Mystical Betrothal. I suppose in a sense we could call the stages of prayer as temporary or passing ( apart from the last which is eternal) . But I can't help of this stage of prayer as very , very fleeting and passing. So much so that I was tmepted to jump on past it. However what I can think to say of it I will. I foten think of God as a very well mannered gentleman. For isntance He does not force Himself upon us but leaves things very much up to ourselves, for good or ill. The reason why He leaves us free will of course is that love cannot be forced is because if it were forced it would not be love...it would be something else entirely. So that God Himself is if you like shackled by love. It can not be otherwise. The point we are moving to in the last Garden of Prayer is were the soul is married to God , a pint where it gives itself entirely to God in the Eternal prayer. But the soul cannot make the decision to marry God if it does not know what it's , 'Letting itself in for' , so to speak. Human couples when they get married may well be in for a few surprises down the line , but this is not the way the good God operates. But even if God was not a gentleman and honest in declaring His hand so to speak, it would be necessary for Him to be honest. For how can the soul offer God its heart unless it knows what it si offering in the first place? THe offering would not be a real one. THere are legends of souls selling their souls to the devil. Well you know in a funny kind of way the prayer we are moving towards is a bit like that. Only in this case the person is gifting His soul, his/her heart to God. Whereas the very last thing the devil would want to soul to know is the consequences of its actions and the fact that its getting a very bad bargain, God on the other hand wants the soul to know EXACTLY waht is coming down the line in the coming marriage. When I say this, I mean that it should know as far as possible for no one who has not been married can ever really kow what being married is like. I wonder if I am explaining myself well? Its so hard to write of these things...
No padaig...you explained it well...I will be reading over the next couple of weeks your previous post...fascinating stuff...the dark night. Here are some of the analogies for the dark night...falling down a never ending black hole...drowning in the cold dark depths of the sea...in a dark dungeon with only candle light then the candle light goes out.
I notice , Tim that most mystical descriptions end in paradox. Saying it , 'It is like this but like it' . This used to drive me crazy years ago as I thought the writers were not being clear , but now I realise that they were trying to describe the indescribable. Now I realsie that the mystical rests on paradox like a throne.
I quote here Evelyn Underhill, herself a great mystic : To women mystics of the Catholic Church, familiar with the antique and poetic metaphor which called every cloistered nun the Bride of Christ, that crisis in their spiritual history in which they definitely vowed themselves to the service of Transcendent Reality seemed, naturally enough, the veritable betrothal of the soul. Often, in a dynamic vision, they saw as in a picture the binding vows exchanged between their spirits and their God. 285 That further progress on the mystic way which brought with it a sharp and permanent consciousness of union with the Divine Will, the constant sustaining presence of a Divine Companion, became, by an extension of the original simile, Spiritual Marriage. The elements of duty, constancy, irrevocableness, and loving obedience involved in the mediaeval conception of the marriage tie, made it an apt image of a spiritual state in which humility, intimacy, and love were the dominant characteristics. There is really no need to seek a pathological explanation of these simple facts. 286 Moreover with few exceptions, the descriptions of spiritual marriage which the great mystics have left are singularly free from physical imagery. “So mysterious is the secret,” says St. Teresa, “and so sublime the favour that God thus bestows instantaneously on the soul, that it feels a supreme delight, only to be described by saying that our Lord vouchsafes for the moment to reveal to it His own heavenly glory in a far more subtle way than by any vision or spiritual delight. As far as can be understood, the soul, I mean the spirit of this soul, is made one with God, who is p. 139 Himself a spirit, and Who has been pleased to show certain persons how far His love for us extends in order that we may praise His greatness. He has thus deigned to unite Himself to His creature: He has bound Himself to her as firmly as two human beings are joined in wedlock and will never separate Himself from her.” 287 The great Richard of St. Victor, in one of his most splendid mystical treatises, 288 has given us perhaps the most daring and detailed application of the symbolism of marriage to the adventures of the spirit of man. He divides the “steep stairway of love,” by which the contemplative ascends to union with the Absolute, into four stages. These he calls the betrothal, the marriage, the wedlock, and the fruitfulness of the soul. 289 In the betrothal, he says, the soul “thirsts for the Beloved”; that is to say, it longs to experience the delights of Reality. “The Spirit comes to the Soul, and seems sweeter than honey.” It is conversion, the awakening to mystical truth; the kindling of the passion for the Absolute. “Then the Soul with pertinacity demands more”: and because of her burning desire she attains to pure contemplation, and so passes to the second degree of love. In this she is “led in bridal” by the Beloved. Ascending “above herself” in contemplation, she “sees the Sun of Righteousness.” She is now confirmed in the mystic life; the irrevocable marriage vows are made between her spirit and her God. At this point she can “see the Beloved,” but “cannot yet come in to Him,” says Richard. This degree, as we shall see later, answers more or less to that which other mystics call the Illuminative Way: but any attempt to press these poetic symbols into a cast-iron series, and establish exact parallels, is foredoomed to failure, and will merely succeed in robbing them of their fragrance and suggestive power. In Richard’s “third stage,” however, that of union, or wedlock, it is clear that the soul enters upon the “Unitive Way.” She has passed the stages of ecstatic and significant events, and is initiated into the Life. She is “deified,” “passes utterly into God, and is glorified in Him”: is transfigured, he says, by immediate contact with the Divine Substance, into an utterly different quality of being. “Thus,” says St. John of the Cross, “the soul, when it shall have driven away from itself all that is contrary to the divine will, becomes transformed in God by love. 290 “The Soul,” says Richard again, “is utterly concentrated on the One.” She is “caught up to the divine light.” The expression of p. 140 the personal passion, the intimate relation, here rises to its height. But this is not enough. Where most mystical diagrams leave off, Richard of St. Victor’s “steep stairway of Love” goes on: with the result that this is almost the only symbolic system bequeathed to us by the great contemplatives in which all the implications contained in the idea of the spiritual marriage have been worked out to their term. He saw clearly that the union of the soul with its Source could not be a barren ecstasy. That was to mistake a means for an end; and to frustrate the whole intention of life, which is, on all levels, fruitful and creative. Therefore he says that in the fourth degree, the Bride who has been so greatly honoured, caught up to such unspeakable delight, sinks her own will and “is humiliated below herself.” She accepts the pains and duties in the place of the raptures of love; and becomes a source, a “parent” of fresh spiritual life. The Sponsa Dei develops into the Mater Divinae gratiae. That imperative need of life, to push on, to create, to spread, is here seen operating in the spiritual sphere. This forms that rare and final stage in the evolution of the great mystics, in which they return to the world which they forsook; and there live, as it were, as centres of transcendental energy, the creators of spiritual families, the partners and fellow-labourers with the Divine Life. 291 III
Padraig, I've had a growing sense in my discernment concerning the Diaconate, that God might be directing me to minister to the poor and forgotten. Yesterday, I partnered up with a blind gentleman, Jeremy, at a Men's Conference. Many came over to say hello to me, but I didn't really interact with them because of the attention I had to give to Jeremy. This potential focus on God's anawim would be a challenge for my extroverted personality. I have a similar feeling of uneasiness when considering the lonely mountain quest you describe above. Pray for me.
I was impressed and surprised , Terry, in reading the life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta to discover that when leaving her comfortable boarding school of the Loreta Nuns she was terrified at the prospect that lay before her of walking into the slums of Calcutta all alone. Surprised because she always gave me the impression of being a lady who very much had her act together a unshakeable rack of faith and determination. However the more I go into the matter the more I realise that here was a woman who stepped out in faith alone again and again and again, the biggest stepping out of all being the long Dark Night that lasted right up until her death. Yesterday and today I watched the first four parts of the wonderful history channel series 'The Bible' (yes the one were the devil looks so much like your President Obama) But I was very, very impressed how again and again and again it is a constant repetition of the story of men and women who were asked to step out in Faith. Father Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, Noah to build and ark, Moses to confront Pharoah, Samson to fight the Philistines single handed, David to fight the giant Goliath. Each of these guys had a vocation, a calling to step out in faith and each of them did so. I just find it remarkable that the bible is telling us again and again and again the same story of the need to walk in faith. We walk in their footsteps just as others will walk in our footsteps of faith too. But I find it so comforting that we are not alone in wrestling with the angel of doubt and darkness. In fact I suspect the greater the doubt, the blacker the darkness the greater the fruits of our labour will be. Praying for you to Our Lady at mass tomorrow at her shrine.
I had a very bad night last night and had to arise several times and pray a lot. So this morning after mass I went back to bed again to sleep I was so exhausted. But when the last thing I heard before I awoke at mid day was angels singing a hymn I had never heard before. 'We have numbered all your wounds and carved them on our hearts....' , very beautiful. When I woke up I lay a while singing it to myself. I know it concerned Christ's suffering especially at the Passion, that not a drop of blood or a single tear have not been forgotten in the witness of God's Holy Angels. ..and you know if a bad angel had not kept me awake all night being a very great nuisance I would never have gotten to hear the good angels singing in the morning......
How true! However, we may live through the Abomination of Desolation (see Mt 24:15 and Padraig's 2nd Icon) which a number of saints, including Alphonsus Ligouri, believed would be the suppression of the Holy Sacrifice. In such circumstances, my faith would be sorely tested! Lord have Mercy! Jesus, I trust in you! Safe in the Father's Arms!
I trust and hope , Terry that when the time of testing comes and the Sacrifice is halted and the Churches closed the angles will bring us the bread of life. themselves. This less because of our hunger for the Eucharist than his love for us. I wonder did the angles bring the Eucharist to people in places like Communist prisons in Russia and China? I suspect they did.
I have a question...and its not mean't to be cynical. Does one become more holy simply by recieving the Eucharist daily ?. I mean...if Jesus is God and the bread is Jesus then... even if I where to recieve Eucharist but one day in my life...then...would I not have recieved the Bread of Life sufficent for my entire life ? Is one Mass from the heart any less than a 1000 with imperfect intent. Should I feel guilty in not going to mass...if it causes one to neglect thier daily duty to family or work. I ask this because I work many nightshift hours...many odd days and many times I just don't feel like going to Mass. Is Sunday Mass insuficient...or is God going going to hold my feet to the fire because I don't enthusiatically seek Him out every moment of the day... which one shouldn't merely have to do but instead want to. I mean...I can't make Him love me more. Thanks for any wisdom recieved.
Wow timothius...I just wrote an entry in the thread Holy Week - The Passion of Christ that was on same lines as yours at very same time you were writing this post. Kind of eery. http://motheofgod.com/threads/holy-week-the-passion-of-christ.4275/#post-32285
I don't want to project but it sounds as if we are experiencing spiritual dryness. On my part only... I suspect I'm sufferring spiritual dryness with some ignorance, arrogance, laziness and ingratitude thrown into the mix also. This has been going on for years...with no epithanies, no spiritual consolations...only darkness. I... like you...hope someone could shed some light onto just what this state is and its purpose.
To be fair...I have recieved some comfort and have learned very much by reading you alls post. Not all is doom and gloom and happen by chance. I think this applies to many here. I was just watching Disneys new Alice in Wonderland. In the first scene a little girl (Alice) is having troubling nightmares and earnestly ask her dad if he thinks she has "gone around the bend" to which the Dad replied "Absolutely mad...bonkers...but all the best people are". Then they exchange a big grins. I wonder metaphorically if this isn't how it is with our Father in heaven at times.
