Spiritual Lessons I’ve Learned From St. John of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul

Chris Antenucci
Jul 28, 2017 · 12 min read

I think I’m finally starting to understand why I feel numb, and why I can’t experience pleasure from anything. It’s part of the purification of the soul that St John of the cross talked about in the following passages:

“Having passed through the first night, one may then be led by God into the night of the spirit, to be purged from the deepest roots of one’s imperfections. A state of extreme aridity accompanies this purification, and one feels rejected and abandoned by God. The experience can become so intense that one feels as if heading to eternal perdition. It is even more excrutiating because one wants only God and loves Him greatly but is unable to recognize one’s love for Him. The virtues of faith, hope and charity are severely tried. Prayer is difficult, almost impossible; spiritual counsel practically of no avail and various exterior trials may add to this pain. By means of this painful purification, the disciple is led to total detachment from all created things and to a lofty degree of union with Christ, becoming a fit instrument in His hands and serving Him purely and disinterestedly”.

“The second sign for the discernment of this purgation is that the memory ordinarily turns to God solicitously and with painful care, and the soul thinks it is not serving God but turning back, because it is aware of this distaste for the things of God. Hence it is obvious that this aversion and dryness is not the fruit of laxity and tepidity, for lukewarm people do not care much for the things of God nor are they inwardly solicitous about them. There is, consequently, a notable difference between dryness and lukewarmness. The lukewarm are very lax and remiss in their will and spirit, and have no solicitude about serving God. Those suffering from the purgative dryness are ordinarily solicitous, concerned, and pained about not serving God. Even though the dryness may be furthered by melancholia or some other humor — as it often is — it does not thereby fail to produce its purgative effect in the appetite, for the soul will be deprived of every satisfaction and concerned only about God. If this humor is the entire cause, everything ends in displeasure and does harm to one’s nature, and there are none of these desires to serve God that accompany the purgative dryness. Even though in this purgative dryness the sensory part of the soul is very cast down, slack, and feeble in its actions because of the little satisfaction it finds, the spirit is ready and strong. The reason for this dryness is that God transfers his goods and strength from sense to spirit. Since the sensory part of the soul is incapable of the goods of spirit, it remains deprived, dry, and empty. Thus, while the spirit is tasting, the flesh tastes nothing at all and becomes weak in its work.1 But through this nourishment the spirit grows stronger and more alert, and becomes more solicitous than before about not failing God”. If in the beginning the soul does not experience this spiritual savor and delight, but dryness and distaste, the reason is the novelty involved in this exchange. Since its palate is accustomed to these other sensory tastes, the soul still sets its eyes on them. And since, also, its spiritual palate is neither purged nor accommodated for so subtle a taste, it is unable to experience the spiritual savor and good until gradually prepared by means of this dark and obscure night. The soul instead experiences dryness and distaste because of a lack of the gratification it formerly enjoyed so readily.

“Those whom God begins to lead into these desert solitudes are like the children of Israel. When God began giving them the heavenly food, which contained in itself all savors and changed to whatever taste each one hungered after [Wis. 16:20–21], as is there mentioned, they nonetheless felt a craving for the tastes of the fleshmeats and onions they had eaten in Egypt, for their palate was accustomed and attracted to them more than to the delicate sweetness of the angelic manna. And in the midst of that heavenly food, they wept and sighed for fleshmeat [Nm. 11:4–6]. The baseness of our appetite is such that it makes us long for our own miserable goods and feel aversion for the incommunicable heavenly good. Yet, as I say, when these aridities are the outcome of the purgative way of the sensory appetite, the spirit feels the strength and energy to work, which is obtained from the substance of that interior food, even though in the beginning it may not experience the savor, for the reason just mentioned. This food is the beginning of a contemplation that is dark and dry to the senses. Ordinarily this contemplation, which is secret and hidden from the very one who receives it, imparts to the soul, together with the dryness and emptiness it produces in the senses, an inclination to remain alone and in quietude. And the soul will be unable to dwell on any particular thought, nor will it have the desire to do so. If those in whom this occurs know how to remain quiet, without care or solicitude about any interior or exterior work, they will soon in that unconcern and idleness delicately experience the interior nourishment. This refection is so delicate that usually if the soul desires or tries to experience it, it cannot do so. For, as I say, this contemplation is active while the soul is in idleness and unconcern. It is like air that escapes when one tries to grasp it in one’s hand.

In this sense we can interpret what the Spouse said to the bride in the Song of Songs: Turn your eyes from me, because they make me fly away [Sg. 6:4]. God conducts the soul along so different a path, and so puts it in this state, that a desire to work with the faculties would hinder rather than help his work; whereas in the beginning of the spiritual life everything was quite the contrary. The reason is that now in this state of contemplation, when the soul leaves discursive meditation and enters the state of proficients, it is God who works in it”.

These paragraphs from St. John of the Cross explains my current struggle better than anything I’ve read.

To sum up: God has deprived me of the pleasure of earthly and sensual things because by not having those things, I’m forced to turn my mind and attention towards Him and spiritual things.

I always wondered how I could be growing spiritually when I feel mentally and physically dead and can only read a very small amount of spiritual material, or think about how I need to change ,and change my ways of thinking. But this explains it. Even though I can’t feel anything changing, the spiritual food God is feeding me is nourishing my soul and slowly but surely transforming it.

This backs up what I learned on my own, which is that if I struggle and try to heal myself, and even try to become a better person in this condition, I will fail, because I’m not capable of that on my own right now. God’s trying to feed me with His spiritual food, and I can’t try to fix myself and fight my inner demons while eating it.

In other words, I have to just be still and do nothing but pray and wait at this point in my life. I have to let God feed me, and wait for Him to help me once that food starts to change me.

These are the answers to the questions I’ve been asking for years. Ever since I became disabled, I asked God why He took away all of my memories, most of my intellect, and my ability to read, think, imagine, and learn. This paragraph from The Dark Night of the Soul explains it:

“He therefore binds the interior faculties and leaves no support in the intellect, nor satisfaction in the will, nor remembrance in the memory. At this time a person’s own efforts are of no avail, but are an obstacle to the interior peace and work God is producing in the spirit through that dryness of sense. Since this peace is something spiritual and delicate, its fruit is quiet, delicate, solitary, satisfying, and peaceful, and far removed from all the other gratifications of beginners, which are very palpable and sensory. This is the peace that David says God speaks in the soul in order to make it spiritual [Ps. 85:8]. The third sign follows from this one.

The third sign for the discernment of this purgation of the senses is the powerlessness, in spite of one’s efforts, to meditate and make use of the imagination, the interior sense, as was one’s previous custom. At this time God does not communicate himself through the senses as he did before, by means of the discursive analysis and synthesis of ideas, but begins to communicate himself through pure spirit by an act of simple contemplation in which there is no discursive succession of thought. The exterior and interior senses of the lower part of the soul cannot attain to this contemplation. As a result the imaginative power and fantasy can no longer rest in any consideration or find support in it”.

God is asking me to stop thinking and trying to understand spiritual matters that are currently beyond my ability to understand. Instead, He’s asking me to contemplate them, and allow Him to reveal them in silence, in His time, in His way, and at His choosing.

This also explains why God set events in motion that forced me and my brother to live separately. I didn’t even want to at the time because I didn’t know how we’d afford it, but God made sure it happened. Now I know why. I couldn’t grow spiritually in that oppressive environment, and I don’t think it was a coincidence that He sent my friend Emma into my life shortly after I moved into my own place. God knew she would help me grow spiritually, but her help would have been negated by my brother’s oppressive influence if I was still living with him, because my heart wouldn’t have been open to receiving God’s graces.

“From the third sign it can be deduced that this dissatisfaction of the faculties is not the fruit of any bad humor. If it were, people would be able with a little care to return to their former exercises and find support for their faculties when that humor passed away, for it is by its nature changeable. In the purgation of the appetite this return is not possible, because on entering it the powerlessness to meditate always continues. It is true, though, that at times in the beginning the purgation of some souls is not continuous in such a way that they are always deprived of sensory satisfaction and the ability to meditate. Perhaps, because of their weakness, they cannot be weaned all at once. Nevertheless, if they are to advance, they will ever enter further into the purgation and leave further behind their work of the senses”.

Because I was unaffirmed, stressed, and alone most of my life, I relied on material things and experiences to give me pleasure and try to make me happy. But God knew that would lead me away from Him and down the wrong path. He knew I always had a desire to be holy, so He’s giving me a chance to be holy by taking away my ability to experience pleasure from earthly things. He knows that if I want to grow spiritually, I have to grow accustomed to living by the spirit instead of the flesh. Otherwise, I’ll grow attached to those earthly things and never be able to grow closer to Him.

It all makes sense now. In order for me to receive this purification, God had to allow me to develop my digestive disorder so that the brain fog from it would damage my brain enough to shut down the areas that allowed me to experience pleasure, and to dull my senses to the point where I almost feel completely numb most of the time.

Proof of this purification and adjustment to the spiritual life is the long list of things I used to experience pleasure from that I no longer do, like the following:

Music, helping people, TV shows, movies, walking, buying things I like, having intellectual conversations, all food, reading, learning new things, even reading spiritual things and spending time in church doesn’t give me any sense of peace.

St Teresa of Calcutta went through a dark night of the soul, only hers lasted for many years.

St Teresa experienced in unimaginable depth, the speechlessness of God. She wrote: “Do not think that my spiritual life is strewn with roses. That is the flower I hardly ever find on my way. Quite the contrary, I have more often as my companion, darkness”.

She wrote this to a priest: “If I ever become a saint, I will surely become one of darkness”.

This sums up St Teresa’s dark night of the soul better than anything I’ve read or heard: “This darkness wasn’t an experience of depression or despair, but rather it was the shadow cast on her soul by the overwhelming light of God’s presence”.

Her mind simply couldn’t experience God’s presence because the human mind is finite, and God’s presence is infinite. So His presence felt like an absence, and a darkness.

St John of the Cross said a dark night of the soul isn’t an absence of light, but rather, an excess of light. When you go outside on a really sunny day and stare directly at the sun, what do you see? Nothing. That’s what happens during a dark night of the soul. He allows your senses to be dulled so that your soul is exposed directly to Him, but because we’re finite creatures, we aren’t capable of processing His infinite presence, so we’re blinded by it. Thus, we perceive His infinite light as if it’s darkness, because our finite eyes can’t see something that’s infinite in nature. With our senses shut off, this all feels like we’re in a dark dungeon, because now we’re trying to see with our souls.

But just because we don’t feel God’s presence during the dark night, and it feels like He’s abandoned us, doesn’t mean He has. It means He’s closer to us than ever before. Also, because of our proximity to God during that time, we’re receiving more grace than ever before. That’s why even though St Teresa of Calcutta didn’t feel God’s presence in her mind and heart for 60 years of her life, she radiated His love and grace in her everyday life, and was always joyful. His grace was transforming her from the inside out, even though she didn’t feel it or experience it.

I think there are varying degrees of spiritual dryness that God allows us to experience, and for people He really wants to draw close to Him, He allows them to go through a dark night of the soul. He desires this for them, even though it’s painful, because He knows that after they go through it, they will no longer be distracted by the things of this world, and won’t desire them. They will only desire and love Him, which is what He wants from us more than anything else. That’s why 1 Corinthians 12–13 says: “Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love”.

Even then, there are different stages of this dark night, and the dark night of the senses is one of those stages. It can be confused with depression because when we’re depressed, we can feel numb. But a depressed person doesn’t have a strong desire to pray, help others, and be close to God during their depression. Someone who’s going through a dark night of the soul does.

The most important thing I’ve learned from studying this topic is this: We can’t rely on our feelings when it comes to prayer and our relationship with God. We have to long for Him the way He longs for us. Most people don’t understand that He does indeed long for us. Why? Because He is love, and He created us to love and be loved by Him. He’s our father, and what good father doesn’t wanna be closer to his children? God can’t not love us, no matter what we do. The only things that can get in the way of Him loving us is sin and our egos.

We have to have unconditional love for God, which means our love for Him doesn’t change regardless of what happens to us each day, or how our circumstances change. We have to trust Him constantly, which is shown by praying constantly, as St. Paul advised us to do. We have to see His presence in everything and in everyone, and act accordingly.

We will have many ups and downs in life, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Change is constant in life, but the one thing that will never change is God. Our goal must be to desire nothing but to do His will, which means loving and serving Him and others. In doing that, we’ll become the people He created us to be.

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