Posted on by Kurt Bodling

the second dark night of the soul

"This second dark night–which can continue for months or years–constitutes an invitation to live by radical trust in the absence of spiritual comforts.

“In the active night of the spirit we clear our minds and spirits of false ideas and limited means of knowing God. John of the Cross insisted that the intellect must be purged of its tendency to fixate on facts about God rather than to know God himself intimately. Furthermore, during this time God breaks the stubborn self-will that blocks the flow of the Spirit.” (p. 89)

“The passive night of the spirit represents the most severe yet significant phase of the soul’s purification. Like the sun being obscured by a dark cloud, so the light of God is extinguished in this phase. The perceived absence of God leaves saints feeling woefully abandoned.” (p. 90)

Demarest, Bruce. Seasons of the Soul: Stages of Spiritual Development. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

a crucial point in the life of prayer

"Infused contemplation, then, sooner or later brings with it a terrible interior revolution. Gone is the sweetness of prayer. Meditation becomes impossible, even hateful. Liturgical functions seem to be an insupportable burden. The mind cannot think. The will seems unable to love. The interior life is filled with darkness and dryness and pain. The soul is tempted to think that all is over and that, in punishment for its infidelities, all spiritual life has come to an end.

"This is a crucial point in the life of prayer. It is very often here that souls, called by God to contemplation, are repelled by this ‘hard saying,’ turn back, and ‘walk no more with Him’ (John 6:61-67). …

“Generally they remain faithful to God: they try to serve Him. But they turn away from interior things and express their service in externals. They externalize themselves in pious practices, or they immerse themselves in work in order to escape the pain and sense of defeat they have experienced in what seems, to them, to be the collapse of all contemplation. ‘The light shineth in darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it’ (John 1).”

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003, pp. 75-76. (NOTE: Merton wrote this back in 1959!)

It seems like all the tried-and-true recommendations for deepening a spiritual life, recommendations adopted (with more or less benefit) by most people, don’t always cut it any more for those called to the contemplative life. Then there follows the need for balancing the internal and the external, balancing service with growth, balancing action with contemplation. Sometimes, it seems, one serves others best by turning inward.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

in suffering

“In suffering, exasperation may get the better of us, but it is important to keep silent by remaining in the presence of God.” Thought 338.

Sarah, Robert Cardinal with Nicolas Diat. The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017, p. 175.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

a hermit’s dark night

“The solitary easily plunges to a cavern of darkness and of phantoms more horrible and more absurd than the most inane set of conventional social images. The suffering he must then face is neither salutary nor noble. It is catastrophic.”

Merton, Thomas. “Notes for a ‘Philosophy of Solitude’.” (1960) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013, p. 72.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

spiritual dry spells

“Be content to remain in loneliness and isolation, dryness and anguish, waiting upon God in darkness. Your inarticulate longing for Him in the night of suffering will be your most eloquent prayer.”

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003, p. 103. (NOTE: the text belongs to 1959!)