Ralph Martin - Dark Nights

[Music] I'm really happy I could spend this time with you just to share a few things that I hope will be encouraging enlightening strengthening to you during his time of trial that we're living through last week I talked about the text from first Peter chapter 5 where he talks about humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God and then he'll exalt us he talks about the worldwide suffering that we're all experiencing and how after a little while it seems like a long while now but when we look back on it's gonna be a little while he's gonna restore and strengthen and reestablish us today I'd like to talk a little bit about what John of the Cross and other great Saints talked about as dark nights now what's a dark night or dark night is a time of dryness a time of feeling empty the time of healing not connected to the Lord the time of maybe interior anguish but not not every kind of experience of this kind of dryness or emptiness or darkness is a purifying action of God or one of the things that John of the Cross is really good about is helping us to discern what's happening in our life and how to handle it dark night is usually experienced it's it's experienced early in the spiritual life you know we've all had the experience of being on a retreat or going through our life in the spirit seminar or you know just you know just having a wonderful experience of renewable Marriage Encounter just different things Christ's life you know alpha you know just all the different ways which people can experience a renewal and their soul and then after that you've lost that loving feeling whoa whoa whoa whoa the feeling goes away the experience goes away our experience of joy our experience of love our experience so the presence of the Lord disappears and we wonder is this all real uh what should I do now so most of us have gotten through those early stages of testing of trial of dryness and we know that the relationship with the Lord is real even though we don't feel anything we should kind of keep going and we get a little custom too a little fluctuation of our experience of the Lord our experience of his love and then then John across says it's almost like a certain purification happens in our life and it's a little bit like the gardener who is cut off the weeds in the garden at the level of the soil but this the roots are still there and sooner or later those roots are going to manifest themselves again and John also says that we kind of know that the roots are still there we know that our life has been cleaned up which is really really good but we know this stuff inside that has to be more profoundly purified and so he says sometimes as a spiritual life goes on the Lord goes in for like deeper purification and this can be experienced as an intense time of aridity of drying this maybe even feeling cut off from the Lord maybe wondering if we've lost our way maybe wondering if he still knows about us or not but but John says not every experience of this is a purifying dark night he says there's three reasons why we'd be experiencing that kind of interior emptiness and dryness Teresa of ávila also says sometimes it's accompanied by external things in our life really difficult things on the inside really difficult things on the outside like like sickness she says sickness is one of the most intense trials so one of the most difficult things where could be a embarrassment or failure or broken relationships or financial setbacks and certainly there's the time right now where those things could really be working in our life - so he says there's three reasons why we may be experiencing this interior desolation he says the first reason is because of our own carelessness what does it mean by that he says if you've kind of drifted away from healthy sound spiritual practices if you become careless about your prayer time if you become undiscerning about what you're letting into your life if you're letting the the concerns of the world kind of dictate what your concerns are you know in our culture it's really easy you know breaking news you know we have to feel like oh what's the breaking news I got to be in touch with it you know a lot of times it's the same old same old even though they call it breaking news and we certainly have to be aware of what's going on the world to a certain extent but it's almost like we can figure that out without a lot of binge watching of news programs or whatever you know so if I allow it to much passive entertainment into our life too much kind of it's what's eating too much drinking too much entertainment it kind of takes away our hunger for God it takes away our thirst for God and it produces this dryness in our soul so or you know we might kind of stop going to our Bible study or we might drift away from our men's group or a women's group or we might stop going to the prayer meeting we might become casual about going to Mass we may drift away from the sacraments in different ways and what John and Teresa and all these great Saints tell us is that that's not the purifying dark night that's a result that we brought upon ourselves by carelessness by lukewarmness by foolishness by laziness by letting our spirit just kind of go and have our hunger and thirst for God taken away so Teresa of Avila says the only solution for this kind of interior pain and suffering and aridity is repentance we have to return to our first love and that's of course what scripture says you know the Book of Revelations I have this against you you've drifted away from your first love repent therefore and return we do need to repent of turning away from our first love you know the first the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with our whole heart our whole mind our host soul our whole strengtheners neighbors or so and if we drifted back into ourself we've turned away from loving God we need to repent if we turn away from loving our neighbor we need to repent and the Lord certainly will forgive us and but sometimes it's a little bit like physical fitness if you get out of spiritual shape it's a lot harder to get back in you know like when you get out of physical conditioning maybe used to walking a couple of miles a day or whatever playing tennis are working out and you stop for a while it's kind of harder to get back into the same level of comfort and sort of familiarity afterwards the same with spiritual conditioning so don't get out of spiritual shape keep up the scripture keep up the prayer keep up the sacraments keep up fellowship with others even if we have to do it by zoom right now or by telephone keep up contact with brothers and sisters in Christ the second reason why we may be experiencing this darkness or aridity in our life is because of physical or emotional illness now John says just because it's mainly rooted in physical or emotional illness it doesn't mean that God's not going to bring some good out of it but it's not primarily the purifying dark night and here's where Francis DeSales wisdom really comes in handy Francis says how do you handle this kind of illness he says try to get better he says remember God could heal you anytime he wants said if you're not healed yet it's because he's got a plan to bring good out of it he's got a plan to bring good out of your illness now what what's some of the good that could come out of being sick you think that so it's a right to be sick I don't want if he's sick I don't want to get the virus I don't want to get the flu I don't want any of these things well you probably know by now that when you've been sick you've been humbled maybe you've grown in compassion for others who are suffering maybe you've grown a humility knowing that hey I don't have things under control maybe you need to help other people and you're more appreciative than ever for the help of family members you know things like that that's some of the good that could come out of it so for instance the seal says try to get better even says go to the doctor God can heal you through the doctors so you know the nature and grace work together often times that this is this is part of the genius of being a Catholic we we don't the same the natural you know God can heal you through doctors but again francis says you know if God doesn't heal you through the doctors and doesn't heal you through a miracle don't waste your suffering join it to the sufferings of Jesus you know offers reparation for for sin offered for conversion of sinners just like Mary asked at Fatima you know the suffering that comes your way don't waste it offer it as a in union with the suffering of Jesus you know Jesus as preaching and teaching was really important but the most important thing Jesus did for us was suffer and die and our suffering and even our death as we join it with the suffering and death of Jesus is something that participates the redemption of the world this is pretty amazing Colossians that says you know Paul says I make up in my own body what's lacking in the suffering of Jesus and we know that nothing's lacking the suffering of Jesus but Jesus in His mercy and his generosity is giving us the tremendous privilege of sharing with him in the salvation of souls not just through our witness not just through our words not just through our prayers but through our suffering offering it as a sacrifice in union with the sacrifice of Jesus now the third reason why we may be experiencing such deep interior emptiness aridity all those things that are characteristic of a dark night is because God is withdrawing our experience of his presence of his blessing of his love but he's not actually withdrawing his presence or his love or his favor he's withdrawing our experience of it to give us a chance to go deeper what kind of going deeper does the Lord have in mind when we're going through this agony of a real spiritual dark night he wants us to go deeper in believing you know Jesus said blessed are those who believe without seeing well the Lord at his mercy lets us see a lot of things he lets us he lets us see a lot of his blessings a lot of his providence a lot of his answered prayers sometimes he takes away our singing so we can believe without saying just because Jesus is who he is just because Jesus said what he said we believe and stake our whole life on his promises even though we don't feel anything or see anything or know anything or understand anything the second way that Jesus wants us to grow throughout this dark night is growing in Hope there's a passage again in the Epistle of Peter it says set all your heart set all your hope on what's coming to you when Christ Jesus we'll be revealed said all your hope on the gift that will be yours when Christ Jesus appears you know the world is full of vain hopes the world is full of wishful thinking and Jesus wants to rescue us from the wishful thinking of the world the vain hopes of the world to the certain hope which is the great hope of resurrection from the dead eternal life that's the deal that's the thing that's really at stake during this time at land on earth this is the thing that really matters or we're gonna lay hold of the hope that's ours because of Jesus and and stay faithful to the end because of the gift that's coming to us when Christ Jesus will be revealed the third way he wants us to grow is of course to grow in love these are called theological virtue his fancy name but he wants us to grow in love now it's so much easier to love when we experience ourselves being loved it's so much easier to love God when we experience his love for us it's so much easier love other people when we experience their love for us when our love is returned or appreciated but the Lord is calling us to a higher level of love the level of love that he has can't get there by ourselves but by His grace we can start to love those who don't love us we can start to love those who don't appreciate our love and service for them and we can even start the love for our love our enemies you know Jesus said even the pagans kind of work somewhat good to each other but I want you to love your enemy pray for those who persecute you bless those who oppose you and that supernatural love as the Lord wants them fruitless to kind of birth in our life more through these dark nights so what do you do during a dark night you keep on keeping on you keep on putting one foot in front of the other you keep on showing up for your prayer time even though it's hard and draw you keep on fulfilling your responsibilities in light you keep on loving and serving even though this agony in sight now a lot of people have heard about Mother Teresa's dark night how it lasted almost 50 years that's not the normal dark night that was something special God was doing in Mother Teresa's life because of her very unique vocation you know father a narrow complim a so the preacher to the papal household really put his finger on what God was doing with Mother Teresa he said because she was going to be exalted in the eyes of the world God kept her humble in a very profound way through this interior darkness and dryness she was gonna win the Nobel Peace Prize she was gonna be lauded by kings and presidents she was gonna have money thrown at her people were going to call her a living Saint her religious order was going to be the fastest-growing most heroic order in in the in the current contemporary church in order to keep her humble God kept her painfully aware of her emptiness that this fruitfulness wasn't coming from her it was come something that God was doing through her living sacrifice also God knew that the particular mission he was calling her to and then to have a very profound compassion for the abandoned for the forsaken people were put out on the sidewalks people who were disowned by their families people were dying without any any anybody to accompany them and so by her own fee only have abandoned that God was giving her tremendous compassion for those that she was called to serve the abandoned their forsaken and then thirdly we read in her published writings after she died at a certain point she actually prayed this prayer she said Lord take away all consolation in this life I only want to participate in your agony in the garden now that's not a prayer that anybody prays just like oh good idea to pray that today that was a spirit inspired prayer same thing happened the trends of the zoo in a different way that was a spirit inspired prayer God giving her a vocation there so what happened to mother Teresa is very unique don't worry about it you're probably not going to experience the same thing you're probably not call to the same level of heroic sanctity and service as she is although we're called to a very high level so expect a deep purification what do you do when you go through a dark night you keep on keeping on it's customized you know how I have us with one person be different for another person sometimes the Lord puts us into little short intervals of the Strine us and brings us out again right away sometimes it's more sustained it depends on what has to happen in our soul it depends on his wisdom for how best to work with us to bring us into the maximal full conformity to his will and union with his love possible in this life so dear brothers and sisters this is the wisdom of the saints this is the wisdom of st. John and across and Teresa of ávila it's really helpful for us during this time no matter what level of Darkness we may be experiencing well no matter what kind of purification the recipe is the same if you drifted away into carelessness repent if you're just plain old suffering from illness don't waste your illness try to get better but you're being purified there's a purification going on in all of us right now the whole worldwide Brotherhood is very purifying and that's some kind of dark night so keep on keeping on and look to grow and faith hope and love [Music]

Channel: Renewal Ministries

Views: 12,687

Rating: 4.9384613 out of 5

Keywords: Christianity, Jesus, Christ, Evangelism, Mission, Spirituality, Evangelization, Religion, Catholic, Church, God, Trinity

Id: 4iLM2GF6gOw

Length: 16min 55sec (1015 seconds)

Published: Mon May 18 2020