Understanding the Dark Night of St. John of the Cross, pt. 1– Spiritual Desolation /w Fr. Gallagher

discerninghearts.com in cooperation with the outblaze of the virgin mary presents spiritual desolation be aware understand take action with father timothy gallagher father gallagher is a member of the oblates of the virgin mary a religious community dedicated to retreats and spiritual formation according to the spiritual exercises of saint ignatius of loyola he is featured on several series found on the eternal word television network he is also author of numerous books on the spiritual teachings of saint ignatius of loyola and the venerable bruno lanteri founder of the oblates of the virgin mary all published by the crossroads publishing company this particular series is based in part on chapter 4 of setting captives free personal reflections on ignatian discernment of spirits spiritual desolation be aware understand take action with father timothy gallagher i'm your host chris mcgregor what i'd like to do from this new book is look at some further considerations with regard to spiritual desolation and the first is a question that always comes up inevitably comes up whenever i present the rules usually in about midpoint in the rules after we've described spiritual desolation a hand will be raised and someone will say well what about the experience of mother teresa for example how do we understand that in the light of what ignatius is saying was that spiritual desolation was that something different and sometimes people who have a background in carmelite spirituality will raise the same question but in more broad terms now using the language of saint john of the cross saint john of the cross speaks about the dark knight is that the same as spiritual desolation is it something different than spiritual desolation if it is different in what does the difference consist how do we recognize the one and the other and what is the appropriate response to the one and the other so obviously these are important questions because depending on the answers we're going to respond to our experience in one way or in another now i'll say here before we go any further that the guard rail the safety net in all of this is always conversation with a wise and competent spiritual guide so that if we have personal questions about especially the dark knight and we're wondering whether something we're experiencing is that dark knight what i'm going to do now is give general considerations about this but in the one-on-one the ideal always if we can do it and i reference the fact that it's not always easy that would be obviously the ideal so to look at this whole issue now in general terms the key to answering this question about the difference if there is a difference between spiritual desolation and dark and the dark night is to use the terms clearly so spiritual desolation we don't need to say any more about we that's what we've been doing heaviness of heart on the level of our relationship with god the dark knight now if we're going to be more specific john of the cross speaks about two dark nights the dark night of sense and the dark night of spirit and each of these two dark knights has an active and a passive component so for example the dark knight of sense the active component would be the efforts that we make to purify the level of the senses in our humanity so that it becomes receptive able to receive god the whole thrust of what john of the cross is doing after he he paints this absolutely captivating ideal especially in the spiritual canticle and the living flame of love in the other works the ascent of mount carmel and the dark knight he is describing the pathway toward that all-consuming ineffably beautiful communion with the lord which is love which is the goal but there's a path toward it and he describes that in detail and the essential element in the path is self-emptying he spoke about this earlier as making space for god so finally you get to the nada you know where the human person is completely available to god and then god can fill us so the dark knight of sense is an experience of prayer an experience given by god which is painful because it is purifying the level of the senses in our humanity so that they become empty of whatever would make them less receptive to god and there is an active component we need to do our own part in this but in the pie chart almost all of the pie chart is the passive dark knight which is what god does so that's the passive dark night of sense and then something similar after that phase has been experienced later on god may call the person through the dark night of the spirit so that now the spiritual level of the human person becomes emptied in a way that allows it to be completely receptive to god and receive the higher stages of communion with god in infused mystical contemplation and again there is an active component but by far the the major piece in this is god's work where the person receives this experience of prayer which is painful because it's too much light for the person the person is just not able yet to receive it and a purification is needed in order to be able to receive fully all of the love and communion that god wants to give so when i speak about the dark night now what i mean by that primarily is the passive dark night of sense and of of the spirit now having said that the great difference between the two experiences is immediately evident is spiritual desolation different from the dark knight the answer is absolutely and resoundingly yes they are completely different experiences spiritual desolation is a work of the enemy discouragement on the level of our relationship with god the dark night is painful yes but it is a work of god it is an experience of prayer which is always a gift and grace of god and its purpose is to lead a person to a greater availability to deeper communion and a deeper bond of love with the lord and therefore fruitfulness as well so spiritual desolation is a work of the enemy the only appropriate response to it is to reject it the dark knight is a work of god and the only appropriate response to that therefore is to accept it and we see that in so many of the saints and the growth that comes from it in the light of that we can go back to the experience of saint theresa of calcutta if we read the book which describes her experience come be my light it's very clear that her spiritual directors who worked with her understood her prolonged darkness as the classic dark knight in john of the cross's sense what was different about her experience of the dark knight not entirely different because there are other examples like this for example saint paul of the cross who had a protracted experience of the dark knight but what is special to her experience is the duration with just a very few interruptions for 50 years in her life now if we read classic spiritual writers like gary gould lagrange for example they discuss this experience of the dark knight in some of the saints that is that god gives the dark knight so that the person will be purified and ready to receive a deeper communion of love with god in some cases these writers will say even after the dark knight has accomplished that work god will permit the dark knight to continue in the person because that dark night now becomes redemptive and a source of grace for others and i think it would be difficult to find a more uh striking example of that than the life of saint teresa of calcutta mother teresa whose life in a way that few saints lives have touched the entire world and blessed us people beyond counting and continues obviously to do that today so that would be the understanding of st theresa calcutta experienced the classic dark knight and in this understanding of it it was continued because her life through that became as she saw so often said something beautiful for god that led so many people to god now there's another thing that we need to say about this issue of spiritual desolation and the dark knight and it's the reason why this issue gets confused at times because of a very legitimate expanded use of the metaphor dark knight dark knight is a metaphor it's a very rich metaphor and in keeping with the nature of metaphor it can be applied to a wide variety of experiences and that's why i said that the the key thing to answer the question about the difference between spiritual desolation and the dark knight is to see the terms clearly exactly as ignatius uses the one and john of the cross uses the other having said that however many people do use the term dark knight in an expanded way and just some examples of this in one of her letters in 1955 flannery o'connor writes that right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul which is obviously a very different understanding of the metaphor dark knight than john of the cross's specific use of it for a person who in terms of the dark knight of sins is right now being called by god into the initial stages of infused contemplation and therefore goes through this purifying experience of prayer what she's referring to is her sense of the weakening of faith and the the harmful tendencies which appear to be growing in the world and she looks at that and sees that the whole world seems to be undergoing this kind of spiritually dark experience dr gerald may in his book grace and addiction speaks about a dark night of recovery in members of aa so these would be people who through alcohol have hit rock bottom at a certain point their lives have fallen apart and there's great pain and darkness and heaviness and out of that is born the urgent need for a change for a recovery so he speaks of that experience of the person struggling with alcohol when everything falls apart as a dark knight legitimate use of the metaphor but obviously very different from the way that john of the cross speaks about it elsewhere dr may speaks of what he calls a corporate dark knight in social systems so in a culture in a business in an academic institution and so on family you could get to a point where there's a heaviness a darkness that pervades the entire social system and discouragement and anxiety about the future struggles with present issues and obviously again that's a very legitimate use of the term dark knight but obviously again very different from what john of the cross is describing and then at the time when the passion of the christ came out in one of the interviews that mel gibson gave he described an earlier period of his life when things he was wild and got into a situation of great emptiness in his life he described that period in his life as a dark knight of the soul again a legitimate use of it in terms of my spiritual life things reached a very dark point and there was an urgent need for a change but again obviously very different from what john of the cross is speaking about and then finally to give one more instance of this this is saint john paul ii who is speaking to carmelites and he says the term dark night is now used of all of the spiritual life and not just the phase of the spiritual journey in the way that john of the cross uses it the saints that is john of the cross doctrine is now invoked in response to this unfathomable mystery of human suffering so saint john paul ii extends the use of the term dark knight to the entirety of the experience of suffering and probably many of us will resonate with that when we've gone through heavy times in our lives with physical struggles financial family matters work-related matters church issues we'll find that that metaphor seems very appropriate to describe what we're experienced so again saint john paul ii who is a master of john of the cross obviously and knows very well how saint john of the cross uses the term now expands its use to the whole mystery of suffering in general so all of those uses of the term dark knight are valid but in order to answer our initial question about the relationship between spiritual desolation and the dark knight we really need to focus specifically on john of the cross's use of the term we'll return to spiritual desolation be aware understand take action with father timothy gallagher in just a moment did you know that you can obtain a free app which contains all your favorite discerning hearts programs father timothy gallagher dr anthony lewis archbishop george lucas father mauricio filthy and so many more including episodes from inside the pages can be obtained on the discerning hearts free app this also includes all the novenas and devotionals and prayers including the holy rosary and stations of the cross the chaplain of saint michael and the seven sorrows of our lady all available on the discerning hearts free app visit the itunes and google play app stores to obtain your free discerning hearts app today the councils of mercy an excerpt from the writings of venerable bruno lanteri founder of the oblates of the virgin mary above all i recommend with all my heart that you guard against discouragement disturbance and sadness seek always to keep your poor heart in peace and encourage it and always to serve god with holy joy be of good heart because the lord is with you and he loves you for more excerpts from the writings of venerable bruno lanteri visit discerninghearts.com we now return to spiritual desolation be aware understand take action with father timothy gallagher it's so interesting as you were going through those different comparisons that from flannery o'connor all the way to saint john paul that the emphasis on the darkness that the heaviness was coming forward but as you described earlier and if in reading john of the cross it you said that sometimes you get so close to the light maybe you get blinded by it and all i could think of is when you first thing in the morning i'm in a room and it's all darkness my eyes have been shut and and my husband comes along very early in the morning turns on all the lights in the room initially it's like you have to cover your eyes because you just can't stand all that light but if i'm going to get up and maneuver in that room my eyes have to take time to adjust because otherwise while i walk through there i could be stepping and bumping into things and knocking into things and and gradually it it becomes clearer and clearer and now okay now i can see that that's a difference between a light that is been brought into a scene that helps me in the end as opposed to a desolation that attack essentially of the enemy it's a very good analogy it's very evident because we all know that experience so it's not darkness but the excess of light that causes the the struggle or in terms of the dark knight and john of the cross's sense the painful quality because we raised that let's uh just look at a couple authors so of the first dark knight that of sense one classic author this is augustin bulayin is his classic book the graces of interior prayer writes that it is the dark knight a prayer of simplicity characterized by a state of aridity generally experienced as bitter and painful so it's prayer it's a very simplified prayer there's an arid quality about it and the person experiences it as bitter and painful so to stay with the analogy what's happening on the spiritual level is like the sudden overexposure to light it's it's painful not because it's darkness because it's just too much and the person is not yet emptied enough to to receive it that's the whole point of the dark knight and then father thomas dubay writes this why are the passive nights painful good question this purification process is a cure of illness and therefore involves a cutting away a removal of the roots of spiritual maladies and the separation from the egocentricism that wounds us in these beginnings of infused prayer so that's exactly where the dark night of sense comes when god is now beginning to call the person out of the more active ways of meditating or lectio or whatever into the more receptive mode you know i'm going to interrupt the quote here to say this that one way i think that we can at least glimpse what we're talking about when we speak of infused contemplative prayer is an experience that we've probably all had at times when maybe we're praying the rosary saying the liturgy of the hours meditating on scripture engaged in lectio other forms of prayer and at a certain point we find ourselves now not wanting to say the next prayer or to continue reading in the scripture but just to let that be and just let our heart be quieted and be with god and we know that that not saying prayers or not reading is not just emptiness or distraction but it's letting those go because of a fullness because of a communion and we rightly treasure such experiences with reverence if i may approach them those are distant initial glimpses of what can happen when a person's prayer becomes entirely this becomes entirely receptive and the communion with the lord becomes rich and deep and beautiful and transforms the person so the dark knights have their place because they prepare the person for that kind of prayer and that kind of communion and the enormous fruitfulness that they bring along these lines let me quote a line from saint john of the cross this is a line that saint therese loved and quoted often the smallest movement of pure love of this kind the kind that we're describing the smallest movement of pure love is more useful to the church than all other works put together the smallest movement of pure love is more useful to the church than all other works put together and it's out of this that saint therese understands that her vocation is exactly that to be love in the church so that the more we are faithful to our life of prayer in in god's providence and in god's timing prayer grows we are bringing into our families our marriages our parishes our workplace our world something that is of greater value to the church than all other works put together and that is having received love from god we are able then to respond in love to god and out of that to love others therese's life of course would be but certainly an outstanding example all she did was love and in very small things and she has been called by the pope's the greatest saint of modern times and the benefit the the beneficial effects of her life and writings are obvious so that's just to say that there's a reason why god would call a person through the dark knight so to continue with the quotation from father dubai about why the the passive nights are painful this is a cutting away a removal of the roots of spiritual maladies and separation from the egocentricism that wounds us so that we become increasingly more selfless and more able to receive god's love and therefore to share it he continues in these beginnings of infused prayer god is communicating nothing less than himself through a light and love that itself consumes our egocentricism we do not however perceive this communication as light and love but as darkness and pain this perception and this is the reason why the dark knight which is an excess as it were of light and love why it's painful this perception is due to our incapacity and opaqueness and unlikeness to the divine hence in this night one perceives the love he is receiving as dryness and emptiness and then gradually as the person goes faithfully through this the person is transformed becomes more capable of receiving that love and the the painful quality subsides and a whole new depth of love and communion with the lord enters into the person's life so that's to go back to your analogy that's just in one author i think a very nice description of why the the dark knight has that effect it's it's dark not because of the kind of discouraging darkness the enemy brings but because we need to be prepared to receive the fullness of the light and love that god wants to give you know i think it's a good thing for us to discuss this even if we can't say that we've experienced that in our own experience but it's a good thing for us just to even reflect on what prayer can become when the human heart is open to it because it shows us that there is so much more that's what reading the saints does like therese that i just mentioned or john of the cross or so many others they reveal to us what can be and therefore encourage us to continue on the journey every year on the feast of all saints in the liturgy of the hours the church has us read in the office of readings a selection from saint bernard where he talks about just reflecting on the saints and he says for myself i will tell you that when i think of the saints i feel myself filled with a great longing and that's what it does i find that since we've raised us saint john of the cross that's what he does for me he's there is so much truth in his writing that you feel like a pouring faucet and all you have is a little glass you know but what he does has this effect the ascent of mount carmel and from the humble place where we see ourselves in the spiritual life we look up and there is the high mountain of what holiness can become and what it does is to undo the limits that we so easily set on ourselves and show us that there's so much more and what it does is to awaken a desire for more it's the difference between feeling a little bit unhappily that we have to accept where things are and seeing with hope that so much more lies ahead and then it has the effect that saint bernard describes it when i think of the saints i feel myself filled with a great longing with a great desire and desire is the beginning of the journey and it's the beginning of growth on the journey so one of the things that saint torres also says is that she experienced over and over in her life that god never gave her a desire except that he meant to fulfill that desire how much do we desire in the spiritual life how much do we dare to hope for so approaching a saint like saint john of the cross has that wonderful effect even though personally i'll just say it myself i feel pretty small you know when i see a man like this but what it does do is it tells me that the lord has so much more in store if i'm willing to stay on the journey you've been listening to spiritual desolation be aware understand take action with father timothy gallagher this particular series is based in part on chapter 4 of setting captives free personal reflections on ignatian discernment of spirits you can find this book on father gallagher's website at fathertimothygallagher.org to hear and or to download this episode along with hundreds of other spiritual formation programs visit discerninghearts.com this has been a production of discerning hearts in cooperation with the oblates of the virgin mary we hope that if this has been helpful for you that you will first pray for our mission and if you feel us worthy consider a charitable donation which is fully tax deductible to help support our efforts but most of all we hope that you will tell a friend about discerning discerninghearts.com and join us next time for spiritual desolation be aware understand and take action with father timothy gallagher you

Channel: Discerning Hearts

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Keywords: catholic, radio, podcasts, jesus, discernment, christian, devotionals, rosary, mary, blessed, mother, religion, prayer, fr timothy gallagher, father gallagher, fr gallagher, timothy gallagher, spiritual desolation, st ignatius, ignatian prayer, ignatian discernment, ignatian, desolation, catholic discernment, kris mcgregor, discerning hearts, dark night, dark night of the soul, st john of the cross, john of the cross

Id: Cdf1HYeqIQo

Length: 28min 32sec (1712 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 07 2020