Dark Night of the Soul Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B001OR7402 | Format: EPUB
Dark Night of the Soul Description
Part poetic masterpiece, part mystic treatise,
The Dark Night of the Soul, by 16th century Carmelite monk St. John of the Cross, addresses the feeling of being forgotten by the Presence of the Almighty that every Christian desirous of walking more closely with God must pass through in order to learn to walk by faith and not by sight.
Spiritual persons suffer great trials - by reason - of the fear which they have of being lost on the road, thinking that all spiritual blessing is over for them and that God has abandoned them since they find no help or pleasure in good things. Then they grow weary, and endeavor to concentrate their faculties with some degree of pleasure upon some object of meditation, thinking that, when they are not doing this and yet are conscious of making an effort, they are doing nothing.
Perhaps one of the most widely recognized of the mystical writings, St. John's classic Dark Night of the Soul is not only practical theology but a beautiful balm of healing to anyone whose heart has ever echoed the words of Christ, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 5 hours and 28 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: christianaudio.com
- Audible.com Release Date: December 30, 2008
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B001OR7402
By Sister Elizabeth Ruth, O.D.C., Carmel of Our Lady of Walsingham, Norfolk
St. John of the Cross is known as the Mystical Doctor, because in a pre-eminent way he is the director of men on their interior journey towards God. As a spiritual guide and deeply religious man, trained in theology at the best Spanish universities of his day, he was able, as few others, to elucidate scripturally and doctrinally the ways of the Lord.
Primarily, though, he is a poet, and his poetry speaks for itself in deeply symbolic language, the language of love. He is also a man of his country and era. His two poles Toda-Nada, All-Nothing, no doubt were associated for him with the rugged beauty of Castile--the blazing Spanish sky above arid ground, with the sun glinting upon walled cities, the freezing night with brigands concealed in the darkness.
John and Spain speak the language of extremes, just as St. Francis of Assisi was a man of the Umbrian hills set with flowers and vines among shaded valleys. There is a tendency to contrast the harshness of one with the sweetness of the other, but this is to do a disservice to both. Both at heart are similar because they see the way to God as the way of giving all-desiring nothing but him, and letting the rest go: "My God and my All."
In this, Jesus Christ is the model, and there is no spiritual growth apart from the earnest imitation of him. "Be continually careful and earnest in imitating Christ in everything, making your life conform to his," John writes in The Ascent of Mount Carmel, almost as a key sentence. Only in this light can we understand his insistence on the denial of desires.
What he has in mind are all those selfish and self-seeking ways we go about trying to have God and what we want as well.
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