Dark Night of the Soul

Q. The green vesture of hope — for the soul is then * I Thess. V. 8. f Ps. xxiv. 15, J Ps. cxxii. 2. ever looking- upwards unto God, disregarding all else, and delighting only in Him — is so pleasing to the Beloved that the soul obtains from Him all it hopes for. This is why He tells the soul in the Canticle, * Thou hast wounded My heart in one of thine eyes.'* It would have been useless for the soul, if it had not put on the green robe of hope in God, to claim such love, for it would not have succeeded, because that which influences the Beloved, and prevails, is persevering hope. It is in the vesture of hope that the soul goes forth disguised in this secret and dark night ; seeing that it goes forth so detached from all possession, without any consolations, that it regards nothing", and that its sole anxiety is about God, putting its * mouth in the dust if so be there may be hope,' in the words of Jeremias quoted already. t lo. Over the white and green robes, as the crown and perfection of its disguise, the soul puts on the third, the splendid robe of purple. This is the emblem of charity, which not only enhances the beauty of the others, but which so elevates the soul and renders it so lovely and pleasing in His eyes that it ventures to say to Him, * I am black but beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, therefore hath the king loved me and brought me into His secret chamber.'+ This robe of

* Cant. iv. 9. f Ch. viii. § i. i Cant. i. 4. Off, B. M. V. ant. ad Vesp. CHAP. XXr.] OF THE SOUL. 167 charity, which is that of love, not only defends and protects the soul from its third enemy, the flesh — for where the true love of God is there is no room for selflove or for selfishness — but strengthens the other virtues also, and makes them flourish for the protection of the soul, beautifying it and adorning it with grace, so that it shall please the Beloved ; for without charity no virtue is pleasing unto God. This is the purple, spoken of in the Canticle, by which the soul ascends to the seat where God reposes : ' the seat of gold, the going up of purple/* It is vested in this robe of purple that the soul journeys, as the first stanza declares, when in the dark night it went out of itself, and from all created things, with anxious love inflamed, by the secret ladder of contemplation to the perfect union of the love of God its beloved Saviour. II. This, then, is that disguise which the soul says it puts on in the night of faith on the secret ladder ; and these are the three colours of it, namely, a certain most fitting disposition for its union with God in its three powers, memory, understanding and will. Faith blinds the understanding, and empties it of all natural intelligence, and thereby disposes it for union with the divine wisdom. Hope empties the memory and withdraws it from all created things which can possess it ; for as St. Paul saith, * Hope that is seen is not hope.'t * Cant. iii. lo. | Rom. viii. 24.

Thus the memory is withdrawn from all things on which it might dwell in this life, and is fixed on what the soul hopes to possess. Hope in God alone, therefore, purely disposes the memory according to the measure of the emptiness it has wrought for union with Him. 12. Charity in the same way empties the affections and desires of the will of everything that is not God, and fixes them on Him alone. This virtue of charity, then, disposes the will and unites it with God in love. And because these virtues — it being their special work — withdraw the soul from all that is not God, so also do they serve to unite the soul to Him. It is impossible for the soul to attain to the perfection of the love of God unless it journeys, in earnest, in the robes of these three virtues. This disguise, therefore, which the soul assumed when it went forth in order to obtain that which it aimed at, the loving and delightful union with the Beloved, was most necessary and expedient. And it was also a great happiness to have succeeded in thus disguising itself and persevering in it until it obtained the desired end, the union of love, as it declares in the next line.

Explains the third line of the second stanza. O happy lot ! It is very evident that it was a blessed thing for the soul to have succeeded in such an enterprise as this, by which it was delivered out of the hands of satan, from the world, and from its own sensuality, in which, having gained that liberty of spirit so precious and desirable, it rose from meanness to dignity, from being earthly and human became heavenly and divine, having its * conversation in Heaven,'* like unto those who are in a state of perfection, as I shall proceed to explain. 2. I shall, however, be brief, because the most important point — that which chiefly determined me to explain this dark night to many souls who enter on it without knowing it, as I said in the preface — has been already in some degree explained, and I have also shown, though not in adequate terms, how great are the blessings that descend upon the soul in this night, and what a great happiness it is to be passing through it. This I did that when such souls are alarmed at the trials that have come upon them, they may be encouraged by the certain hope of the numerous and great blessings of God which they receive in this night. Besides this, it was a happy lot for the soul for the reason assigned in the following line.

* Philipp. iii. 20.

Explains the fourth line — describes the wonderful hiding place of the soul in this night, and how the devil, though he enters other most secret places, enters not this. In darkness and concealment. * In concealment,' that is, secretly or hidden. So when the soul says that it went forth in darkness and concealment, it explains more clearly the great safety spoken of in the first line of this stanza — which it finds in this dim contemplation on the road of the union of the love of God. 2. The words of the soul ' darkness and concealment ' mean here that the soul, because it went forth in the dark, travelled in secret, undiscovered by the evil one, beyond the reach of his wiles and stratagems. The reason why the soul is free, concealed from the devil and his wiles in the dimness of this contemplation, is, that infused contemplation, to which it is now admitted, is passively infused into it, in secret, without the cognisance of the senses, and of the interior and exterior powers of the sensual part. And that, too, is the reason why it escapes, not only from the embarrassments which the faculties, and naturally, through their weakness, present before it, but also from the evil one who, were it not for the sensual faculties, could never know what is passing

in the soul. The more spiritual therefore the communication is, and the further it is removed beyond the reach of sense, the less able is the devil to perceive it. .3. This being so, it greatly concerns the soul's security, that the lower senses should be in the dark, and have no knowledge of the interior conversation of the soul with God, and that for two reasons ; first, that the spiritual communication may be the more abundant, for then the weakness of the sensual part hinders not liberty of spirit. The second is, that the soul is more secure because the evil one cannot know what is passing within it. The words of our Lord, ' Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth,'* may be, in a spiritual sense, understood of this, and we may understand Him to say : Let not thy left hand, that is man's lower nature, know what is passing in the higher and spiritual part of the soul. That is, let the divine communications remain unknown to the lower senses, and a secret between the spirit and God. 4. It is very true, that oftentimes when these interior and most secret spiritual communications are made to the soul, the devil, though he knows neither their nature nor their form, ascertains their presence, and that the soul is then receiving some great blessings, merely from observing the silence and repose some of them effect in the senses, and in the powers of our lower nature. And

* St. Matt. vi. 3. then, when he sees that he cannot thwart them in the inmost depth of the soul, he does all he can to disquiet and disturb the sensual part which is accessible to him, now by pain and at another time by horrible dread, intending thereby to trouble the higher and spiritual part of the soul, and to frustrate the blesjings it then receives and, enjoys. 5. But very often when this contemplation pours its light purely into the spirit and exerts its strength therein, the devil, with all his efforts, is not able to disturb it, for then the soul becomes the recipient of renewed benefits, love, and a more secure peace ; for, wonderful to tell ! in its consciousness of the disturbing presence of the foe, it enters deeply into itself, without knowing how it comes to pass, and feels assured of a certain refuge where it can hide itself beyond the reach of the evil one ; and thus its peace and joy are increased, of which the devil attempted to rob it. All those terrors assail it only from without ; it sees clearly, and exults, that it can in the meanwhile securely enjoy in secret the calm peace and sweetness of the Bridegroom, which the world and the devil can neither give nor take away. The soul is now experiencing the truth of that which the bride says in the Canticle, ' Behold, threescore valiants . . . compass the bed of Solomon . . . for fears by night.'* Strength and peace abound

* Cant. iii. 7, 8. within the soul, though it feels the flesh and the bones frequently tormented without. 6. At other times, when the spiritual communications flow over into the senses, the devil succeeds the more easily in disquieting the mind, and in disturbing it with the terrors with which he assails it through the senses. At that time the mental agonies are great, and occasionally surpassing all description ; for when spirit has to do with spirit, the evil one causes an intolerable horror in the good one, that is, in the soul, when it succeeds in disturbing it. This is the meaning of the bride in her account of that which happened to her when she tried to be interiorly recollected, so as to have the fruition of these goods : ' I came down,' she says, * into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valleys, and to look if the vineyard had flourished ... I knew not ; my soul troubled me for the chariots and the noise of Aminadab,' that is the devil.* 7. This attack of the devil takes place also when God bestows His favours upon a soul by the instrumentality of a good angel. The devil sees this occasionally, because God in general permits it to become known to the enemy, that he may do what he can, according to the measure of justice, against that soul, and that he may be debarred from pleading that he had no opportunity of seizing on that soul as he did in the case of Job.

* Cant, vi, 10, 11. It is, therefore, expedient that God should place these two combatants, the good ang-el and the devil, on an equality when they contend for the soul, in order that the victory may be of greater worth, and that the soul, triumphant and faithful in temptation, may be the more abundantly rewarded. 8. This is the reason — and it is right we should observe it — why God, in the order of grace, permits satan to disquiet and tempt the soul which He is guiding therein. When such a soul has real visions, through the instrumentality of an angel, God suffers the evil spirit to represent false visions of the same kind, in such a way that an incautious soul may be very easily deluded, as it has happened to many. We have an instance of this in Exodus, where we read that the magicians of Pharao wrought apparently signs and wonders resembling those really wrought by Moses. For when Moses turned water into blood, the magicians of Egypt did the same ; and when he brought forth frogs, so did the magicians.* 9. It is not in bodily visions only that the evil spirit apes God, but in spiritual communications also, which are effected through the instrumentality of an angel, whenever he succeeds in discovering them. For as Job saith, 'He seeth every high thing,'t that is, he apes them, and insinuates himself among them as well as he

* Ex. vii. II, 22 ; viii. 6, 7. j Jot> xli. 25. can. Spiritual visions have neither form nor figure — that is the characteristic of spirit — and, therefore, satan cannot imitate them, nor occasion others which shall in any way represent them. And so when the good angel communicates spiritual contemplation, the evil spirit, in order to attack it while the soul is being thus visited, presents itself before it with a certain horror and spiritual confusion, which is occasionally exceedingly painful. Sometimes the soul can quickly disembarrass itself, so that the terror of the evil spirit shall have no time to make any impression upon it, and recollects itself, favoured herein by that spiritual grace which the good angel then communicates. lo. Sometimes, too, God permits this horror and trouble to last a long time, and this is a greater torment to the soul than all the evils of this life can be ; the remembrance of which afterwards is sufficient to produce great pain. All this passes in the soul without its doing or undoing anything of itself to bring about these representations or impressions. But we must remember that, when God suffers the evil spirit thus to afflict the soul, it is with a view to purify and prepare it by that spiritual vigil for some great festival and spiritual grace which it is His will to bestow upon it, for He never mortifies but to give life, and never humbles but to exalt. This speedily ensues ; for the soul, according to the measure of the dark purgation it has undergone,

enters on the fruition of sweet spiritual contemplation, and that so sublime at times that no language can describe it. This is to be understood of those visitations which God makes by the ministry of an angel, and wherein the soul, as I said before,* is not wholly secure, nor in such darkness and concealment as to be altogether unobserved by the enemy. 11. But when God visits the soul Himself, the words of the stanza are then true, for, in perfect darkness, hidden from the enemy, it receives, at such times, the spiritual graces of God. The reason of the difference is that God, being the sovereign Lord, dwells substantially in the soul, and that neither angel nor devil can discover what is going on there, nor penetrate the profound and secret communications which take place between Him and the soul. These communications, because the work of our Lord Himself, are wholly divine and supreme, and, as it were, substantial touches of the divine union between Himself and the soul ; in one of these, because it is the highest possible degree of prayer, the soul receives greater good than in all the rest. These are the touches for which the bride in the Canticle prayed, saying, ' Let Him kiss me with the kiss of His mouth. 'f

12. This being a state so near unto God, into which the soul so anxiously longs to enter, one touch of the Godhead is prized and desired by it above all the other * § 8. t Cant. i. i. gifts which God grants it. For this reason the bride in the Canticle, after the great things wrought in her, of which she there sings, not finding them enough, prays for the divine touches, saying : ' Who shall give to me Thee my brother, sucking the breasts of my mother, that I may find Thee without, and kiss Thee ' with the mouth of my soul, ' and now no man despise me,'* or presume to assail me. These words relate to that communication which God makes alone, without, and hidden from all creatures ; that is the meaning of the words ' alone,' ' without,' and ' sucking.' This occurs when the soul in liberty of spirit enjoys these blessings in sweetness and inward peace, the sensual part thereof unable to hinder it, and the devil by means of it not able to disturb it. 13. Then indeed, the evil spirit would not venture to assail the soul, because he could not succeed, neither can he know of those divine touches in the substance of the soul with the substance of God, which is wrought by loving knowledge. No man can arrive at this blessed condition but by the most perfect purgation and detachment, by being spiritually hidden from all created things. It is a work wrought in the dark, in the hiding place, wherein the soul is confirmed more and more in union with God by love ; and, therefore, the soul sings, ' In darkness and concealment.'

* Cant. viii. i. 14. When these favours are granted to the soul in secret, that is, in the spirit only, the higher and lower portions of the soul seem to it during some of them — it knows not how, to be so far apart that it recognises two parts in itself, each so distinct from the other, that neither seems to have anything in common with the other, being in appearance so far removed and apart. And, in reality, this is in a certain manner true, for in its present operations, which are wholly spiritual, it has no commerce with the sensual part. 15. Thus the soul becomes wholly spiritual, and the spiritual passions and desires are in a high degree suppressed in this hiding place of unitive contemplation. The soul then, speaking of its higher part, sings the last line of this stanza, ' My house being now at rest.'

Concludes the explanation of the second stanza. Mj' house being now at rest. This is as much as saying. My higher nature and my lower nature also, each in its desires and powers, being now at rest, I went forth to the divine union of the love of God. 2. As in the warfare of the dark night, as I said before,* the soul undergoes a twofold contest and purgation : that is, in the sensual and the spiritual part, with their senses, powers, and passions, so also, in the sensual and spiritual parts, with all their powers and desires, does it attain to a twofold peace and rest. For this reason it repeats the words, as I said before,! ' My house being now at rest,' at the end of the second stanza, because of the two parts of the soul, spiritual and sensual, which, if they are to go forth into the divine union of love, must first of all be changed, ordered, and tranquillised with regard to all the things of sense and spirit, after the likeness of the state of innocence in Adam, notwithstanding- that the soul be not wholly delivered from the temptations of the lower part. These words, therefore, which in the first stanza are understood of the tranquillity of the lower and sensual part, now, in the second stanza, are understood particularly of the higher and spiritual part ; and this is the reason of the repetition.

3. The soul obtains this tranquillity and rest of the spiritual house, habitually and perfectly — so far as it is possible in this life — through the substantial touches of the divine union, of which I have just spoken,^ and which, in secret, hidden from the turmoil of satan, sense, and passion, it receives from the Divinity, whereby it * Bk. I, ch. viii. § I, Bk. 2, ch. i. § i. f Ch. xiv. § i. I Ch. xxiii. § 1 1. has been tranquillised, purified, strengthened, and confirmed, so as to become an effectual partaker of that union which is its divine betrothal to the Son of God. The instant the two houses of the soul are tranquil and confirmed, with the whole household of its powers and desires sunk in sleep and silence, as to all things of heaven and earth, the divine Wisdom, immediately in a new bond of loving possession, unites itself to the soul, and that is fulfilled which is written, ' While quiet silence contained all things and the night was in the mid-way of her course, Thy omnipotent Word sallying out of heaven from the royal seats.'* The same truth is set before us in the Canticle, where the bride, after passing by those who took her veil away and wounded her, saith, ' When I had a little passed by them, I found Him whom my soul loveth.'t

4. This union is unattainable without great purity, and this purity is attainable only by detachment from all created things and sharp mortifications. This is signified by the robbery of the veil and the wounding of the bride in the night when she went forth searching after her beloved ; for the new veil of the betrothal cannot be put on till the old veil be taken away. He, therefore, who will not go out in this dark night to seek the Beloved, who will not deny and mortify his own will, but seek him at his ease on his bed, as the bride * Wisd. xviii. 14. f Cant. iii. 4. once did,* will never find Him. The soul says here that it found Him, as the soul says of itself that it found Him by going forth in the dark, and in the anxieties of love.

In which the third stanza is briefly explained. In that happy iii'^ht, In secret, seen of none. Without other light or guide Save that which in my heart was burning. The soul still continues the metaphor of natural night in celebrating and magnifying the blessings of the night of the spirit, by means of which it has been able quickly and securely to compass the desired end. Three of these blessings are set before us in this stanza. 2. The first is that in this blessed night of contemplation God is guiding the soul by a road so solitary and so secret, so remote and alien from sense, that nothing belonging thereto, nor any created thing, can approach it so as to disturb it or detain it on the road of the union of love. 3. The second blessing is that because of the spiritual darkness of this night, in which all the faculties * Cant. iii. i. of the higher part of the soul are in darkness, the soul, seeing nothing, and unable to see, is not detained by anything which is not God from drawing near unto Him, and, therefore, advances unhindered by forms and figures and natural apprehensions : for these are the things which usually hinder the soul, from being always in union with God.

4. The third blessing is, that though the soul is supported by no particular interior light of the understanding, nor by any exterior guide comforting it on this high road — the thick darkness has deprived it of all this — yet love and faith, now burning within it, drawing the heart towards the Beloved, influence and guide it, and make it fly upwards to God along the road of solitude, while it knows neither how nor by what means that is done. Angels, the ministry of. 119. Anger, imperfections of, 21. Aridity, the purgative, 35 ; cause of, 36 ; benefit of, 59, 62, 86. Attachment to trifles, 14. Avarice, spiritual, 13 ; imperfections of, 13, 57. Beginners, state of, 5 ; weak in virtue, 7 ; subject to pride, 8 ; imperfections of, 9 ; readiness of, to teach others, 12 ; childishness of, 12 ; impatience of, 22 ; disobedient to their directors, 23 delusions of, in the matter of prayer, 26. Blasphemy, spirit of, 65. Blessings, three, of the spiritual night, 181. Burning of the soul, 109, 114 ; effects of, 116 ; not always felt, 121. Charity, robe of, 166 ; effects of, 168, Contemplation, commencement of, 37 ; effects of, 40, ']6, -ji, 80, 86, 122, 138 ; not granted to all spiritual persons, 119 ; nature of, 44 ; dark night of, 69 ; a ray of darkness, 80, 139 ; painfulness of, 80 ; light of, TOO, loi ; secret, 146 ; called a ladder, 151.

Disguise of the soul, 162. Disturbances, caused by the evil spirit, 173. Ecstasies, source of, 70. Egypt, fleshpots of, loi. Escape of the soul, 131. Faith, robe of, 164 ; "^effects of, 167. Fear of God, 59, 73. 186 THE DARK NIGHT [iNDEX. Fervour of Beginners, lo. Fire of contemplation, loS. Giddiness, spirit of, 65. Gluttony, spiritual, 22, 58. Hope, robe of, 165 ; effects of, 167. Humility, effects of, s^- Illumination of the angels, 120. Imperfections of beginners, 5. Job, trials of, 53. Knowledge of self, 51, 55. Ladder, the secret, 132, 149; the ten steps of, 152-162. Love, two kinds of, 20 ; reverential, 124 ; degrees of contemplation, Luxury, spiritual, 16 ; effects of, 19 ; correction of, ^8. Meditation, when to be abandoned, 43 ; on the Life of Christ, 44. Mortification, fruits of, 63. Neighbour, love of, 56. Night, the dark, effects of, 20, 30 ; two kinds of, 31. of sense, 33 ; tests of, 34 ; troubles of, 41 ; benefits of, 47, 59 • entered by few, 48 ; brings with it the knowledge of God, 54 ; Night of the spirit, 31, 32 ; entered by few, 64 ; beginnings of, 68 ; effects of, 76, 117, 135 ; pains of, 83 ; misery of the soul in, 92 ; duration of, 93 ; pains of, greater than those of the night of sense, 123 ; blessings of, 131, 137, 169, 181.

Pains of the soul in contemplation, 96, 105. Perfection, true, 15 ; conditions of, 150. Presence of God, 122. Proficients, sweetness of, 69 ; certain imperfections of, 71, 75 ; why spiritual sweetness was granted to, 74. Purgation, distress of the soul in its, 94. Purgatory in this life, 87, 161 ; how the souls suffer in. no. Rachel, 126. Recollection, interior effects of, on the memory, 97. Reverence, 52. Satan, buffetings of, 18 ; delusions of, 72 ; works through the senses, 170, 171 ; why allowed to disquiet souls, 172-175. Self-delusion of beginners, 8, 23. Soul, the cause of the errors of, 133. Spirit, liberty of, 62, 63, 70. Strong, the trials of, 66. Submission of the will, 28. Sufferings, advantages of, 138. Sweetness, spiritual, 21 ; how corrected, 57 ; from God, 61. Teresa, St., writings of, 12. Theology, mystic, 78 ; enlightens the understanding, 121 ; infused by love, 143 ; hides the soul, 146. Thirst, the living, 46. Touches, divine, 82, 176. Union, the divine, requisites for, 103 ; effects of, 179. Waters, the dark, 139, 141. Way, the illuminative, 64. Weak, the trials of, 66. Wisdom, the divine, 79, 119; secret, 143; effects of, 144; inexplicable, 144, 147 ; a ladder, 149.

Of Sacrifice in General — Sacrifice of the Christian ReUgion — The Design of God in the reconciliation of men and of the qualities of the priest who should be the mediator.— That Jesus Christ is a priest according to the order ot Melchisedeck, not according to the order of Aaron — When and how Jesus Christ fulfilled the functions of a priest — Of the difference which exists between the sacrifice of the Cross, that of the Mass, and that of Heaven. Part II.— Symbolism of Christian Worship. The Holy of Holies a figure of the Bosom of God ; the entrance of the high priest, a figure of the entry of Jesus Christ into that adorable temple— Jesus Christ is the Altar; visible altars only figurative — Proofs drawn from the Canon of the Mass and from the Gospel that Jesus Christ is the true altar — That the Holy Ghost is the fire of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Charles de Condren, General of the Oratory, was one of the most distinguished Ecclesiastics of France in the reign of Henri IV. His most important book, which was published after his death, is entitled " L'Id&e du Sacerdoce de Jesus Christ," of which the present volume ("The Eternal Sacrifice") is a translation.

" This book is likely to be of special use to persons who have allowed rules of prayer to cramp their devotions, and with whom regularity has become a wrong kind of fonnaUty," — Ch. Quarterly. "We like this little book a thousand times better than most translations ; and we share the conviction that it wiU be a source of comfort and encouragement to every reader." — Ave Maria. " A beautiful book and a useful book. It is intended for earnest souls and for prayerful souls. A very valuable treatise, nearly every part of which is as true and as good for the uses of the Christian life in one Church as in another." — Churchman. " Father Grou in this work gives wise suggestions as to the proper mode of praying, . . . his directions will prove highly profitable to all who adopt them. The work has been well translated." — Catholic Times. " Many devoutly inclined persons who read these pages wiU learn much from them ... to comfort and encourage in their struggles against aridity in prayer." — A^nerican Eccl. Review. Translated from the French of P£rE GROU. (174 pp.) iSmo, cloth extra - - - Is. 6d. net.

Heads of Chapters : Man's Knowledge of God's Existence, Man's Knowledge of what God is, The Essence and the Attributes of God, The Absolute Properties of the Divine Essence, The Negative Properties of the Divine Essence, God's Knowledge, God's Sincere Will of Man's Salvation, God the One Creator, God as the Author of Nature, God as the Author of the Supernatural, The Paradise of God's Creation, The Inner Life of God. John of the Cross, The dark night of the soul