05-13-2024, 07:48 AM
(05-13-2024, 06:32 AM)FlyersFan Wrote: I'm not sure what you are going through. It isn't the classic 'Dark Night of the Soul'. Mediation is impossible during a God given 'Dark Night of the Soul' purgation, and depression doesn't take over because the soul still hopes in God. I guess maybe it's a different kind of 'Dark Night of the Soul' then the one that I have learned about.
The Catholic Church describes the Dark Night of the Soul differently. Here you go ....
The Dark Night of the Soul is preceded by the Dark Night of the Senses. This is when one feels unmoved by prayer life and there is dryness in prayer and meditation. A person yearns for consolation from God but does not receive it. A person feels spiritual desolation. The faith is never lost and the Dark Night of the Senses comes to an end.
The Dark Night of the Soul is when all consolation is gone. The person feels totally cut off from God yet still chooses God and continues on even though he/she feels lost to God. The person still yearns for God and does not choose evil because of feeling cut off. People may border on depression and desolation because of the spiritual suffering but do not cross over into it. Spiritual dryness continues.
This is a state of suffering allowed by God to bring the soul closer to Him in the end. Although the person feels far from God, he/she is actually being drawn closer to Him through the suffering. This suffering isn't brought on by the person but is initiated by God to purify the soul. It's a purgation.
St. John of the Cross is a Catholic saint who went through, and wrote about, the Dark Night of the Soul. He said there are three signs that a person is truly going through the God initiated Dark Night of the Soul -
- Finding no comfort in the things of the world or in the things of God.
- The person is concerned that he/she is actually going backwards spiritually, that he/she isn't serving God, that he/she is no longer aware of the things of God.
- Inability to meditate on the things of God and to use the imagination on the things of God like before the Dark Night of the Soul came upon him/her.
The suffering and isolation in the true Dark Night of the Soul that comes from God is so intense that the person may even feel that God doesn't exist for him/her and the person can come close to depression over it, but they do not cross that line. Even if they feel God doesn't exist for him/her, they still choose God and reject evil. Clinical depression requires medical attention, whereas the Dark Night of the Soul requires perseverance and it has a spiritual purpose of purgation.
St. John of the Cross went through it and wrote about it. So did St. Mother Teresa. So did St. Therese the Little Flower. Lots of writings about the Dark Night of the Soul and the saints in Catholic literature. Some good information out there.
I had to shorten a six year journey into a single short post.
Actually, truth be told, what I went through sounds very similar to what you have written here.
I had lost the ability to meditate for a while. I also did feel abandoned by God, or that Gid didn't even exist, or that I had it all wrong about God; at one point I even considered if God was Satan. That was the darkest of it for me.
But yes, very similar. I must not have the writing skills of all those saints.
Finally, yes. The experience brought me even closer to God when I came out of the depression portion.
I already knew the Lord very well. I thought I had lost him for a minute in there. But no, I can see what the purpose of all that was.
I faced myself.
And there are also many many texts on the "Dark Night of the soul" from many different authors of many digital backgrounds.
I imagine this is a little different for each individual.
