The phrase Dark Night of the Soul is often spoken of with a kind of mystical reverence. Many people today use it to describe periods of hardship, confusion, or deep emotional pain. But its origin is far more profound and mysterious than simply “going through a tough time.” The concept was first offered to us by the 16th-century Spanish mystic and Carmelite friar, St. John of the Cross. And for him, this experience was not just about suffering—it was about transformation.
The Origins of the Dark Night
For St. John, the Dark Night was a time of divine absence. Not just emotional emptiness, but a deep, soul-level disorientation where all the usual supports—religious certainty, spiritual comfort, emotional consolation—vanished. He found himself in a place where the God he once felt near had seemingly disappeared. This wasn’t a punishment, but rather a sacred, if excruciating, invitation: a purification of the soul through unknowing.
Imagine thinking you’ve climbed a spiritual mountain, only to discover it was merely a hill and the true mountain lies far ahead, veiled in darkness. The path forward is stripped of light, direction, and comfort—but it’s the only path that leads to union with the Divine.
The Reality of the Dark Night
Today, the Dark Night is often romanticized as a noble suffering that ends with glorious enlightenment. And yes, it can lead to greater wisdom and spiritual maturity. But that is not guaranteed. It can also leave one feeling lost, even broken. It’s not always beautiful in the moment—it’s raw, aching, and often marked by silence. When St. John wrote about his dark night, he was being imprisoned and persecuted by members of his own religious order. His words were not written from a mountaintop, but from a dungeon.
The Harsh Truth
We do ourselves no favors by sugarcoating this journey. The Dark Night is not a poetic metaphor for heartbreak or spiritual boredom. It is the collapse of the ego’s illusions, and the stripping away of everything that once seemed to make sense. It is the silence that follows the shattering of your certainties.
The Collapse of Sacred Naivety
From a spiritual perspective, most of us begin our faith journey in a kind of sacred naivety. We inherit beliefs from our families, our cultures, our communities. We trust our scriptures without question, interpret them the way our tradition tells us to, and find comfort in the warm embrace of religious certainty. It feels good to belong. It feels safe to believe that God will protect us, that our prayers will be answered, that we are on the “right” side.
But then something happens. The old answers stop working. We experience heartbreak, betrayal, illness, or injustice. Our leaders fail us. Hypocrisy abounds—in others and in ourselves. And suddenly, the sweet and simple faith we once clung to begins to unravel.
The Beginning of the Dark Night
It’s not just about spiritual confusion—it’s the dawning realization that the world itself is deeply flawed. That so much of what we’ve built our lives upon—social systems, politics, religion, economics—is tainted by greed, hatred, and self-interest.
You look around and see wars fought in the name of God. Politicians who manipulate the truth for power. A global economy that exploits the poor while rewarding the corrupt. Even the clothes on your back or the food on your plate carry the fingerprints of unjust labor. You realize you’re tangled in a web of complicity—you benefit from systems that harm others, even as you long to live ethically and purely.
The Crisis of Faith
And when you turn back to your faith for solace, you may find that it, too, begins to crack under the weight of your questions. The scriptures that once inspired you now seem filled with contradictions—some passages shining with divine light, others dripping with tribalism, violence, and vengeance. You begin to wonder: how much of this is truly sacred, and how much is simply human?
The teachings of Christ, the Buddha, the mystics, the saints—are they divine truths, or stories passed down, shaped and reshaped by time and agenda? And still, through all this unraveling, some deeper voice whispers: Keep going. There is more.
The Paradox of the Dark Night
This is the paradox of the Dark Night. Even as your understanding of God falls apart, your hunger for God deepens. You are no longer willing to believe in fairy tales. But you still believe—or want to believe—in something greater than yourself. You long for a God who is real, even if that God no longer fits the mold you once accepted.
A New Understanding
And so you begin again. Quietly. Humbly. You let go of the need for certainty. You begin to see God not as a distant being on a throne, but as a presence woven into the very fabric of life. You begin to find holiness in unlikely places: in laughter, in sorrow, in nature, in silence. You feel God in the ache of your longing, the questions you carry, the beauty of a moment that takes your breath away.
You begin to see that you—along with everyone and everything—are part of something sacred, something whole. Despite the horrors of the world, despite your doubts and griefs, there is love. And love is the truest thing you know.
The Deeper Truth
This, then, is the deeper truth of the Dark Night: not that we are being punished, but that we are being invited—into maturity, into mystery, into a love that is deeper than doctrine. A love that holds both the horror and the beauty of the world in a single breath.
Surrender
And so, with trembling hands, we surrender. Not to despair, but to the truth of the moment. We stop demanding answers and begin trusting the journey. We discover a still, small voice that whispers:
All is well. And all shall be well.
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