A Meditation on the Dark Night
I used to think
that the dark night
was simply the dark night
of the soul.
I used to think that
it was meant only for
the heroic saints
of centuries past,
for St. John of the Cross,
for St. Faustina,
for St. Mother Teresa.
But I see things
a bit differently now.
I think we all face
the dark night,
perhaps even every day,
in myriad shades of grey.
Some shades of the dark night
are very mild indeed,
painted on the canvas
of our lives
with lots of white paint
that masks the hint of black
that is mixed in with it.
But other shades of the dark night
include a goodly amount
of both white and black,
like a grey fog,
or a blossoming thunderstorm.
Often the dark night
lasts only a few moments,
and is relatively mild,
when we are almost lulled to sleep
by the inevitable periods of boredom
that stealthily creep into our lives,
like in the Dark Night of the Ordinary.
Occasionally, the dark night
is marked by the change
in our perception of the clock’s ticking,
when we pass from moments of eternity
to moments marked by the urgency
of seconds, minutes, hours, days;
when our schedules -- and our lives --
are flipped upside down,
as in the Dark Night of Time.
Once in a while, the dark night
is more painfully punctuated
by more intense moments of fear,
like in the Dark Night of Unknowing,
or even more dramatically in
the Dark Night of the Cross.
More uncommonly, the dark night
seems to extinguish every feeling of
consolation that we have ever felt
in the presence of Our Lord,
when Jesus hides himself from us,
as our passionate lover,
teasing us with the divine sense of humor,
and, behold, we experience
the dreaded Dark Night of the Soul.
But the good God is so good.
He is never outdone in generosity,
because it’s all part of His wondrous
mystical plan of love
for each and every one of us.
For soon, very soon,
if we wait for the Lord,
if we watch for the Lord,
if we persevere in prayer,
like the wise virgins
who brought sufficient oil
so that their lamps
wouldn’t be extinguished,
the magnificent and dazzling light
of Divine Mercy will shine forth
in our transfigured souls!