A Meditation on the Dark Night
The dark night
often comes to us
in myriad shades of grey.
Jesus, I trust in you!
Sometimes the dark night
slowly drags the present into the future,
and we are almost lulled to sleep
by the inevitable periods of boredom
that stealthily creep into our lives,
in the Dark Night of the Ordinary.
Jesus, I trust in you!
Sometimes the dark night
strikes suddenly, and 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,
in the Dark Night of Time.
Jesus, I trust in you!
Sometimes the dark night
is clouded by anxiety and fear,
in the Dark Night of Unknowing,
or is painfully pierced by suffering,
in the Dark Night of the Cross.
Jesus, I trust in you!
Sometimes 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,
in the Dark Night of the Soul.
Jesus, I trust in you!
But the good God is so good.
He is never outdone in generosity,
because it’s all part of His wondrous
mystical plan of sweet holy love
for each and every one of us.
Jesus, I trust in you!
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
from our transfigured souls!
Jesus, I trust in you!
Amen.