Write for God

“In the real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.”

– F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Crack-Up

"Christ of St. John of the Cross," Salvador Dali

 

“The juxtaposition of darkness and love, so central to all John’s works, but especially The Dark Night of the Soul, is deeply expressive of the paradox central to the Christian faith:  that in the cross of Christ, in that abyss of suffering and degradation, is the ultimate expression of the love of an all-powerful and all-merciful God.”

From theologian Margaret Kim Peterson’s introduction to The Dark Night of the Soul, 2005 Barnes & Noble edition

Christian minister and author Frederick Buechner often quotes the late John Updike to explain what is more commonly known as the dark night of the soul by Catholics. As Buechner said, “Perhaps God saves his deepest silence for his saints.”

Mother Teresa’s decades-long dark night of the soul was revealed after her death in Come Be My Light, which I’ve been reading in spurts. Her bouts with doubt and the distance she felt from God surprised many who considered her the epitome of perfect Christian joy. Perhaps God already considered her a saint when he canonized her with his deepest silence during her life. His timeline, after all, has little do to with the Vatican’s process for making saints.

The greatest saints and the holiest monks have battled God’s deepest silence. St. John of the Cross even gave it an apt name. It should not surprise faithful Catholics when they find themselves enmeshed in God’s silence, when deep faith and deep prayer yield only deep silence.

Dante expressed the lowest point of Hell–Dis–as literally the furthest distance from God, where Satan lies encased in ice at the center of nothingness. There are Hells on Earth that we pass before we reach God’s place for us in eternity. When prayer only echoes in the silence without a response, we face our darkest nights. The only comfort we have then is that at least God is listening to the prayers of others who might keep us in their intentions as we experience the darkness. 

There’s comfort in knowing that some of His greatest saints had souls that also knew dark nights. In that, we are not alone.