The numbing sting of personal worthlessness through rejection is insanely real to my human psyche, but so also is the perpetual undying hope of the divine acceptance hidden away in the cocoon of transformation.
The Divine assails the soul in order to renew it and thus make it divine and stripping it of the habitual affections and attachments that it so easily clings to. The purging makes the soul feel as though it is perishing and melting away. The feeling is akin to being abandoned and forsaken. This again is the story of Joseph in the old covenant.
Or like Jonah, in this sepulchre of dark death in the belly of the great beast we must wait 
and abide until the spiritual resurrection of which it hopes. But it does not hope for it in some glib, glad way with spectacular optimism. Oh no, it is gasping for breaths between being thrown under by waves of despair. It is a prison of isolation from the consolations of friends and desolate in the sands of being unseen and unheard by all those who pass them by from the other side of the road.
The worst of these conditions is the abject poverty and wretchedness that the soul is subjected to in this time of purgation. The soul is reduced to a state of emptiness and must be left in an arid existence without any visible sight of escaping a wilderness that howls for deliverance from darkness.
Here God greatly humbles the soul in order that he may afterwards greatly exalt it.
I am still in the time of deep hiding so I am not able to comment on the side of exaltation although I am often confident of the reward of my faith and God’s immeasurable goodness. If not in this lifetime, in the one yet to come. I will enter into the joy of the Lord and stay on the course of blessed obedience and not being disobedient to the heavenly vision. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy and remember me O my God for good. Amen.
Because the light and wisdom of this contemplation is most bright and pure, the soul 
which it assails is dark and impure in relation to the glory and holiness of its presence. The pain of this impurity is immense as it works to expel the impurities and the soul feels itself miserable to the point where it believes that God is against it. The pain is intensified as it seems that it will forever be unworthy of God. This is caused by the profound immersion of its spirit in the knowledge and realization of its evils and miseries.
The other way in which the soul suffers is by reason of its weaknesses: natural, moral and spiritual. This is so darkening that the agony of the soul would find advantage and relief in death.
These are the miseries of Job and of course his companions (“friends”) are of no help, hope or health to his soul. This is often the occasion of the Psalmist and is without a doubt the passage way of the the Human One, known as Jesus, the Messiah.
Once again this is a way of life for very few, but be sure of this…this is what offers life to the rest of the world. “Death works in me, so life works in you.” -St Paul
Why is the divine light that leads to divine union called by the soul the Dark Night? 
The clearer and more manifest are divine things in themselves, the darker and more hidden are they to the soul naturally; just as, the clearer is the light, the more it blinds and darkens the pupil of the owl. The more directly we look at the sun, the greater is the darkness which it causes in our visual faculty, overcoming and overwhelming it through its own weakness.
Mystical theologians call this infused contemplation…A Ray of Darkness!
This is the exact image that John has of the Ascended Messiah in the Revelation…His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead.
Once I understood the darkness is caused by the great light of his presence at work in the cavern of my heart then I was given exceeding hope for a joy that is and would be everlasting in my heart.
If the light in me is darkness, how great is the darkness. The light of Christ comes to shine in a dark place.
For those whose spiritual good is superficial and readily affected by sense, they fall into greater difficulties and dangers.
I have seen this repeatedly over the years and it has almost always resulted in tragic consequences personally, emotionally, mentally, maritally and spiritually. I have often been accused of not being spiritual enough for those whose infantile faith is so high and mighty. They scoff at counsel and reject any type of balanced theological diet in their approach to being something special for God. Even now, years later people’s lives are adrift from God and family and they have wandered off the reservation and into multiple other religions mixed with some character called jesus.
Oftentimes they see imaginary and spiritual visions in this delusional state of reality, wherein the devil and their own fancy very commonly practice deceptions on them. The devil with the greatest of ease fascinates and deludes the soul unless it takes precautions of resigning itself to God and a multitude of wise, godly, mature, experienced men and or women of God. In this state the devil influences many to believe in vain visions and false prophecies. I have even seen rooms full of ‘christians” practices these magical incantations and spells on one another as they try their channeling through “prophecy” for one another. What a farce! Few things I abhor more than this roulette table of using the name of the Lord in vain!
They become so bold with God so as to lose all fear of what is truly holy, which is the key and the custodian of all the virtues. Into these miseries they fall because they are beginning to give themselves over to spiritual highs while they are still so fresh on the way to becoming apprentices.
I am *** WARNING YOU *** to not associate with such bastards in the faith. They are the
sons and daughters of perdition and are not the friends, followers or faithful of Jesus. Period! End of discussion! Your very soul is at stake. On these matters I offer no mercy only radical obedience to a company of long tenured, godly, followers of Christ in the way of historical orthodoxy with life giving orthopraxy.
The wisdom of Proverbs 1 and the righteousness of Romans 1 is the understanding that the “wrath of God” is consequence and not retribution.
Now we begin the long ascent up the high mountain of the Dark Night of the SPIRIT…
As with nearly all mountain hiking there are innumerable switchbacks that seemingly are getting us going nowhere fast. Yet after we have a momentary glance back we can see that we have made ground and moved up the mountain toward the long awaited goal.
Speaking of the imperfections at this level of the spirit there are two kinds: Habitual and Actual. Habitual imperfections are like roots of a tree compared to the imperfections of the senses which would be characterized by the branches of a tree. The work at this level is a purging to penetrate to the roots of our life. In further contrast it is the difference between removing a stain which is fresh and one which is old and been long standing.
The Dark Night of the spirit serves to accommodate sense to spirit rather than to unite spirit to God. For now there still remains in the spirit the stains of the old man, yet the spirit may resist and even deny such accusations against itself and if it will not be purged with hyssop then it will be unable to come to the purity of Divine union.
When this house of sensuality is now at rest…mortified-its passions being quenched and its desires put to rest by means of this blessed night of purging. Then the soul goes forth to set out upon the road and the way of the spirit. This is the way of illumination or 
infused contemplation.
To enter this dark Night of the spirit is more formidable and the number who do is actually considerably smaller. Just lingering around the bend before the night of the spirit are the assailants and assassins come to wreck havoc once again upon the members of our senses.
It is a much longer night of trials and temptations. For to some the angel of satan presents itself as a spirit of fornication that it may buffet their sense with abominable and violent temptations and trouble their spirit with vile considerations and representations which are most visible to the imagination.
In others a spirit of blasphemy roams abroad and seeks to molest us in order to try us and fill us with numerous scruples and perplexities. This is one of the severest goads and horrors of this night and is very closely akin to that which passes in the night of the spirit.
Remember the Spirit lead Jesus into the desert to be tempted. He was not tempted by God, but he was lead their by God. With every Dark Night as a Rite of Passage Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, but the goal was so that he would return from the desert in the power of the Spirit, which he did.
Pride goes before a fall and humility goes before an exaltation.
Those who have the disposition and greater strength to suffer, he purges with greater intensity and more quickly. But those who are very weak are kept for a long time in this night, and he purges very gently and with slight temptations. Without such turnings away we would not learn to reach God.
Next we will begin to move into the second night…Dark Night of the spirit…
Another of the benefits of the Dark Night is the perpetual or habitual readiness and awareness of God.
In one of the very earliest training workshops led by Fr. Keating, a nun tried out her first twenty-minute taste of Centering Prayer and then lamented, “Oh, Father Thomas, I’m such a failure at this prayer. In twenty minutes I’ve had ten thousand thoughts!”
“How lovely,” responded Keating, without missing a beat. “Ten thousand opportunities to return to God.”
This is the table set in the wilderness of this purging. A table of remembrance. The 
ongoing practice of seeking and finding builds a muscle memory not of absence but of presence. As the Lord says in Jeremiah, You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. The cry of the heart is not to become a seeker, but to become whole-hearted in our seeking.
This is a tremendous discovery on our path way through the wilderness of darkness to the Table of the Lord as the Lord himself instructed us through St Paul, that we are to do this in remembrance of him.
Many Christians are bent on finding sensual satisfaction in spiritual practices. If they do not feel anything then the conclusion is very often…nothing was accomplished. This is to judge God unworthily.
Christians still under Protest do not participate in the Lord’s Supper in their weekly gathering because they walk by sight. They do not sense anything happening in the sensory realm so they see no need in offering or participating in the unseen graces of the Sacrament.
They only desire to “experience” God as though he were comprehensible by them and accessible to them. It is impurity in faith.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in his meal be with your spirit.
The benefits which this Dark Night causes in the soul. It appears that blessings are being taken away rather than being given. God is now taking us from our swaddling clothes, setting us down from his arms and making us or if you prefer causing us to walk on our own two feet while being taken from the nursing breast to learn to eat the crust of the bread. All this is for the sake of growing the spirit of the wanderer in this Dark night.
The first benefit of the night watch is the knowledge of oneself and one’s misery. An awareness so excellent and necessary, considering itself now as nothing and finding no self satisfaction.
Only in the midst of an authentic community of self revelation and divine revelation is there the sanctuary of salvation’s health. This audit of our humanity brings us to such disclosure of both our spirit and God’s that we could never have come to without a scourging of the depths of our humanity and a grappling after God’s divinity.
This wandering in the lands of wonder are a victory and a vexation. The soul draws out of the wells of salvation in this dry, arid, desert a ladle of humility to drink from.
There are emerging degrees of this self emptying and pathless journey…
This is a death we do not accept, or can we accept, by ourselves. Only the Spirit of God can do this if we allow Him. Only after these degrees and stripping can we experience life in Christ as a rushing into the ocean, united with the Father in Christ.
4. The final stage is true apostolic life: The Spirit given realization that we possess nothing, that we are of value because of what we are not.
The enkindling of love is not as a rule felt at first, because it has not begun to take hold upon the soul. The soul feels that this thirst of love is a living thirst. It is not continuous, but occasional and at times more frequent and desperate.
Like one who has begun a cure, the soul knows only suffering in this dark and arid purgation of the desire. By this means it becomes healed of many imperfections and to make ready for this love.
The soul gains so many benefits that it holds it to be a “Happy Chance” to have escaped from the bonds ad restrictions of the sense of its lower self (ego, flesh) by the means of this Dark Night. At every step we stumbled into numerous imperfections and ignorances.
It will be a matter of great pleasure and consolation, to one that journeys on this road, to see how that which seems to the soul so severe and adverse, and so contrary to spiritual pleasure, works in it so many blessings.
St John of the Cross identifies this as the path into the strait gate and the narrow way that
leads to life. The strait gate is the night of the senses, and the soul detaches itself from sense and strips itself thereof that it may enter by the gate and establish itself in faith, which is a stranger to all sense, so that afterwards it may journey by the narrow way, which is the Other night…that of the spirit.
Remember, the just shall live by faith and walk by faith not by sight, and faith only operates by love and whatever doesn’t proceed forth from faith is sin…
To live by faith is…to not live by our ability, education, skill, intellect, hard work, gifts, inventions, disciplines, cleverness, etc. Faith is another way to live life on another dimension. Faith is not opposed to these other God given capacities and faculties, but faith has its reasons that reason knows nothing about. How skilled are we becoming in the practices of our faith?
The Dark Night leaves you barren to give birth, hungry to eat food that nobody else can see. It is the process of dying to self, to awakening to life in Christ, so that we can in all things be more than conquerors and overcomers…faith is the victory that overcomes the world. Faith moves mountains!
MICHAEL WELCHERT 
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