Originally posted by familyman:
Hello and happy Easter to you Ray.
Etc.
Rick
Rick�
I am sorry I didn�t notice this reply before now.
Of course - relinquishing control is like death. So it is to us all. It is like death on the cross.
You said �This is such a real and huge force that the thought of what suffering it must take to be free of this web is significant.�
Sometimes yes - sometimes no. It is far less suffering if we know - what is taking place and its purpose. The dark night of St. John of the Cross (blindness of intellect and paralization of will) is not so bad when you know it is a dark night happening - and you know there is another side that you will come out on.
Some spiritual people - after experiencing the dark night and its results - long for it to come again and try to bring that about. God tolerates that for a while but ultimately wants us to know that it is not our doing nor brought about by - methods. Providence triggers the dark night (that means an arrangement of events that happen to us are the exterior trigger of the internal dark night).
Once St. John of the Cross experienced the dark-night - triggered by his imprisonment at Teledo - upon his release (flying high in the spirit now) when that began to wear away (as it does) he began to punish himself by self whipping. That period lasted a little less than a year I believe. He was trying to bring about - the dark night in which he was �secretly� given so much transforming grace. And so you will see some of his portraits with his flaggation whip in his hand. While biographers not his self inflicted whipping - they do not note that John finialy came to know that - this was a waste of his time. Providence alone - can trigger or bring about the Dark Night. God has - his own mind.
We, who have forgotten the spiritual fathers as they talk about the stages of the mystical life - and the extreme importance of Providence and its own arrangement of events - although we seem to have forgotten these things - that is still the way it works.
We often mistake the dark night - for just plain old human depression. And so we offer no cooperation - and we benefit only a little because we want it to stop. I remember advising someone on contemplation � and when I did - many people responded because it hit a key note. He wrote in a forum that he had been praying very earnestly that God change him - and that he had dedicated himself to contemplation - but his contemplation was not working because he found himself getting depressed and everything just seemed to be going wrong in his life. After a little discernment - I wrote him back �So - now you complain because God has decided to do - what you begged him to do?�
You see the dark night is experience by us a similar to depression. The physiological and psychological things are the same. It takes a little smarts to determine if it is a dark night sent by God or if it is psychological depression cause by our own subconscious triggers. You see God - knows our triggers. But - good news!! No matter the cause - how we should act in mind and spirit - under either - is the same. Faith - trust - patience - duty - not panic - and not try to escape the suffering through acts of moral sin. Excuse my French - but when depressed some people go out and �get laid� or hit the drugs or drowned their feeling of self in drink. Or perhaps steal for a thrill - any of these immoral acts will break a depression - and put a stop to a dark night.
God must purge us first (make some changes in our spirit - out mind - our psyche and subconscious habits) before he can give himself more - to us.
This includes purging us from our limited and often wrong ideas - about him. God must also purge us of �God� (our concepts of him) before he can give us more of the real thing. In fact - it is like a ladder - in as much as God will give us a grace to fortify us - and then plunge us into the dark night - and then flood us with grace that we experience - and then later that fades - and he gives us a grace to fortify us and again more purging - etc.. etc� as Gregory of Nyssa notes �from glory to glory� with darkness between each �glory�.
So for us who simply just do not know how God works in our soul - and what his purposes are - we would like to be tickled pink with thoughts of God at all times and think that the path of holiness is a continue happiness all over that keeps on getting better. �Boing� - that is not what the Doctors of the Church tell us. But of course - we don�t read them - so we don�t know that.
The very first thing God would like to do - is wean us from our subconscious connection between God and our emotions. We want nice emotions in prayer - and nice emotions and happiness in our daily life - and that is feelings of the body and lower levels of our spirit (psychology). We equate these good feelings with God himself. But any thing of the senses (body or lower mind senses) simply can not experience God - at all. So they are not a good judge of God nor grace. But still - we use them as a gauge for how good we are doing in prayer - and how pleased God is with us.
We imagine that �If I do well - I shall have peace and happiness and life will go smooth for me.� and that is not true (unless God has given up on us).
If one does not know how God works - in the soul and in our spirit (or knows to little) than one will not recognize God acting upon oneself. And can not offer a knowing cooperation. If one does know a bit of something about how and why God purges us and alternately enlightens us (stick and carrot) ten ones faith and hope and charity are increased - because he actually experiences God working in himself. And begins to recognize that all is not coincidence - by that some things and events in his life are synchronized to interior events of soul and mind.
May I recommend to you the book Abandonment To Divine Providence by Caussade. Caussade may be long dead - but his spiritual direction continues. If you accept him as a spiritual father he will accept you as a spiritual son.
I will tell you outright that most spiritual directors today have a head full of methods and quotes from books - and no real experience. You are most times better off with a local parish priest who you senses is a good priest with some holiness to him. His human advise and friendship will be much better than those who think they are holy spiritual directors just because their heads are full of spiritual books or they were �trained� in it. That advise comes from Teresa The Little Flower - and I find it to be true.
-ray
