What is the dark night of the senses?
The dark night is perhaps the most well-known expression from the writings of St. John of the Cross. But there also are a lot of misunderstandings about what he meant by this. Many people use the expression to refer to a particularly difficult experience or time in life: a terrible setback, a crisis of faith, an experience of intense psychological and emotional depression. They will say, "I experienced the dark night of the soul," or "That was my dark night." But St. John was not using the metaphor of the dark night to refer to trials in general. In describing the dark night of the senses, he refers primarily to a process of purification, by which we are separated from attachments to worldly pleasures of all kinds. To go through the dark night does not mean to have a particular experience but to undergo a process of purification. Whether this process happens slowly or quickly is within God's decision. But as it proceeds, the person surrenders and turns away from attachments. This process of purification is necessary to a deeper life of prayer. It starts with the dark night of the senses.
There is a well-known story from the life of St. Teresa of Avila, which illustrates how this purification can begin in a dramatic way. She had been in the convent of the Incarnation in Avila for almost 20 years, but by her own account, she was not a very good nun. She was personable and well-spoken, so her superiors gave her freedom to socialize and converse with other nuns and with visitors to the priory. This caused her to care too much for her friendships and for being admired by others. She was attached to "worldly honors and recreations," which were available even in a Carmelite convent. She valued these above progress in the spiritual life. Yet she also was conflicted; she sensed that she was not moving in the proper direction. She continued to be attracted to conversations that fed her vanity, but she also felt that her soul was in great danger. Then the decisive moment happened:
Well, my soul now was tired; and, in spite of its desire, my wretched habits would not allow it rest. It happened to me that one day entering the oratory I saw a statue they had borrowed for a certain feast to be celebrated in the house. It represented the much wounded Christ and was very devotional, so that beholding it I was utterly distressed in seeing Him that way, for it well represented what He suffered for us. I felt so keenly aware of how poorly I thanked Him for those wounds that, it seems to me, my heart broke. Beseeching Him to strengthen me once and for all that I might not offend Him, I threw myself down before Him with the greatest outpouring of tears.
After this experience, Teresa began to turn from vain socializing and to devote herself to prayer and to love of Jesus. That's not to say that she was immediately delivered from attachment to worldly pleasures. She admits that the feelings of the moment passed all too quickly. But what did not pass was her determination to stop trusting her desires for social approval, and to place all her trust in God. The process of purification from worldly pleasures had begun.
To begin to embrace this purification is to enter the dark night of the senses. We might not be favored with a sudden experience like this, which dramatically swings our hearts around to point in the right direction. But whether dramatically or not, we must begin, if we are to progress in prayer and draw closer to union with God.
Why does St. John of the Cross use the phrase "dark night of the senses"? He is not trying to dress up the experience in alluringly ambiguous language, and turn it into something esoteric. He wants us to understand that it is purification, but it also reveals a very deep mystery, of fallen human nature, and the grace of God. G.K. Chesterton says something very much on point, about the difference between true and false mysticism. A false mystic doesn’t reveal the truth; he hides it behind obscure language, and when you discover what it is, it’s just a platitude. A true mystic holds the truth up in the light and speaks about it as plainly as he can—and it remains a mystery.
The mystery of the dark night is that this process of purification is not just a self-improvement project. We can get only so far by our own efforts. As we move forward, applying ourselves to the task, but also relying on, clinging to, submitting to God, a new and intense purification starts to engage the attachments that hinder us. God in His great mercy begins to separate us from them. These two processes of purification are the active night and the passive night; in the active night, we are the primary source of progress; in the passive night, the action of grace is the primary source.
One reason why God does this is that beginners might not even be aware of what those attachments are. Sinful attachments obviously must be broken; but there are attachments that are not sinful in themselves but that will hinder progress. I might know that I must stop speaking uncharitably to my wife and family. I might be unaware, however, that progress in prayer also depends on breaking the habit of sleeping in every morning.
In describing the dark night of the senses, St. John of the Cross is not just giving us a method for living us a more virtuous life. He is teaching us how to pray. The dark night also describes the encounter with a different mode of prayer. The Catholic tradition refers to this as contemplation or contemplative prayer. It is the form of prayer in which God, rather than the person, is active to a greater or lesser degree. No one approaches the threshold of contemplative prayer without being willing to endure, and then embrace, the dark night of the senses.
Further resources
St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. I, Chapter 1, 3
St. Teresa of Avila, Life, Chapter 7 and 9