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1. This glad night and purgation causes many benefits even though to the soul it
seemingly deprives it of them. So numerous are these benefits that, just as
Abraham made a great feast on the day of his son Isaac's weaning [Gn. 21:8],
there is rejoicing in heaven that God has now taken from this soul its swaddling
clothes; that he has put it down from his arms and is making it walk alone; that
he is weaning it from the delicate and sweet food of infants and making it eat
bread with crust; and that the soul is beginning to taste the food of the strong
(the infused contemplation of which we have spoken1), which in these sensory
aridities and darknesses is given to the spirit that is dry and empty of the
satisfactions of sense.
2. The first and chief benefit this dry and dark night of contemplation causes
is the knowledge of self and of one's own misery. Besides the fact that all the
favors God imparts to the soul are ordinarily wrapped in this knowledge, the
aridities and voids of the faculties in relation to the abundance previously
experienced and the difficulty encountered in the practice of virtue make the
soul recognize its own lowliness and misery, which was not apparent in the time
of its prosperity.
There is a good figure of this in Exodus where God, desiring
to humble the children of Israel and make them know themselves, ordered them to
remove their festive garments and the adornments they had been wearing in the
desert: From now on leave aside your festive ornaments and put on common working
garments that you may be aware of the treatment you deserve [Ex. 33:5]. This was
like saying: Since the clothing you wear, being of festivity and mirth, is an
occasion for your not feeling as lowly as you in fact are, put it aside, so that
seeing the vileness of your dress you may know yourself and your just deserts.
As a result the soul recognizes the truth about its misery, of which it was
formerly ignorant. When it was walking in festivity, gratification, consolation,
and support in God, it was more content, believing that it was serving God in
some way. Though this idea of serving God may not be explicitly formed in a
person's mind, at least some notion of it is deeply embedded within, owing to
the satisfaction derived from one's spiritual exercises. Now that the soul is
clothed in these other garments of labor, dryness, and desolation, and its
former lights have been darkened, it possesses more authentic lights in this
most excellent and necessary virtue of self-knowledge. It considers itself to be
nothing and finds no satisfaction in self because it is aware that of itself it
neither does nor can do anything.
God esteems this lack of self-satisfaction and
the dejection persons have about not serving him more than all their former
deeds and gratifications, however notable they may have been, since they were
the occasion of many imperfections and a great deal of ignorance. Not only the
benefits we mentioned result from this garment of dryness but also those of
which we will now speak, and many more, for they flow from self-knowledge as
from their fount.
3. First, individuals commune with God more respectfully and courteously, the
way one should always converse with the Most High. In the prosperity of their
satisfaction and consolation as beginners, they did not act thus, for that
satisfying delight made them somewhat more daring with God than was proper, and
more discourteous and inconsiderate. This is what happened to Moses: When he
heard God speaking to him, he was blinded by that gratification and desire and
without any further thought would have dared to approach God, if he had not been
ordered to stop and take off his shoes [Ex. 3:4-5]. This instance denotes the
respect and discretion, the nakedness of appetite, with which one ought to
commune with God. Consequently when Moses was obedient to this command, he was
so discreet and cautious that Scripture says he not only dared not approach but
did not even dare look [Ex. 3:6; Acts 7:32]. Having left aside the shoes of his
appetites and gratifications, he was fully aware of his misery in the sight of
God, for this was the manner in which it was fitting for him to hear God's word.
Similarly, Job was not prepared for converse with God by means of those delights
and glories that he says he was accustomed to experience in his God. But the
preparation for this converse embodied nakedness on a dunghill, abandonment and
even persecution by his friends, the fullness of anguish and bitterness, and the
sight of the earth round about him covered with worms [Jb. 2:8; 30:17-18]. Yet
the most high God, he who raises the poor from the dunghill [Ps. 112:7], was
then pleased to descend and speak face to face with him and reveal the deep
mysteries of his wisdom, which he never did before in the time of Job's
prosperity [Jb. 38-41].
4. Since this is the proper moment, we ought to point out another benefit
resulting from this night and dryness of the sensory appetite. So that the
prophecy - your light will illumine the darkness [Is. 58:10] - may be verified,
God will give illumination by bestowing on the soul not only knowledge of its
own misery and lowliness but also knowledge of his grandeur and majesty. When
the sensory appetites, gratifications, and supports are quenched, the intellect
is left clean and free to understand the truth, for even though these appetites
and pleasures concern spiritual things, they blind and impede the spirit.
Similarly, the anguish and dryness of the senses illumine and quicken the
intellect, as Isaiah affirms: Vexation makes one understand [Is. 28:19]. But God
also, by means of this dark and dry night of contemplation, supernaturally
instructs in his divine wisdom the soul that is empty and unhindered (which is
the requirement for his divine inpouring), which he did not do through the
former satisfactions and pleasures.
5. Isaiah explains this clearly: To whom will God teach his knowledge? And to
whom will he explain his message? To them that are weaned, he says, from the
milk, and to them who are drawn away from the breasts [Is. 28:9]. This passage
indicates that the preparation for this divine inpouring is not the former milk
of spiritual sweetness or aid from the breast of the discursive meditations of
the sensory faculties that the soul enjoyed, but the privation of one and a
withdrawal from the other.
In order to hear God, people should stand firm and be
detached in their sense life and affections, as the prophet himself declares: I
will stand on my watch (with detached appetite) and will fix my foot (I will not
meditate with the sensory faculties) in order to contemplate (understand) what
God says to me [Hb. 2:1].
We conclude that self-knowledge flows first from this
dry night, and that from this knowledge as from its source proceeds the other
knowledge of God. Hence St. Augustine said to God: Let me know myself, Lord, and
I will know you.2 For as the philosophers say, one extreme is clearly known by
the other.3
6. For a more complete proof of the efficacy of this sensory night in producing
through its dryness and destitution the light here received from God, we will
quote that passage from David in which the great power of this night in relation
to the lofty knowledge of God is clearly shown. He proclaims: In a desert land,
without water, dry, and without a way, I appeared before you to be able to see
your power and your glory. [Ps. 63:1-2]. David's teaching here is admirable:
that the means to the knowledge of the glory of God were not the many spiritual
delights and gratifications he had received, but the sensory aridities and
detachments referred to by the dry and desert land. And it is also wonderful
that, as he says, the way to the experience and vision of the power of God did
not consist in ideas and meditations about God, of which he had made extensive
use. But it consisted in not being able either to grasp God with ideas or walk
by means of discursive, imaginative meditation, which is here indicated by the
land without a way.
Hence the dark night with its aridities and voids is the
means to the knowledge of both God and self. However, the knowledge given in
this night is not as plenteous and abundant as that of the other night of
spirit, for the knowledge of this night is as it were the foundation of the
other.4
7. In the dryness and emptiness of this night of the appetite, a person also
procures spiritual humility, that virtue opposed to the first capital vice,
spiritual pride. Through this humility acquired by means of self-knowledge,
individuals are purged of all those imperfections of the vice of pride into
which they fell in the time of their prosperity. Aware of their own dryness and
wretchedness, the thought of their being more advanced than others does not even
occur in its first movements, as it did before; on the contrary, they realize
that others are better.
8. From this humility stems love of neighbor, for they esteem them and do not
judge them as they did before when they were aware that they enjoyed an intense
fervor while others did not.
These persons know only their own misery and keep
it so much in sight that they have no opportunity to watch anyone else's
conduct. David while in this night gives an admirable manifestation of such a
state of soul: I became dumb, and was humbled, and I kept silent in good things,
and my sorrow was renewed [Ps. 39:2]. He says this because it seemed to him that
his blessings had so come to an end that not only was he unable to find words
for them, but he also became silent concerning his neighbor, in the sorrow he
experienced from the knowledge of his own misery. These individuals also become
submissive and obedient in their spiritual journey. Since they are so aware of
their own wretchedness, they not only listen to the teaching of others but even
desire to be directed and told what to do by anyone at all. The affective
presumption they sometimes had in their prosperity leaves them. And, finally, as
they proceed on their journey, all the other imperfections of this first vice,
spiritual pride, are swept away.
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