Lectio
“Souls begin to enter this dark night when God, gradually drawing them out of the state of beginners (those who practice meditation on the spiritual road), begins to place them in the state of proficients (those who are already contemplatives), so that by passing through this state they might reach that of the perfect, which is the divine union of the soul with God.”
— St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night
Meditatio
God allows us to experience forsakenness from His divine consolation — the dark night as St. John of the Cross calls it — to wean us off of our reliance on anything and everything other than God, including the comfort of His loving presence. This grace is offered regardless; our willingness to receive it is what allows us to feel it draw us nearer to Him, trusting Him even when we do not feel Him.
God does this not to punish us, for the dark night is different from the desolation felt by way of sin. Neither has He abandoned us in our forsakenness. Rather, He allows us to feel the absence of His presence so that we can say yes to Him with no reward other than Him.
Like Christ on the Cross who, in His hour of need, cried out to His Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” not because Jesus had done anything wrong, but in perfect obedience to His Father’s will, stripped of all dignity, earthly power, and the immediate reward of the Father’s presence to Him — even in receiving the sour wine offered Him at the last — Jesus did not turn back, He did not back down, never wavering from His perfect yes to the Father — showing us what true love looks like.
And through this act of pure and perfect love for our sake, Christ, as man united to God and God united to man, overcame every temptation set before Him — from the wilderness to the Cross — freeing all who would follow Him from the bondage of the false self that tells us we need consolation at every turn. On the Cross, Christ gave Himself to the Father in an act of pure faith so that, through Him and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we may do the same.
Christ did this so that, in our own dark night, when we cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, we may know that we are not alone, for He has experienced this darkness for us and He abides in this darkness with us, sustaining us through it as the Father draws us into pure and perfect love with Godself.
Oratio
Nothing But You
in the darkness
I reach for comfort
grasping for anything
everything
but You
when all I want
is You
but You have left me here
alone
inconsolable
crying out Your Name
why Lord?
why?
my heart aches
for You
nothing can reach me
but You
why Lord?
why can I not have You?
Contemplatio
The absence you feel is not His leaving; it is His drawing you deeper than feeling can reach. Let your own cry — why, Lord? — become the very place where He meets you. Stay in the quiet with this, saying yes to whatever He wants to stir in you.
Related Scripture
“Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the voice of his servant, who walks in darkness and has no light, yet trusts in the name of the LORD and relies upon his God?”
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Grace Receiving Grace: John of the Cross and the Gift of Contemplation, which turns from the ache of feeling forsaken toward the deeper truth that even our longing for God is itself already His gift, received rather than earned.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
Leave a Reply