Fire Within by Thomas Dubay

Author:Thomas Dubay [Dubay, Fr. Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9781681491820
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2018-03-08T16:00:00+00:00

ST. TERESA’S EQUIVALENTS OF THE DARK NIGHTS

Although Teresa seldom if ever used the expression “dark nights”, she knew in her own experience the reality of dry, difficult, purifying prayer, and she wrote of it for the guidance of those who were to read her works. She differs from St. John of the Cross not in basic teaching but in the considerably less attention she gives to the problem46 and in the fact that what she does say seems to be concerned mostly with the second night. Because she did not think or write according to John’s categories, I shall not try to force her thought into his divisions. Rather, we shall consider her treatment just as it occurs in her works.

Even after she had attained to a lofty infused communion with God, what she called “perfect contemplation”, she experienced times of darkness, distraction and a plain inability to pray. She knew at these times that her will was with God and that, therefore, not all was lost, but still she could scarcely produce a single devotional thought. During this experience of emptiness she remarked that “I can’t even form in a fitting way a thought about God or of any good, or practice prayer, even though I’m in solitude; but I feel I know Him. I understand that it is the intellect and imagination that does me harm here, for the will is all right it seems to me and disposed toward every good.”47 She adds that she often undergoes this “scattering of the faculties”, and she is aware that while it can be caused by her poor physical health, yet it is also due to human woundedness, original sin and personal sin. She observes that “my lack of physical health has much to do with it. I frequently recall the harm original sin did to us; this is the source, I think, of our being incapable of enjoying so much good in an integral way. And my own sins must be a cause; if I hadn’t committed so many, I would be more integrated in good.”48 In this text the saint does not ascribe a purifying effect to the dark, dry knowing of God. To this extent she falls short of John’s explicit statements, but she does reflect his teaching that it is our sins that often impede our “enjoying so much good”.

A little before this section the saint describes a desolation at prayer that does not seem due to physical illness but to the terrifying purifications of the second night described by St. John of the Cross. Faith seems dead, though the virtue is not lost. The soul accepts what the Church holds, but the acceptance seems to be only words. The soul is so afflicted that it feels numb and knows God “almost as it does something it hears far in the distance”. Love feels lukewarm, and there is no recalling of the former experiences of deep prayer that were received. “Going to prayer or remaining in

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