Edward Yee
This year (2026) is particularly special for the Carmelite Doctor of the Church, St. John of the Cross. It is the tri-centennial of his canonization as well as the centennial of the official declaration as the Doctor of the Church. St. John of the Cross is most well-known for his “dark night.” On this tri-centennial anniversary, this article explores the dark night from the perspective of desire, which is a more accessible and practical approach.
The Dark Night: Mystical Encounter with the Risen Christ
St. John is not only a Carmelite priest, a reformer, and a saint, but also a renowned Spanish poet in the world of Spanish literature. “The Dark Night” is both the name of his poem and his book. Due to opposition to the Carmelite reform pioneered by St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, he was kidnapped by his Carmelite brothers and imprisoned in a tiny, dark cell within their Toledo monastery for nine months in 1577. It was a time of physical, psychological, and emotional suffering for the saint. Precisely in such extreme abandonment, hunger, poverty, and solitude, St. John cried to the Lord and out of such poverty, Christ communicates to him in the joy of great intensity. As the renowned Carmelite Sanjuanist expert, Fr. Iain Matthew OCD, explains, all of St. John’s poems and writings were from the perspective of such imprisonment, poetically expressing his mystical encounter with the Risen Christ.
“Nights” of the Sense and Spirit: Purifications with Detachments
St. John teaches that one begins in a state of disordered “appetite” due to original sin, which is characterized by a craving for both sensory and spiritual gratifications. St. John made himself clear: his “night” signifies the deprival of gratification of our desires – a purifying process to detachments in all things. (Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book one, chapter 3.1) St. John terms our active effort to detach as “active night”; God’s effort to detach us as “passive night”, which is totally in God’s hands. In the broadest and simplest terms, the “night of sense” is about getting our emotional sensory self in order by moving away from bad habits, sinful behaviors, unhealthy attachment to material things, moving towards truthful relationships, self-giving to others, conscious decisions to do acts of charity, prayers, and almsgiving. The “night of spirit” is about getting our relationship with God in order. This stage concerns both our motivations behind loving God and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Why would spiritual growth become disordered desires? St. John points out that, as some on this spiritual journey grow spiritually, they fall into arrogance, exhibiting their holiness with spiritual pride, becoming audacious in their dealings with God, relying on their natural knowledge and past religious experiences rather than God’s gift of virtues. (Dark Night, Book one, chapter 2)
These imperfect motivations to loving God block the spiritual journey. St. John advises those proficient in the “night of spirit” to observe humility and to “reject” and “pay no attention to” any natural or supernatural apprehension, remaining in the incomprehensible God and virtues of faith, hope, and charity. (e.g. Dark Night, Book two, chapter 2-3, 9.1, 16-17; Book one, chapter 10.)
The Dark Night as Healing: Transformation of Desires, not Desiring “Nothing”
St. John’s famous “nada” (meaning “nothing”) can easily mislead us to a “desireless” doctrine, something similar to Buddhism. However, we must not overlook the saint’s original intention – his poems, “Dark Night,” “Spiritual Canticle,” and “The Living Flame of Love”, which are filled with poetic imagery of the Lover’s desire and longing for the Beloved. Essentially, St. John’s doctrine is not about a “desireless” state or an unnatural suppression of desire, but the transformation of our desires, through detachments and God’s grace, to purely desire God for the sake of God’s love. A soul with disordered desires is, in fact, a wounded soul. We suffer from false ideas in our intellect about our relationship to God; we suffer from unhealthy attention in our memories of past harmful events; we suffer from inordinated attachments in our wills, leading to choices with unsatisfying consequences. The “night of spirit” transforms our souls supernaturally with faith, hope, and charity through God’s love. Faith leads to understanding of the true God. Hope liberates our memories from our earthly painful past to God’s providential future. Charity guides our will to the true love of God and the love of our neighbor, making the right choice of actions most pleasing to God.
Reflections: Am I too attached to certain things/people? Has my mind been mostly occupied by certain emotions? What should I be actively detached from? What roles have God played among these things? Do I need the “night of sense”?
While we desire God’s help in our lives, God, in fact, also persistently desires us to seek and talk to Him. In this new year, it will be a good time to reassess our spiritual life and embark on our journey of “dark nights.”
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