The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The Dark Night of the Soul

The dark night, through which the soul passes, on its way to the Divine light of the perfect union of the love of God — so far as it is in this life possible — requires for its explanation greater experience and light of knowledge than I possess. For so great are the trials, and so profound the darkness, spiritual as well as corporal, which souls must endure, if they will attain to perfection, that no human knowledge can comprehend them, nor experience describe them. He only who has passed through them can know them, but even he cannot explain them. Therefore, while touching but slightly on the subject of this dark night, I trust neither to experience nor to knowledge, for both may mislead me; but solely to the Holy Scriptures, under “the teaching of which I cannot err, because he who speaks therein is the Holy Ghost. Nevertheless, I accept the aid of experience and knowledge, and if through ignorance I should err, it is not my intention to depart from the sound doctrine of our holy mother the Catholic Church. I resign myself absolutely to her light, and bow down before her decisions, and moreover to the better judgment herein of private men, be they who they may.

It is not any personal fitness which I recognise in myself that has led me to undertake this work, so high and so difficult, but solely my trust in our Lord, Who, I hope, will enable me to speak on account of the great necessities of many souls. Many persons begin to walk in the way of virtue — our Lord longing to lead them into the obscure night that they may travel onwards into the Divine union —-hut make no progress; sometimes because they will not enter upon this night, or suffer Him to lead them into it; and sometimes also because they do not understand their own state, and are destitute of fit and wise directors who may guide them to the summit of the mount. How miserable it is to see many souls, to whom God has given grace to advance —and who, had they taken courage, would have’ reached perfection — remain satisfied with narrow-minded views of God’s dealings, through want of will or through ignorance, or because there is not one to direct their steps, and to teach them how to go onwards from the beginning. And in the end, when our Lord has compassion on them, and leads them on in spite of these hindrances, they arrive late, with much difficulty, and less merit, because they have not…