ALONG WITH HIS gentle hand He wounded my neck And caused

all my senses to become suspended.

Part poetic masterpiece, part mystic treatise, The Dark

Night of the Spirit by 16th century Carmelite monk,

St. John from the Cross, addresses the feeling of being

forgotten by the Presence of the Almighty that each

Christian desirous of walking more carefully with God

must go through in order to find out to walk by faith and

not by view.

Spiritual people suffer great studies…by reason…of the

dread about Dark Night of the Soul that they have to be lost on the road, thinking

that all spiritual blessing has ended for them and that God

has left behind them since they discover no help or enjoyment

in good stuff. Then they grow weary, and endeavor to

focus their faculties with some extent of pleasure

upon some object of deep breathing, convinced that, when

they are not doing this yet are conscious of making

an effort, these are doing nothing.

One of the most widely recognized of the mystical

writings, St. John’s traditional Dark Nights the Soul isn’t

only useful theology but a beautiful balm of curing to

anyone whose center provides ever echoed the words of Christ,

“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”