A soul aspiring to union with God must truly allow itself to be emptied and purified in radical ways. The road of purification can take a long time, or it can be relatively short in duration, depending in large part on how serious we are in mortifying our own self-absorbed tendencies. This is the primary lesson of these pages on the spiritual vices at the beginning of The Dark Night. The great need of our soul is to refine our desire to please God alone and to leave ourselves empty and unimportant in our own estimation. We have to give ourselves away, strip ourselves of self-preoccupation; it is never sufficient simply to be generous in charitable actions. The Gospel admonition to lose ourselves for love is an effort of interior and exterior demands that allows no compromise and no turning back on self. Such efforts are not without effect. They are the preparation for the purer longing for God and the accessibility to God that are traits of a soul ready to receive the grace of contemplation. –Father Donald Haggerty “St John of the Cross: Master of Contemplation”