Saint John of the Cross probes more forcefully here the need for a purification. The satisfaction that meditation had been providing, which is now painfully absent, may have been feeding a certain self-seeking in prayer. God begins to draw the soul away from a “lowly” manner of prayer that was to some degree rife with subtle tendencies of self-absorption. Meditative prayer may have become over time an effort to arrive at pleasing experiences for the self. Now God begins to strip this self-seeking from prayer by leaving the soul in dissatisfaction. In the view of Saint John of the Cross, a direct action of God, while concealed and secret, is implicitly present in the struggles that the soul undergoes at this time. These are not primarily struggles with a personal incapacity for prayer itself or a breakdown in general spiritual life. Rather, God is secretly at work emptying the soul in silent prayer for the sake of a greater encounter in faith with himself. The emphasis in the following passage from The Dark Night is on God’s watchful, overseeing role in the transitional period into contemplative prayer. The trials of that time are meant, not to impede prayer with insurmountable barriers, but to lead it to a new depth. The words in this passage of Saint John of the Cross begin with a sharp comment on meditative prayer. It is not that he is dismissive of this practice; it has its place in the formative period of spiritual life. But he is insistent that it is a type of prayer that must be forsaken with the advent of contemplative graces.

“Since the conduct of these beginners in the way of God is lowly and not too distant from love of pleasure and of self, as we explained, God desires to withdraw them from this base manner of loving and lead them on to a higher degree of divine love. And he desires to liberate them from the lowly exercise of the senses and of discursive meditation, by which they go in search of him so inadequately and with so many difficulties, and lead them into the exercise of spirit, in which they become capable of a communion with God that is more abundant and more free of imperfections. (Dark Night of the Soul)”

Father Donald Haggerty “St John of the Cross: Master of Contemplation”