The higher he ascends
the less he understands,
because the cloud is dark
which lit up the night;
whoever knows this
remains always in unknowing
transcending all knowledge.

To anyone first experiencing it, the obscure sense in prayer of losing a hold on God, and even, strangely, of not knowing him, may appear to be a sign almost of a spiritual illness. But the experience is not an unhealthy state, and it is important that this is realized without much delay. A painful sense of incomprehension toward God is an aspect of deeper interior prayer. There are clear reasons for this experience of darkness, even as it causes confusion in prayer. The disproportion between the nature of God and our own limited human nature becomes an experience in prayer to the degree that our soul draws nearer to God. Even as God loves us in great tenderness and mercy, there remains a measureless chasm between God and our soul.

‘St John of the Cross: Master of Contemplation’ by Father Donald Haggerty

In later spiritual theology, the word “ligature” recently mentioned became useful for describing the binding or tightening effect on the faculties in their incapacity to exercise themselves in discursive meditation or to find satisfaction in it. This tying down of the faculties extends into the early period of contemplation. Everything now in prayer becomes at times very dim and imperceptible to the soul. Grace is at work in drawing the soul to the deeper quiet where God hides his presence in the inner recesses and caverns of the soul. But for the moment, the soul is unable to appreciate what is happening. It is conscious more of the tightness it feels and the inability to move freely in any internal activity. The inclination gently stirring within the soul from infused grace is not so noticeable. What our soul does know, if it is attentive to its inner inclination, is a desire to be alone with God in silence, which compensates for the tightening of the faculties and their incapacity: “Ordinarily this contemplation, which is secret and hidden from the very one who receives it, imparts to the soul, together with the dryness and emptiness it produces in the senses, an inclination to remain alone and in quietude” (DN 1.9.6). And yet it is often the case that souls do not surrender to this inclination to remain quietly alone with God. The reason is usually the confused state of the experience in the early period of contemplation. The following passage from The Dark Night insists on the importance, in effect, of an exercise of spiritual intelligence in allowing God to do his work of sanctification in this new experience of contemplation. Receptive surrender to God is always the key disposition that a soul should cultivate in contemplation.

“And even though more scruples come to the fore concerning the loss of time and the advantages of doing something else, since it cannot do anything or think of anything in prayer, the soul should endure them peacefully, as though going to prayer means remaining in ease and freedom of spirit. If individuals were to desire to do something themselves with their interior faculties, they would hinder and lose the goods that God engraves on their souls through that peace and idleness. If a model for the painting or retouching of a portrait should move because of a desire to do something, the artist would be unable to finish and the work would be spoiled. Similarly, any operation, affection, or thought a soul might cling to when it wants to abide in interior peace and idleness would cause distraction and disquietude, and make it feel sensory dryness and emptiness. The more a person seeks some support in knowledge and affection the more the soul will feel the lack of these, for this support cannot be supplied through these sensory means.” (Dark Night of the Soul)

“Saint John of the Cross: Master of Contemplation” written by Father Donald Haggerty

The soul is not plunging into a state of quietistic oblivion. It is not disappearing into an inward state of nothingness, with a loss of identity and all awareness. The passivity stressed by Saint John of the Cross has to do with the withdrawal from any active pursuit of a knowledge or an experience. The passivity is in the refusal to direct or control what is taking place. The soul allows God to take the lead. On the other hand, there is a certain active receptivity necessary in such prayer, at least in its beginnings. Our soul must accept the inclination that it delicately experiences of being drawn to an inner “cavern” of loving quiet where a desire for God is present deeply within it. The effort, mildly and gently undertaken, is to remain open, receptive, free to being drawn, but refusing as well to grasp at an experience or at any kind of knowledge. As Saint John of the Cross just affirmed in the last passage, one is not entirely passive in keeping one’s eyes open to receive light. The surrender to that light occurs passively but cannot take place except that
our soul is willing to be receptive and does not obstruct this receptive disposition. The result is a knowledge bestowed on the soul by a love to which it surrenders itself. As Saint John of the Cross writes: “This reception of the light infused supernaturally into the soul is passive knowing. It is affirmed that these individuals do nothing, not because they fail to understand but because they understand with no effort other than receiving what is bestowed. This is what happens when God bestows illuminations and inspirations, although here the person freely receives this general obscure knowledge” (AMC 2.15.2).

It is important also to reaffirm that the inclination to remain alone and quiet with God, in a peaceful desire and loving awareness, without making acts or pursuing discursive exercises, must be a real state of grace granted to a soul. The danger in the realm of deeper prayer is to seek possessively after a “state of prayer” that is not being given by grace. There are people who might choose by way of preference to cultivate a state of “induced quietude” in prayer. The practice, for instance, of slowly repeating a single word or a mantra, as so-called “centering prayer” teaches, can be an example of this. The method may bring a “quietude” to the psyche, emptying thoughts from the mind and conveying a noticeable tranquility to the inner feelings. But these effects have their likely source in the rhythmic repetition of the mantra. It is a serious misrepresentation to identify this practice and its effects with genuine contemplative prayer. The symptoms induced by the method are quite capable of coexisting with an indifference in some lives to grave personal immorality. That in itself should raise questions. No method of prayer advertised as a contemplative practice of prayer can dispense with the need to pursue virtuous and sacrificial living. Even for a person in a state of grace, however, the inward quiet and tranquilizing peace experienced in pseudo-contemplative approaches pose a dubious and deluding feature. These effects are generally sought as a goal in themselves as part of a self-oriented pursuit, rather than coming as an inclination moved by a grace drawing the soul to God. In that case, the real focus is not directed toward God. And the passivity of inner emptiness, with the mind doing nothing, becomes over time a harmful condition for a soul. The person would not be turning with loving attentiveness to God, but descending into a progressive exercise in self-absorption. The fruits, as always, are seen in time. Without addressing, of course, contemporary practices, Saint John of the Cross is nonetheless clear on the importance of a careful discernment.

St John of the Cross: Master of Contemplation written by Father Donald Haggerty

The ease with which contemplation can take place when a soul is accustomed to approach God with a deeper surrender of itself is evident in this passage. The great soul at this time, on the other hand, as mentioned already, lies in an excessively conscientious approach to prayer that resists adaptation. And in a real sense, this involves a lack of surrender to God. The conscientiousness to “do prayer” as taught in one’s training is not necessarily a virtue; it actually can be a fault that makes a soul reluctant to alter its ways. The person may have become accustomed for many months, sometimes for years, to fill a silent time of prayer with an imaginative gaze on the Gospel or in searching for spiritual insights. The familiarity of the method has trained the person to seek satisfaction in the acquisition of new thoughts or in the enjoyment of some felt sense of loving God. The virtuous resolutions that may conclude such
prayer give the time of prayer a sense of a purposefulness. For many souls, it becomes very hard to accept that a prayer less active, less searching, a prayer more inconclusive, more open-ended, can be an advancement in prayer. The suggestion to remain quiet seems to invite the laziness of nonactivity into prayer and to yield fruitless results. As we have mentioned, these souls, if they are receiving contemplative graces, are the fervent and dedicated people of the spiritual life. They are people who do give themselves generously in charity and to the will of God. They work hard and spend themselves. Otherwise, the grace of contemplation would not be occurring. But it is precisely this conscientiousness that can work against them at this time. They are not acclimated to a more receptive acceptance of subtle graces from
God. If the person can trust inwardly and allow the soul to follow its deeper instinct of love, as described in the fifth sign, then the door opens to the graced inner desire to seek nothing but to love God in prayer. Unfortunately, an active mentality may tend for a time to resist the “apparent” abandonment of concrete fruits from its prayer. Such a soul may prefer, as Saint John of the Cross comments, to do over and over again what has been done and completed already. The aversion can be strong to doing what is thought to be doing nothing. Yet how mistaken this may be. Saint John of the Cross employs a striking image: removing the rind from a piece of fruit, so that it is ready to eat, and then trying to peel it once again:

“Many behave similarly at the beginning of this state. They think that the whole matter [of prayer] consists in understanding particular ideas and in reasoning through images and forms (the rind of the spirit). Since they do not encounter these images in that loving, substantial quietude where nothing is understood particularly and in which they like to rest, they believe they are wasting time and straying from the right road; and they turn back to search for the rind of images and reasoning. They are unsuccessful in their search because the rind has already been removed. (AMC 2.14.4)”

Saint John of the Cross: Master of Contemplation written by Father Donald Haggerty

But when the soul becomes more seized by love for God, the isolated and separate acts of love that may occur inconsistently at various times in meditative prayer are likely, with the onset of contemplative graces, to fuse together into a more continual longing of love. What has just been said has a parallel truth in the life of charity toward others, and this, too, is a symptom of crossing the threshold into contemplation. Over time, the soul itself, and not just the particular acts it performs, can become full of a steady quality of love. It is as though the flame of loving desire for God now burns almost without ceasing. This more continual state of a longing for God and for his will is an essential condition for contemplation. Saint John of the Cross teaches that sometimes God favors a soul and draws it into the loving knowledge of contemplation without a great need for prior acts of knowledge and insight gained through meditation. –St John of the Cross: Master of Contemplation written by Father Donald Haggerty

St John of the Cross Adoring