December 8th, 2025

The Dark Night of the Soul

No images? Click here Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations   Week Fifty: The Hidden Work of Grace Sunday, December 7, 2025 Second Sunday of Advent     READ ON CAC.ORG     Trusting the Unknown Path   Father Richard Rohr describes how he came to trust God in times of uncertainty and even apparent darkness: I came out of the seminary in 1970 thinking that my job was to have an answer for every question. What I’ve learned is that not-knowing and often not even needing to know are—surprise of surprises—deeper ways of knowing and a deeper falling into compassion. This is surely what the mystics mean by “death” and why they talk of it with so many metaphors. It is the essential transition. Maybe that is why Jesus praised faith even more than love; maybe that is why St. John of the Cross called faith “luminous darkness.” Yes, love is the final goal but ever deeper trust inside of darkness is the path for getting there. [1] My good friend Gerald May shed fresh light on the meaning of John of the Cross’ phrase “the dark night of the soul.” He said that God has to work in the soul in secret and  in darkness, because if we fully knew what was happening, and what Mystery/God/grace will eventually ask of us, we would either try to take charge or to stop the whole process. May writes: The dark night is a profoundly good thing. It is an ongoing spiritual process in which we are liberated from attachments and compulsions and empowered to live and love more freely. Sometimes this letting go of old ways is painful, occasionally even devastating. But this is not why the night is called “dark.” The darkness of the night implies nothing sinister, only that the liberation takes place in hidden ways, beneath our knowledge and understanding. It happens mysteriously, in secret, and beyond our conscious control. [2] No one oversees their own demise willingly, even when it is the false self that is dying. God has to undo our illusions secretly, as it were, when we are not watching and not in perfect control, say the mystics. We move forward in ways that we do not even understand and through the quiet workings of time and grace, as “deep calls unto deep” (Psalm 42:8). In other words, the Spirit initiates deep resonance and intimacy with our spirit, as the endless divine yes evokes an ever-deeper yes in us. [3] As James Finley, one of CAC’s core faculty members, says, “The mystic is not someone who says, ‘Look what I have done!’ The mystic is one who says, ‘Look what love has done to me. There’s nothing left but God’s intimate love giving itself to me as me.’ That’s the blessedness in poverty: when all in us that is not God dissolves, and we finally realize that we are already as beautiful as God is beautiful, because God gave the infinite beauty of God as who we are.” [4]   SHARE THIS MEDITATION     Being Salt and Light   Explore Further   Practice With Us   New at CAC     Story From Our Community As people are in a frenzy preparing for Christmas and the summer break here in the Southern Hemisphere, I’ve noticed feeling irritable, disconnected, and a little jealous. I am working straight through the traditional holiday break. Reading the meditations this time of Advent has been a pool of life, providing me with a deeper understanding of Jesus’s call to “abide in me,” which puts my irritability and jealousy into perspective. The meditations remind me that I am never disconnected; sometimes it just feels like it. Thank you. May you have peace this holiday season.  —Sarah B.  Share your own story with us.     Was this meditation shared with you? Subscribe to the Daily Meditations. SUBSCRIBE     References [1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, rev. ed. (Franciscan Media, 2022), 38. [2] Gerald G. May, The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth (HarperOne, 2004), 4–5. [3] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, rev. ed. (Jossey-Bass, 2024), 32. [4] James Finley, Intimacy: The Divine Ambush (Center for Action and Contemplation, 2013). Available as MP3 audio download. Image credit and inspiration: Laura Barbato, untitled (detail), 2020, photo, Italy, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Wiping the fog from the window becomes our small gesture of being in the Dark Night—an embodied “I’m here” that reaches for clarity amid unknowing, while the small, steady candle reminds us that the spirit still burns softly even when the season feels bright and our inner world does not.      The work of the Center for Action and Contemplation is possible only because of people like you! Learn more about how you can help support this work.         Copyright © 2025 | Center for Action and Contemplation. All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 1705 Five Points Road SW Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA 87105 Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe. Unsubscribe