The Ascent of Mount CarmelChapter II. The nature and cause of the dark night

‘In a dark night.’—The journey of the soul to the divine union is called night for three reasons. The first is derived from the point from which the soul sets out, the privation of the desire of all pleasure in all the things of this world, by detachment therefrom. This is as night for every desire and sense of man. The second, from the road by which it travels; that is faith, for faith is obscure, like night, to the understanding. The third, from the goal to which it tends, God, incomprehensible and infinite, Who in this life is as night to the soul. We must pass through these three nights if we are to attain to the divine union with God.

2. They are foreshadowed in Holy Scripture by the three nights which were to elapse, according to the command of the angel, between the betrothal and the marriage of the younger Tobias. ‘When thou shalt take her,’ said the angel, ‘entering into the chamber, for three - days be continent from her.’¹ On the first night he was to burn the liver of the fish in the fire, which is the heart, the affections of which are set on the things of this world, and which, if it will enter on the road that leadeth unto God, must be burned up, and purified of all created things in the fire of His love. This purgation drives away the evil spirit who has dominion over our soul, because of our attachment to those pleasures which flow from temporal and corporeal things.

3. ‘The second night,’ said the angel, ‘thou shalt be admitted into the society of the holy patriarchs,’ the fathers of the faith. The soul having passed the first night, which is the privation of all sensible things, enters immediately into the second night, alone in pure faith, and by it alone directed: for faith is not subject to sense.

4. ‘The third night,’ said the angel, ‘thou shalt obtain a blessing ’—that is, God, Who, in the second night of faith, communicates Himself so secretly and so intimately to the soul. This is another night, inasmuch as this communication is more obscure than the others, as I shall presently explain. When this night is over, which is the accomplishment of the communication of God in spirit, ordinarily effected when the soul is in great darkness, the union with the bride, which is the wisdom of God, immediately ensues. The angel adds also, saying to Tobias, ‘When the third night is passed, thou shalt take the virgin with the fear of our Lord.’ This fear and the love of God become perfect together, and are then perfect when the soul is by love transformed in God.

5. I shall speak of these three causes separately, that they may be the better understood, first reminding the reader that the three nights are but one divided into three parts. The first, which is that of sense, may be likened to the commencement of night when material objects begin to be invisible. The second, of faith, may be compared to mid-night, which is utter darkness. The third resembles the close of night, which is God, when the dawn of day is at hand.