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The Dark Night: Psychological Experience and Spiritual Reality
Reading St. John of the Cross’s Dark Night can be daunting; living the dark experience of purification it describes can be much more so. The description of the dark nights (yes, there is more than one!) which St. John presents seems so stark and painful that one might be tempted to just close the book and stop reading. On top of that, both the process St. John describes and the language he uses can be confusing and intimidating.
The language of 16th-century scholasticism is not easily understood by 21st-century readers living in a completely different culture and context. Perhaps even more challenging is that fact that our modern lives, filled with the non-stop clutter of social media and technology, as well as comfort and ease, do not prepare most of us well to honestly look into our own depths to see who we are and who we are intended to become as fully alive human beings.
Fortunately we now have this helpful book to guide us to that full life which St. John invites us to in The Dark Night. Father Marc Foley here combines his own theological and psychological background, as well as his experience as a spiritual guide, to help modern readers understand the experiences, challenges, and graced events of the purifying nights of sense and spirit.
In addition to exploring certain key terms that John uses in Spanish and their meaning in the saint’s time and today, Father Marc includes pertinent selections from a wide range of writers, ancient to modern, that illustrate the themes he covers. Each chapter concludes with insightful questions for personal reflection or group discussion. The book has a comprehensive and fully linked index.
The language of 16th-century scholasticism is not easily understood by 21st-century readers living in a completely different culture and context. Perhaps even more challenging is that fact that our modern lives, filled with the non-stop clutter of social media and technology, as well as comfort and ease, do not prepare most of us well to honestly look into our own depths to see who we are and who we are intended to become as fully alive human beings.
Fortunately we now have this helpful book to guide us to that full life which St. John invites us to in The Dark Night. Father Marc Foley here combines his own theological and psychological background, as well as his experience as a spiritual guide, to help modern readers understand the experiences, challenges, and graced events of the purifying nights of sense and spirit.
In addition to exploring certain key terms that John uses in Spanish and their meaning in the saint’s time and today, Father Marc includes pertinent selections from a wide range of writers, ancient to modern, that illustrate the themes he covers. Each chapter concludes with insightful questions for personal reflection or group discussion. The book has a comprehensive and fully linked index.
290 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 25, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 26, 2025
Fr. Foley provides an excellent, and very accessible, commentary and explanation of St John of the Cross’ Dark Night.
St. John wrote his own commentary on the Dark Night, which was originally a poem. However, as the era, culture, locale etc. are so far removed from us today, it can be difficult to fully grasp some of St. John’s meanings if you’re not familiar enough with the context in which he wrote. In steps Fr. Foley, to simplify what many have found to be complicated and difficult to understand.
The book mirrors each section in St. John’s commentary, and gives a thorough explanation, along with examples, metaphors, and general commentary. Fr. Foley’s writing style is straightforward and easy to understand.
The ultimate point of the Dark Night is that God purges our souls from whatever keeps us from recognizing, and becoming close to Him. He does this, by shining His light on us. It’s so bright that it blinds us, hence the darkness and feeling of emptiness, yet in each moment we are in reality experiencing the Divine Inflow of God. The pain of the Dark Night comes from both the difficulty we have in letting go of our attachments, and the burning away of impurities as it were - as if we were a log put into a fire which eventually becomes one with the fire. But, this only happens after the impurities have been burned off (sap, moss, twigs, etc).
Ultimately this is a book I would recommend to anyone who is curious about St. John of the Cross and his theology of the Dark Night and anyone who is experiencing, or has experienced a Dark Night. I would also recommend this book for OCDS (and other) communities to use in studying the Dark Night.
St. John wrote his own commentary on the Dark Night, which was originally a poem. However, as the era, culture, locale etc. are so far removed from us today, it can be difficult to fully grasp some of St. John’s meanings if you’re not familiar enough with the context in which he wrote. In steps Fr. Foley, to simplify what many have found to be complicated and difficult to understand.
The book mirrors each section in St. John’s commentary, and gives a thorough explanation, along with examples, metaphors, and general commentary. Fr. Foley’s writing style is straightforward and easy to understand.
The ultimate point of the Dark Night is that God purges our souls from whatever keeps us from recognizing, and becoming close to Him. He does this, by shining His light on us. It’s so bright that it blinds us, hence the darkness and feeling of emptiness, yet in each moment we are in reality experiencing the Divine Inflow of God. The pain of the Dark Night comes from both the difficulty we have in letting go of our attachments, and the burning away of impurities as it were - as if we were a log put into a fire which eventually becomes one with the fire. But, this only happens after the impurities have been burned off (sap, moss, twigs, etc).
Ultimately this is a book I would recommend to anyone who is curious about St. John of the Cross and his theology of the Dark Night and anyone who is experiencing, or has experienced a Dark Night. I would also recommend this book for OCDS (and other) communities to use in studying the Dark Night.
December 19, 2020
C.S. Lewis once made the observations that Christians, no matter how much they might be enjoying life in the present, will never quite feel at home on Planet Earth, and will never be able to experience the full joy of their faith until Heaven. He mentions that the best a Christian could hope for are temporary “inns” from time to time where such joy can occur during one’s lifetime, albeit briefly. St. John of the Cross (who lived during the 16th century) takes this notion and goes a bit further. He made the observation that there are times during a Christian’s life when they feel spiritually lost and hopelessly unloved despite being a child of God. This is now commonly referred to as the “Dark Night of the Soul”.
What this book essentially is, is a study of the writing of St. John of the Cross where he first revealed such a notion. Also included here are studies upon the reflections of St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese of Lisieux who famously experienced such reversals during their lives as well. Author Marc Foley is essentially taking these writings that are now several hundred years old, and putting a bit of a modern spin to the sentiments with latter day examples. The purpose here is to aid the modern reader who might not be able to fully comprehend the original musings since the style of writing is now a bit ancient and may not be as easy to comprehend.
Most sincere Christian’s dismiss the notion of a “prosperity” gospel, which is the notion that believing in Christ will lead to riches, wealth, and happiness. Still, though, there’s a need for those in the flock to know that, not only will they not be blessed abundantly with material riches, but there will be times where Christians will feel empty, unloved, and neglected by God. These instances will happen out of the blue and can last an awful long time. Why is God doing this to me? Why are my beliefs shaken? Why do I find it so hard to be joyous? What is happening here? It should also be pointed out that these “dark night” feelings don’t occur because of illness, death of loved ones, nor other calamities. They simply ‘happen’.
So this book, like the writings it’s based on, is attempt to tell us why. There are a lot of good points that the author makes; I found myself going crazy with my e-highligher as I came across a multitude of relevant statements and examples. Essentially what this book tells us is that God is doing to us the opposite of what we think God is doing to us. Yes, we feel somewhat abandoned by God at times, but doing so forces us to deeply reflect. It never feels good when going through this time, but with prayer, patience, and an awful lot of perseverance, God will pull us through. This is essentially a needed purification of our hearts and ultimately an invitation from God to a stronger relationship with a renewed maturity. One just wishes that these nights didn’t have to be quite so dark and quite so lonely.
As far as this book goes, I confess that I didn’t quite find it as linear as I would have liked. In other words, the material was very good as I was reading, but I didn’t feel as though I could easily connect the dots from one chapter to the next. Maybe that was the point. I felt like there were great messages throughout, but had I “shuffled” the chapters as I was reading, I’m not sure my overall understanding would have been diminished.
Perhaps this is because this book is actually a “study” of another book. Whereas the lack of continuity didn’t bother me so much, the fact that the author was constantly referencing St. John throughout the book was a bit of a distracting nuisance. It felt as though the author wanted to make sure his readers knew that these thoughts aren’t his initially, and is somehow afraid of plagiarizing. So what we get throughout this book are snippets that say things like:
“So then John tells us that….”
“What John is trying to teach us here is…..”
“What John wants his readers to understand is…..”
“We then have John go on to tell us that….”
And on and on and on. Many times I felt like I was reading a student’s term paper where the instructor requires the student to add a reference after every sentence. This was just too distracting. I would prefer the author just acknowledge his source in the introduction and then leave out the multitude of references.
So overall a good book that I thought could have been a tad better. I’m pretty sure I would have gotten lost had I try to read the original work of St. John of the Cross. Since the message is a pretty important one since dark nights are quite common, one should feel pleased that the author manages to ‘modernize’ such an important piece of work for modern readers to digest.
What this book essentially is, is a study of the writing of St. John of the Cross where he first revealed such a notion. Also included here are studies upon the reflections of St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese of Lisieux who famously experienced such reversals during their lives as well. Author Marc Foley is essentially taking these writings that are now several hundred years old, and putting a bit of a modern spin to the sentiments with latter day examples. The purpose here is to aid the modern reader who might not be able to fully comprehend the original musings since the style of writing is now a bit ancient and may not be as easy to comprehend.
Most sincere Christian’s dismiss the notion of a “prosperity” gospel, which is the notion that believing in Christ will lead to riches, wealth, and happiness. Still, though, there’s a need for those in the flock to know that, not only will they not be blessed abundantly with material riches, but there will be times where Christians will feel empty, unloved, and neglected by God. These instances will happen out of the blue and can last an awful long time. Why is God doing this to me? Why are my beliefs shaken? Why do I find it so hard to be joyous? What is happening here? It should also be pointed out that these “dark night” feelings don’t occur because of illness, death of loved ones, nor other calamities. They simply ‘happen’.
So this book, like the writings it’s based on, is attempt to tell us why. There are a lot of good points that the author makes; I found myself going crazy with my e-highligher as I came across a multitude of relevant statements and examples. Essentially what this book tells us is that God is doing to us the opposite of what we think God is doing to us. Yes, we feel somewhat abandoned by God at times, but doing so forces us to deeply reflect. It never feels good when going through this time, but with prayer, patience, and an awful lot of perseverance, God will pull us through. This is essentially a needed purification of our hearts and ultimately an invitation from God to a stronger relationship with a renewed maturity. One just wishes that these nights didn’t have to be quite so dark and quite so lonely.
As far as this book goes, I confess that I didn’t quite find it as linear as I would have liked. In other words, the material was very good as I was reading, but I didn’t feel as though I could easily connect the dots from one chapter to the next. Maybe that was the point. I felt like there were great messages throughout, but had I “shuffled” the chapters as I was reading, I’m not sure my overall understanding would have been diminished.
Perhaps this is because this book is actually a “study” of another book. Whereas the lack of continuity didn’t bother me so much, the fact that the author was constantly referencing St. John throughout the book was a bit of a distracting nuisance. It felt as though the author wanted to make sure his readers knew that these thoughts aren’t his initially, and is somehow afraid of plagiarizing. So what we get throughout this book are snippets that say things like:
“So then John tells us that….”
“What John is trying to teach us here is…..”
“What John wants his readers to understand is…..”
“We then have John go on to tell us that….”
And on and on and on. Many times I felt like I was reading a student’s term paper where the instructor requires the student to add a reference after every sentence. This was just too distracting. I would prefer the author just acknowledge his source in the introduction and then leave out the multitude of references.
So overall a good book that I thought could have been a tad better. I’m pretty sure I would have gotten lost had I try to read the original work of St. John of the Cross. Since the message is a pretty important one since dark nights are quite common, one should feel pleased that the author manages to ‘modernize’ such an important piece of work for modern readers to digest.
July 17, 2020
I was very pleased with this translation of The Dark Night.He did a lot of commenting using material from such great figures as C.S. Lewis,Thomas Merton,Sta. Thérèse of Lisieux,Teresa of Avila,Nathaniel Hawthorne,Dante,etc.All this made the book a thrilling read and made something daunting understandable.We become a Christian and that is not the end.We grow closer to God as we walk our individual paths.John’s warning and promise is that at a certain point,God withdraws his consolation from us to wean us from our dependence on sensations and emotions.This is so that he can infuse himself into us to a part of our soul that is untouched by the world.He emphasizes the growth from an ego-centered life to a life of humility.There is so much more,but I just recommend it to anyone who wants to grow in their life as a Christian.
March 9, 2020
A lot of insight into the St John of the Cross book that was profoundly insightful but difficult to read. I knew in my heart that what I went through a few years ago was a profoundly transformative religious experience, however I had no real guide, besides my Bible and of course my own inner conversations with God, which for the longest time I doubted as the medical community had labeled me manic and bipolar and hyper-religious. My faith is now unshakable, and this experience, for me, undeniably true. Thank you for such a wonderful modern guide / interpretation.
May 21, 2022
What a fabulous text on the writing of St. John of the Cross. This is, I dare say, is a necessary commentary to have if one is journeying through reading the dark night by St. John of the Cross. Father Foley highlights key themes through which he helps the reader understand the journey of the text of St. John of the Cross. If I could give this book more than five stars I would.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews