During the period of retreat at a Trappist Abbey as I was trying to deal with all that had happened to me when I lost my business and especially the grief of so much loss, I began to encounter persons that were also suffering.  

One such individual was a young man, named Stephen, who had shown up at the Abbey for the weekend, after only four days in recovery from an outpatient drug program. 

In my weakened state, I was able to see that here was a soul that was lost and in pain. I was moved to empathy since I understood the terrible difficulty of his journey that I had shared some years earlier with my seventeen-year-old son. 

Over the two-day weekend, we were able to talk of Jesus Christ and His love for us, pray together and with another recovering addict who had lived in darkness, and read the scripture of the story of Stephen’s stoning and Saul’s conversion. (Acts 6 and 7).

Not only was I able to minister to others in my suffering, but God sent several people to minister to me during this time of retreat.  

John, who was an Assembly of God missionary visiting the monastery with his family, spoke words of wisdom to me.  A Trappist monk, who has been a longtime friend, became a spiritual guide for me when my regular spiritual director was unable to meet with me.

Finally, two days before I was to leave the Abbey, God spoke to me.  Here are the writings I recorded at the time: 

I set out on a seven-mile hike in the mountainous woods. It was a beautiful day – full of sun and God’s promise.  Halfway, I came upon a large meadow and sat down on a log to pray.  

As I was praying and began to walk again, I was in tears but they didn’t seem to be tears of grief.  It seemed to be a certain type of suffering where I seemed to be atoning for my past sins of arrogance and trying to manage everything on my own. 

 I wept and prayed deeply and said my own confession.  As the sun was directly behind me, I inadvertently put my walking stick over my shoulders and my hands in such a way as to appear on the cross in my shadow. I prayed and walked this way for quite a while. 

 All during my walk – through a stretch in the woods and the entire time on the meadow – I had a strange feeling that I wasn’t alone. I kept waiting to encounter someone but eventually realized that Christ was accompanying me.  

At that moment, my apprehension dissipated and I knew that God had led me to a deeper union with him and scraped away another layer of self.

In retrospect, it is seen that the “dark night of the soul” is a period of purging the last vestiges or attachments to the “old self.” It is a process of purification in order to cleanse the soul of all that stains it.  

It requires total dependence on God in order to let God’s light shine directly into the heart and mind. In the end, it is an illumination and enlightenment process to prepare the soul for contemplation. 

Click to read The Dark Night of the Soul: Part 1 & Prayer of the Heart