The Light of What Is to Come: Why This Hard Work Is Worth It (S11, EP04)

Why is the spiritual life such a struggle?

When we are asked to detach from the things we love and "walk by starlight," it can feel like an endless battle in the dark. But St. John of the Cross offers a powerful reason why this hard work isn't just necessary—it is the only path to true freedom.

In this episode, we dive deep into the "Active Night of the Senses" and the reality of walking by the light of pure faith. We explore the difficult work of mortification and self-denial, viewing them not as arbitrary punishments, but as essential training to reorient our inner compass toward God. We also discuss the profound difference between undergoing purification here on earth versus in Purgatory, and why love for Christ—rather than fear—is the ultimate incentive for embracing the journey.

In this episode, you will learn:

• The Active Night Explained: Understand the subtle but critical difference between healthy recreation and the spiritual danger of seeking consolation for its own sake.
• Purgatory Now vs. Later: Discover why St. John of the Cross argues that we can go through Purgatory here in this life which is preferable to Purgatory after death.
• The Path to Union: Learn how the heavy lifting of virtue we do now eventually gives way to a "spiritual marriage" where God’s grace takes over the effort.

Welcome to this week's episode of Midnight Carmelite. We talked about "walking by the starlight of faith" last week, but this week we are going to discuss why this hard work is all worth it—walking toward union with God, which is the light of what is to come. When St. John of the Cross discusses the "Dark Night," he talks about the "active night of the senses." This is basically detachment from consolations as well as attachments to other things. It is not just about consolations; you could be attached to the consolations that things give you. The point is that if you are seeking the consolation for the sake of the consolation, that is a problem. If you are seeking a tension release or recreation that may incidentally have consolations so that you can get back to work, that is fine. I just want to make that distinction here.

The Active Night of the Senses

We have the strengthening by mortification. As we discussed earlier, this involves mortifying yourself and dying to yourself so that you can be with Christ in the stable and the manger. This is all walking by starlight; it is pure faith. It is seeing these little lights of God in your life while the rest is the darkness of faith. That is what St. John of the Cross was talking about, and that is really where we all are. We are all walking in the night of faith in this life because God is beyond all creation. So, we are always walking by starlight.

Now, what do we do? We have to do the work of building a virtuous life. You have to do the work of the action. You have to start the mortification, start denying things that you like—not because those things are per se bad, but because they are ways for you to train your desire, your inner compass, to point towards God and not towards things. That is the key. When you are pointing towards God, it is darkness because all we see and experience are things in the normal human way. While God does act and people have visions, that is extraordinary. The ordinary way is darkness.

The Necessity of Virtue and Mortification

We need to focus on making sure that we say, "Okay, this is the pure faith. Here is where I can give up things to train my desire. Here is where I need to detach from things where I am going simply for the consolation, not using these things as an activity of leisure to be able to move closer to God." I need to look at my life and how I treat others and see if it is being measured by charity or is it being measured by a distorted desire within you for your own selfishness? That is our challenge today, and it is really hard for us to put all this together and do this in our lives. It is a lot of effort.

People will sit here and say, "Well, why is all this effort of virtue necessary?" I will tell you why it is necessary. St. John of the Cross, in his writing, talks about how you either go through Purgatory here, or you go through Purgatory later. Those are our choices. He makes a comment where he says that while the Purgatory here looks horrible to us—all these mortifications, detachment from consolations, living a life of charity, sacrifice, building a virtuous life, self-denial, humility—having God in the passive night give you those virtues and infuse Himself into you in a deeper, more united way because you have decided to point towards Him, is much better than doing it later.

Purification: Earthly Effort versus Purgatory

If death is unnatural because sin is unnatural—in the sense that it never should have been there, and we created it with the Fall and the distortion of our nature—then experiencing something in an unnatural state, which is the human person without the body, is going to be a greater pain and suffering than if it was with the body. The things you will experience in Purgatory affect the intellect, will, and memory. That is not going to be pleasant; experiencing that without the body is going to be disorienting. It will be "pain in love," as Bishop Sheen says. It will be very painful because it is not our way of operating, but we will be forced to operate that way to get through the fire. That is one reason that all this effort is worth it. If it is simply a fear of having the pain of Purgatory, that is one incentive, but I do not think that is the best incentive.

The Ultimate Incentive: Union with God

I think the better incentive is that you will be made closer and closer in the image of He whom you love most, which is Christ. So, all this effort and virtue is what He would do. When you love something, you want to be like it, and you want to be with your beloved. If you really love God, these are the things we need to do given our fallen nature in order to be closer to Him who is not fallen, who has not sinned, and who took on the likeness of sin by virtue of human nature but had no sin. That is why you would do this: because that is how you can be more close to Him.

That is a tough answer, I think, for a lot of people. People will say, "I love God, I love God." Okay, are you going to give up something that really makes you happy for Him? They say, "Yeah, I'll do that," and then maybe give it up a little bit, and then you waffle. We all do this. I think the key here is to remember that we have to give up everything for God. As St. John of the Cross says, give up everything; it seems you gain nothing, but you actually gain everything because you gain God.

Conclusion

That is what the past podcasts over the Advent season, Christmas, and now culminating here have been about. We are entering the new year. It is time to do the effort of building virtue, self-denial, mortification, detachment, and measuring our lives by charity. It is not easy. It is a constant journey, and it will be a battle to the end—literally a battle to the death. It is not going to stop until we die and meet our Lord.

That is the reason for why the life of virtue leads to deeper union with God. That is a choice we have to make. We have to start it, and then He will meet us and bring us to Him. John says we start out doing all the effort and God is doing very little, in a sense—obviously His grace is helping us—but as you keep going in the union, your effort starts to diminish and God starts to increase, leading to spiritual marriage. That is just something I thought I wanted to conclude with. I will see you next time.