The Stubborn Habits That Hold Us Back — Dark Night of the Soul

Many who are already proficients still carry habitual imperfections that must be removed before they can arrive at divine union. They not only have these flaws. They have grown so used to them that they no longer even notice them. Progress has not finished the work. It has made the remaining faults invisible. Habit has hidden what still blocks love.

These are people who have already journeyed for some time along the road of virtue. They have done great penances, kept long fasts, and performed many other exercises. Yet they have not perfectly subdued their natural desires, nor raised themselves to the heights of perfection. The resume of practice is real. Desire has still not been fully quieted. Another fast will not, by itself, finish what these unnoticed habits keep in place.

For that reason it becomes necessary that God purge them and make them dark, so that he may bring them into the divine light of the perfect union of love. Saint John is saying darkness is not a demotion for people who have already worked hard. It is how the blind spots get treated. Light comes after God makes them dark, not after they add another exercise. The unnoticed habits are the ones this night is for. They have to be made dark so union can be light.