Based on an extract from the book “Il Vangelo di Maria” (Maria’s Gospel) by Carlo Maria Martini, Ancora Editrice, Milano, 2008. The extract is taken from page 79 to 87.
It is undeniable that Europe is going through a deep crisis of faith. Many Europeans today are at best lukewarm to acknowledge believing in God and in a life after death. The latter is especially true. Eternal life is the aspect about which today there is most confusion, doubts, obscurity, and a practical absence from the mind of both believers and non-believers alike.
It is impressive to note that sociological research on religiosity shows that doubts about the afterlife also affect those who profess to believe in God, in Jesus Christ and who still follow their church. The reality of eternal life has nothing to do with the good resolutions of this life; many people, including many young people are prepared to bet on what is visible, on values that can be proved, like solidarity, peace, justice, voluntary work. However, only very few are ready to bet on the invisible, on that which cannot be verified.
Perhaps, one of the verses from the gospel which are ignored most even if Jesus’ words are repeated three times is “Your father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.” (Mt 6, 4.6.18). This promise does not appear to convince many who prefer things to be obvious, can be seen on tv or acted out on the stage.
This “feet on the ground” attitude is the major temptation of our age. The confusion about the hope in eternal life is the biggest challenge of the West and of the western Churches. It is not only the dark night of faith, but also the dark night of hope.
It is different in other continents and other cultures. There, people have still strong beliefs about the afterlife, maybe as we had a hundred years ago as can be seen in the inscriptions on our tombstones.
The dark night of the soul in Catholic spirituality is usually associated with the mystics like St. John of the Cross and St Theresa of Lisieux. It describes a spiritual crisis that although ultimately temporary may last for a very long time. It is an extremely painful and difficult period in one’s life where even prayer is challenging. Theresa of Lisieux suffered the dark night of the soul for the last 18 months of her young life. It was not just a crisis of faith but also one of hope. In her writings, Theresa describes the period as a “dark tunnel” in which nothing can be seen. On other occasions she uses the term” a thick haze” that blocks her view of the sky. Another term she uses to describe her predicament “as sitting at the table with sinners and unbelievers”. She writes “I have the impression that the darkness that surrounds me is whispering ‘You are dreaming of light, a home wrapped in delicate perfumes; you dream the eternal possession of the Creator of all this marvelous world; you believe that one day you will get rid of the mists in which you are trapped! Come on, be thankful for death, that will give you not what you hope for, but a deeper night: the night of nothingness.’
It is the temptation of nihilism and is typical of our time.
It has often been proposed by philosophers and theologians, that the current night of hope through which Europe is going through, should be seen as providential occasion for the manifestation of the true face of God. The dark night of hope permits idols and any false image of God to be swept away, they argue.
These proponents invite us to interpret our age as a night of purification of the spirit in the sense given to it by John of the Cross. For example, a contemporary theologian says, “We can compare atheism and bring it closer to negative theology.”, as if it were a form of purification of faith and becomes closer to a way of perceiving God as an absolute mystery, inexpressible in mere words. Atheism is “the hidden resource of Christianity and helps it to achieve its aims.” This type of interpretation has some valid points and is derived from a positive reflection on the famous “negation” of Hegel. [For the philosopher Hegel, the dialectic was a process of realization that things contain their own negation and through this realization the parts are sublated into something greater].
Another contemporary theologian argues, “In a period characterised by agnosticism, where the gods have lost any relevance, we must remember of the anonymity, the coded character mediated by Christian revelation. We must have the courage of living through the collective night of the soul, of God’s absence.”
These are all attempts at explaining the meaning of the night of the soul, the night of faith that currently envelopes our society as purifying event.
This explanation, that this is a purifying event as John of the Cross understood it, however risks being misunderstood. The two phenomena are not compatible.
In fact, what our society is currently going through is NOT a trial of faith – the test of those who believe – but is a condition of non-faith, a lack of faith. It is therefore not a time of progressive own purification of those who ascending Mount Carmel, but a time of progressive decadence of those who are going down in the underworld of the absence of God.
On the contrary, and perhaps even more banal, the condition of our time is not even one of atheism but a condition of confusion about faith, of indifference, tepidness. The night of the soul of John of the Cross, on the contrary, was a condition of fire, a blazing fire that burns, consumes, purifies, even if the person cannot see a solution and, hence, he is living in the night.
One could try to interpret out time using the categories mentioned by Theresa of Lisieux: “a dark tunnel”, “a table of sinners and unbelievers”, emphasizing not the purification angle as if the faith crises was a mystical improvement, but from the aspect of compassion of those who believe towards those who do not. This was Theresa’s way.
This is the propitious, providential moment: compassion, the believers’ participation in the suffering of those who do not believe and of those who struggle to do so. Let us face it, the crisis of faith is real suffering, partly not the victim’s fault and we must support them.