Libro Segundo — Declaración
The Three Graces of the Dark Night
The soul reflects on the three transformative properties of the spiritual night that facilitate a secure and solitary union with God.
1. Still continuing the metaphor and likeness of temporal night in this spiritual night of her own, the soul keeps recounting and magnifying the good properties that are in it, and that through it she found and carried with her so that she might quickly and securely reach her desired end—of which properties she sets down three here. 2. The first, he says, is that in this blessed night of contemplation, God leads the soul along a path so solitary and secret, and so far removed from the senses, that nothing belonging to them—nor any touch of a creature—can reach the soul to hinder it or hold it back from the path of the union of love. 3. The second property he mentions concerns the spiritual darkness of this night, where all the faculties of the higher part of the soul are obscured. Since the soul neither looks at anything nor can look at anything, it doesn't stop at anything outside of God as it moves toward Him. It travels free from the obstacles of forms, figures, and natural apprehensions, which are what usually hinder the soul from constantly uniting with the being of God. 4. The third point is that, even though the soul isn't relying on any specific interior light of understanding or any exterior guide to find satisfaction on this high path—since these dark shadows have stripped her of all that—it is still love alone, burning at this time and stirring the heart for the Beloved, that guides and moves the soul, causing her to fly to her God along the path of solitude, without her knowing how or in what way. The verse follows: In the happy night.
Read the original Latin
1. Continuando todavía el alma la metáfora y semejanza de la noche temporal en esta suya espiritual, va todavía contando y engrandeciendo las buenas propiedades que hay en ella, y que por medio de ella halló y llevó, para que breve y seguramente consiguiese su deseado fin, de las cuales aquí pone tres.
2. La primera, dice, es que en esta dichosa noche de contemplación lleva Dios el alma por tan solitario y secreto modo de contemplación y tan remoto y ajeno del sentido, que cosa ninguna perteneciente a él, ni toque de criatura, alcanza a llegarle al alma, de manera que la estorbase y detuviese en el camino de la unión de amor.
3. La segunda propiedad que dice, es por causa de las tinieblas espirituales de esta noche, en que todas las potencias de la parte superior del alma están a oscuras; no mirando el alma ni pudiendo mirar en nada, no se detiene en nada fuera de Dios para ir a él, por cuanto va libre de los obstáculos de formas y figuras y de las aprehensiones naturales, que son las que suelen empachar el alma para no se unir siempre con el ser de Dios.
4. La tercera es que, aunque ni va arrimada a alguna particular luz interior del entendimiento ni a alguna guía exterior para recibir satisfacción de ella en este alto camino, teniéndola privada de todo esto estas oscuras tinieblas; pero el amor solo que en este tiempo arde, solicitando el corazón por el Amado, es el que guía y mueve al alma entonces, y la hace volar a su Dios por el camino de la soledad, sin ella saber cómo y de qué manera.
Siguese el verso:
En la noche dichosa.
Dark Night of the Soul companion
A daily portion of stillness
Chosen Portion delivers one short contemplative reading and a guided moment of silence each day — the ascent, one step at a time.
Chosen Portion is the paced doorway into this collection: it portions the dense mystical treatises into one daily reading plus guided silence, exactly as the 14-day plan teaches.
- Daily bite-sized excerpts from the contemplative classics, never a wall of text
- A built-in timed stillness practice that grows from 2 minutes to 10
- Gentle progression through the tradition — the app remembers where you are on the ascent