Dark Night of the Soul

DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS



— A Catholic Classic by a Doctor of the Church!

— Includes a Preface and Introduction

— Includes Illustrations by 18th Century artist, William Turner



— Includes an Index and Active Table of Contents with Layered NCX Navigation

— Includes over 300 Active Linked Footnotes



Publisher: Available in Paperback:

ISBN-13: 978-1-78379-066-1



A spiritual classic, Dark Night of the Soul was written by a 16th-century Spanish poet and Roman Catholic mystic, Saint John of the Cross. The treatise is a theological commentary on a poem, explaining its meaning by stanza.



Saint John of the Cross' poem narrates the journey of the soul from its bodily home to its union with God. The journey is called "The Dark Night", because darkness represents the hardships and difficulties the soul meets in detachment from the world and reaching the light of the union with the Creator. There are several steps in this night, which are related in successive stanzas. The main idea of the poem can be seen as the painful experience that people endure as they seek to grow in spiritual maturity and union with God.



The poem is divided into two books that reflect the two phases of the dark night. The first is a purification of the senses. The second and more intense of the two stages is that of the purification of the spirit, which is the less common of the two. Dark Night of the Soul further describes the ten steps on the ladder of mystical love, previously described by Saint Thomas Aquinas and in part by Aristotle. The text was written while John of the Cross was imprisoned by his Carmelite brothers, who opposed his reformations to the Order.



PUBLISHER: CATHOLIC WAY PUBLISHING