Questions to Guide Your Reading

1. According to St. John of the Cross, for a soul to attain to the state of perfection (that is to say, "fullness," "completion," or "true happiness"), it has ordinarily to pass through two principal kinds of night.  What are they?  Describe each.

2. Why, according to St. John, must the soul undergo this series of "dark nights"?  Explain.

3. Now look back over the works of St. Thérèse and St. John.  How do their words testify to the "Way of Darkness" discussed by Thomas Merton in his book The Ascent to Truth.  Describe, in Merton's terms, why this "dark night of the soul" is essential for modern man – perhaps indeed even more essential than it has ever been in the past.