“The soul”—says St. John of the Cross—“is decidedly hindered from the attainment of this high state of union with God when it is attached to any understanding, feeling, imagining, desire, or way of its own, or to any other of its works or affairs, and knows not how to detach and denude itself of these impediments” (Asc II 4:4). The trials of the nights of the senses and of the spirit have the specific purpose of freeing us from all these bonds.
In the life of every person there is always a sufficient measure of suffering to effect a radical purification; these sufferings are chosen and arranged by God according to the needs and circumstances of each one, but, unfortunately, few know how to take advantage of them, and few know how to recognize in them the purifying action of God. Few there are who let themselves be led by God, who let him unmake and remake them as he pleases; while there are many who desire to reach divine union through their own plans and views.
“My son”—warns the Holy Spirit—“if you come forward to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for temptation. . . . Accept whatever is brought upon you, and in changes that humble you, be patient. . . . Trust in him, and he will help you; make your ways straight and hope in him” (Sir 2:1, 4, 6). We are never sufficiently convinced that “the straight way” which leads to God and to holiness is the one that God has himself established, and not the one we have chosen according to our own liking. Either we become holy in God’s way or we do not become holy at all; either we let God leads us or we shall never reach our goal.
“There are many who desire to advance, and persistently beseech God to bring them to this state of perfection [union with him]. Yet when God wills to conduct them through the initial trials and mortifications, they are unwilling to suffer them, and they shun them, flee from the narrow road of life, and seek the broad road of their own consolation” (Fl 2:27). They prefer to travel along in their own way, and this is the reason that God, who does not violate our freedom, leaves us to our own mediocrity.
In the face of life’s painful events—lack of understanding, failures, reversals of fortune, difficult surroundings—we must guard against the temptation to shut ourselves up in reasoning about whether these are fair or unfair, to attribute them to some one else’s malice, or to delve into their motives. Instead, we should maintain that pure eye of faith which sees the hand of God in everything, testing his children in order to purify them. It was precisely because of his great faith, that, when Job learned of the loss of his wealth and of his sons, he “fell upon the ground, and worshiped. And he said: ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’ ” (Job 1:20-21). And later also, when a prey to gloom and grief he would lament and proclaim his innocence, his faith will make him recognize that although God permits inexplicable sufferings, he is always just and wise, and man has no right to inquire into his conduct: “For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him” (Job 9:32).
Man’s trials will finally come to an end when he surrenders completely to the mysterious designs of God, and renounces all reasoning and self-defense. Christians have still higher motives for abandoning themselves to God who is testing them. We know that God is our Creator and has every right over us; we also know that God is our Father and that he tries us, not to torment us, but to heal us and to sanctify us.
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