Contemplative Haven: Interior Trials: A Snippet from the 6th 
Interior Trials: A Snippet from the 6th
In the Fifth Mansions we saw that the soul was "about to be betrothed" to the Lord. Here, in the Sixth Mansions, the betrothal will take place, but seldom without loneliness, heartache and soul-suffering.St. Teresa tells us that "the soul has been wounded with love for the Spouse and seeks more opportunity of being alone", but that "the Spouse disregards its yearnings for the conclusion of the Betrothal, desiring that they should become still deeper and that this greatest of all blessings should be won by the soul at some cost to itself."
Here one experiences what is now generally referred to as the Dark Night of the Soul, based on the writings of St. John of the Cross. St. Teresa uses the term interior trials. This dark period varies from person to person in duration and intensity, as the Lord sees fit.
St. Teresa describes periods of dryness or aridity in prayer, the soul's perception that it has never known God and can never know Him, and the feeling that there is a great distance now between them: "...the soul seems not to feel the smallest spark of any love for God, nor has it ever done so."
During this period, the Lord allows the devil to test the soul, says St. Teresa, even to the point where the soul believes it has been completely abandoned. She writes: "For there are many things which assault her soul with an interior oppression so keenly felt and so intolerable that I do not know to what it can be compared, save to the torment of those who suffer in hell, for in this spiritual tempest no consolation is possible."
posted by Gabrielle at 11:55 PM
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