DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

The honeymoon ends ….

The last kid leaves ….

The other goes ….

Death hits home ….

Cemeteries exist ….

The ginger ale loses its fizzle ….

The steak gets cold….

The beer gets warm….

Prayer becomes boring ….

Mass feels meaningless ….

Emptiness invades and then inhabits everywhere….

The Lord and his dream of a kingdom ended last Friday….

We leave for Galilee. We leave for home. We leave for where we came from….

We fish the whole night and catch nothing….

It feels like 3:25 in the morning too many times ….

I guess this is what they mean by the dark night of the soul….

Time ticks ….

The sun slowly surprises the darkness….

The sun always rises ….

Faith screams like a rooster
or a roaring fire engine in the last dark before dawn….

There’s always hope, there’s always the morning, daybreak,
an end to death….

We hear his muffled voice in the morning mist….

The Lord is always on the shore directing us where and how to fish,
and 153 new possibilities appear in our net….

The dark night of the soul disappears like the night – for a while –
and we experience the bright sunlight of the soul….

We’ve been here before and we’ll be here again….

Prayer sparkles….

The Mass alleluias….

Resurrection is as sure as the dawn….

Jesus is Lord….

Jesus eats with us….

We chew – we digest – we swallow the bread….

We eat the fish we caught and cooked….

We sit there on the sand – digesting the Risen Lord,
knowing it’s always these morning moments of communion that
help us face the Noonday Devil – as well as the slow afternoons –
as well as the long commute home – and then some nights –
the dark night returns - and we can't sleep and
we wonder it this is big one - the eternal night – and we know
we have to let go - if we want to go on - if we want to get to sleep -
and we make the big act of faith -  the big leap in the dark -
knowing there will be the eternal dawn for us – after our death –
when we arrive on the other sure – Jesus the Risen Lord
waiting for us even if our nets are empty....

By faith – by experience – we know the Son always rises….

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Painting on top: The Second Draught of Fish by James Tissot, 1836-1902

This is a homiletic reflection for Easter Friday - 2003. I had a funeral this morning, so I didn't have a Easter Friday Mass. I have been wanting to add some thoughts other than my Quote for the Day,  so I went fishing in my homily collection. I had 4 homilies for this Easter Friday. They are sort of so so - so let me go fishing with this one - and see if I help you net some thoughts.

I noticed as I looked at  this reflection from 2003 that one of my lines was probably stolen - unconsciously - from F. S. Fitzgerald. His line is: "In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning." That's from The Crack Up [1936]. I didn't read it, but I have seen that quote from time to time. I also noticed that Bartlett's - where I found Fitzgerald's quote - has a footnote to check St. John of the Cross and Napoleon. I did. St. John of the Cross [1542-1591] has a whole book with the title, "The Dark Night of the Soul." Bartlett's has this quote from Napoleon Bonaparte [1791-1821], "Two o'clock in the morning courage: I mean unprepared courage." That quote has this following it: "[December 4, 5, 1815] From Las Cases, Memorial de Ste-Helene [1823]" Then that quote has this footlnote: "Le courage de l'improviste. The three o'clock in the mornng courage which Bonaparte thought was the rarest. - Thoreau, Walden [1854], chapter 4, Sounds."  It struck me that I could keep going on with this and it might end up sometime around 2 or 3 in the morning.