Advent Recollection: A Journey into the Dark Night

By CTK Council

KUCHING — An Advent Recollection with St John of the Cross entitled, “A Journey into the Dark Night” was organised by Christ The King OCDS Community at St Joseph’s Cathedral on 12 and 13 December 2022. 

The Recollection was given by Fr Philip Tay OCD, a Carmelite priest from Seremban. The two evenings started with a Eucharistic Celebration at 7.00 pm followed by Recollection from 7.30 pm to 9.30 pm.

Fr Philip Tay began the Recollection by introducing the similarity between Advent and the Dark Night of the Soul. From the Latin Adventus, Advent refers to the arrival, the coming of the Incarnation as a child.

During Advent, we also reflect on the coming of Christ at the end of time and in our hearts. Christians are an Advent people, but human beings are a now species. We want the light right away.

Advent teaches us about the holiness of waiting. St Augustine’s famous refrain that ‘Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, oh God’ is echoed by the Advent call: Come, Lord Jesus! Yet, there is another, perhaps deeper meaning to Advent; the Latin verb Advenio means to develop. Thus, Advent is also the slow ripening of God in each of our lives, even during times of apparent absence. 

Fr Philip explained the term Dark Night of the Soul, which is contrary to the popular idiom, a Dark Night of the Soul is a hard time, a trial period. But it’s so much more than that. The spiritual life is about light, it’s about loving God, and deepening our awareness of God’s presence in our lives. Along the way we get encouragement through graces, blessings and charity. These are what we might call consolations, signs of God’s presence.

But we will inevitably pass-through times where we also feel God’s apparent absence. These are called periods of desolation. It is what we decide to do with these times of spiritual dryness or darkness that determines whether or not the Dark Night of the Soul will benefit us spiritually or not.

However, to be clear, we are not talking about God putting us through endurance trials, causing suffering, or punishing us for our sins. Darkness, to our sight, corresponds to silence, in our hearing. It is the absence of any stimulus to inform, direct or encourage us. But darkness also entails a moral component. Darkness, by its very nature, spreads a covering over sin.

Furthermore, darkness is symbolic of Satan and evil, as Jesus stated during his arrest in Luke 22:53: “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” The Apostle Paul also referenced this theme regarding the depravity of the human heart in Ephesians 5:8, stating: “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” 

Father further explained when we comprehend how His coming as a human infant occurred in such a cold and dark world, it adds all the more to our understanding of His humiliation, and also to our amazement at His condescension. It also stirs our hope—as we, even today, still experience the brutality of a cold and dark world. Ever since the Son of God became incarnate, “the light shines in the darkness” (John 1:5).

From that day to this, it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). As the darkness deepens in our world—just as it did in the days after the prophets had vanished—the light shines brighter and farther. 

Fr Philip concluded that darkness confronts us this Advent season. May we celebrate Christ’s first coming within it, and may it motivate us to ready ourselves for His return.