*NIGHT - also see FAITH
The dark night are times of deep faith to the obstacle-strewn path where we are purified by God. It is a difficult path to perfection (xref). (Dark Night, p14)
The dark night darkens or purges our senses so that we see with clarity. In the experience of the dark night the senses must be purged or realigned or reformed to accommodate the spirit - the self must become the servants of the transcendent. Man proposes but God disposes. (Dark Night, p86-7)
The Night of the senses and the Night of the spirit are both purifications, where the Night of senses is active to uproot passionate attachments and Night of spirit is mystical with the stress on God's activity (and hence active receptivity on the part of the contemplative). (Trust, p137)
St. John of the Cross path of purification is the "dark night of the senses" and the "dark night of spirit". Although we may experience the dark night as an absence of God or a time of painful self-knowledge and crisis, John believed that the dark night signals the dawn of new life. It is God's loving concern to restore and heal human nature. In "The Ascent of Mount Carmel," John places before us the life and death of Jesus as the model of the path of purification. Jesus performed his greatest work of salvation when he was most empty and poor on the cross. Following Jesus implies a life of loving dedication to God and the surrender of our attachments and selfishness in order to love more freely. It means becoming empty of self for the love of God and others in imitation of Jesus Christ. (Purif, p46-47)
The Canaanite woman ("even dogs get scraps" for her daughter to be healed - Matt 15:27) is a magnificent example of someone undergoing what John of the Cross called the night of sense, the crisis that initiates the movement from from dependency on sense and reason to dociliy to the Spirit. (Open Mind, p73)