27. Dark night, Trial

As everyone knows, the newly born comes into the world with eyes closed. Even when our eyes are open, we do not see very far. Everything remains clouded in a kind of darkness. We ceaselessly rub our eyes to purify our vision, wiping away the mud that clings to our eyelids. Never, it seems, will we attain perfect vision, full understanding. Never is it possible to embrace everything simultaneously with one look, or be fully conscious of totality. Every system is insufficient. This is an aspect of our liberty.

Neither shall we ever be fully conscious of the elements of our choices nor of their consequences. Because of this, we are forced to take risks and to invent. No road is cleared in advance. The darkness surrounding us is much denser than simple ignorance, for the future has to be invented just as much as it has to be uncovered. Death alone terminates our endless quest. Death alone comes along to end an existence which is essentially an unfinished symphony. Is death then the final darkness, endless night, or a journey towards the light, with birth into a different life? How am I to know?

By faith? Faith, Saint Paul tells us, is not clear vision. Our knowledge is imperfect. We catch glimpses and in a dark manner... and if I am convinced that death is not the end, it is because I believe, not the other way round. It is not because I see, that I believe.

In order to have the light of faith, we must then take a leap and cross mysteriously the abyss of a doubt, which the crossing over, however, does not get rid of. The living God is a "dark night"! "No one has ever seen God" He is not see-able! We must believe that He is a hidden God; when we pray He is there, but in secret. The man whose eyes are covered with mud cannot see anything, but he obeys blindly, and placing his confidence in the Word, goes to the fountain to wash them. He returns with perfect sight, baptised in the light of faith, but he has not as yet seen Jesus, only heard Him and believed.

Certainly I believe and I hope that one day I will see Him face to face. I hope for this with every fibre of my being, and do not want to be afraid of it. But for the moment in the world as it is, and for men as they are, the Father only reveals His presence by His absence; we see His face only in the faces of His creatures; His power in lowliness, and His life only on the other side of the grave. Mystery and darkness! It was the sixth hour...yet it was midday, but the sun was eclipsed, darkness covered the entire earth for about three hours. Night at what should have been noon. The accomplishment of love. Here was the promised word, the written promise, all the Scriptures signed with a cross in the blackness of Golgotha. Mystery and darkness.

Everything began at night, at the Nativity. It was at night that at a final meal, the ultimate gift was made. When Judas went out "it was night," night of sorrow and abandonment...the mount of Olives... A fatal night for the hardened one, who says "no" to love, and who blindly passes on death. Impenetrable night for the "learned one" who, blinded by his systems, claims to see.

Relentless night for the one who wishes to see nothing, but luminous night in the monotony of our daily life, a sure signpost along our journeyings. Radiant light as of old in the marches through the desert: mystery and darkness, presence of the living God. As the cloud which enveloped Mary when the Word of God became Flesh; as the radiant cloud which blinded the disciples before Jesus transfigured, as the cloud which hides the Resurrection from our gaze, this radiant night gives us freedom, urges us on to take initiatives and hastens the step of the Church's onward march. Nothing is perfectly clear. Everything is sign, sacrament, symbol. Our knowledge and our foreknowledge are both limited. But when the end comes, the limited will disappear. At present we see reflections in a confused and partial manner, but then we shall behold everything directly in one glance, face to face. At present, my knowledge is imperfect, but then I shall know Him as I am known. For the moment, I am still in the night, but then I shall see Him as I am seen.