what is the dark night of the soul?

Lately I have come across a wealth of material that has used - or rather confiscated - a phrase used by St. John of the Cross: "Dark night of the soul".  Many well-meaning authors have used this phrase, this expression, in applying it to some sort of struggle, depression, or other painful occurrence in their life.  This is an erroneous understanding, at least in terms of how John used it.

A excerpt from the Introduction from a modern translation of another classic by John of the Cross - the Ascent of Mount Carmel - may help to clarify a proper meaning of the phrase "dark night of the soul":

"John's most famous work, Dark Night of the Soul, has perhaps been his most misunderstood.  Many religious and nonreligious people use the title phrase to describe a particularly bad moment in their lives.  Perhaps they have been through a divorce, the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a job, and they struggle with despair and depression as a result.  Yet this use of the phrase is not what John had in mind.... For John, 'the dark night of the soul' is not simply a time of unrelieved suffering but one of the aspects of God's love."

For John, that "time of unrelieved suffering" is God's way of purifying the soul, bringing it closer to Himself, stripping the soul of worldly attachments in order to grow towards perfect union with God.  John wrote the Dark Night of the Soul while he was in prison.  The Introduction rightly states:

"John realized that God was in his dark night all along and had been guiding him to direct his will toward union with God."

The "dark night of the soul" is a mystical journey - one in which the soul comes closer to God, grows in union with Him by way of suffering through its purification.  Perhaps this is a hard concept to grasp for many.  How many souls have traveled this road?