John of the Cross writes here that the Four Cardinal virtues come into play at this time of the Dark Night. Again, St. David is his example. We receive all the virtues in Baptism and these are strengthened in Confirmation. The Illuminative State is the stage of the virtues finally being manifested in the soul. However, man through natural law, knows the Cardinal Virtues, as did the Greeks, noted in Plato. Aristotle and Cicero, for examples. However, just as we are supernaturalized, so are our virtues. As before, I direct you to Josef Pieper's The Four Cardinal Virtues, which I have used in teaching in the past.
5. There is another very great benefit for the soul in this night, which is that it practices several virtues together, as, for example, patience and longsuffering, which are often called upon in these times of emptiness and aridity, when the soul endures and perseveres in its spiritual exercises without consolation and without pleasure. It practises the charity of God, since it is not now moved by the pleasure of attraction and sweetness which it finds in its work, but only by God. It likewise practises here the virtue of fortitude, because, in these difficulties and insipidities which it finds in its work, it brings strength out of weakness and thus becomes strong. All the virtues, in short—the theological and also the cardinal and moral—both in body and in spirit, are practised by the soul in these times of aridity.
6. And that in this night the soul obtains these four benefits which we have here described (namely, delight of peace, habitual remembrance and thought of God, cleanness and purity of soul and the practice of the virtues which we have just described), David tells us, having experienced it himself when he was in this night, in these words: ‘My soul refused consolations, I had remembrance of God, I found consolation and was exercised and my spirit failed.’92 And he then says: ‘And I meditated by night with my heart and was exercised, and I swept and purified my spirit’—that is to say, from all the affections.93
7. With respect to the imperfections of the other three spiritual sins which we have described above, which are wrath, envy and sloth, the soul is purged hereof likewise in this aridity of the desire and acquires the virtues opposed to them; for, softened and humbled by these aridities and hardships and other temptations and trials wherein God exercises it during this night, it becomes meek with respect to God, and to itself, and likewise with respect to its neighbour. So that it is no longer disturbed and angry with itself because of its own faults, nor with its neighbour because of his, neither is it displeased with God, nor does it utter unseemly complaints because He does not quickly make it holy.
One finally accepts one\s self as a sinner and is not surprised by sins or imperfections.
One finally accepts one\s self as a sinner and is not surprised by sins or imperfections.