Barbara Brown Taylor is one of the most popular “spiritual”
writers of the day. She was ordained as an Episcopalian priestess, but for
reasons concerning her own popularity, she and the Episcopalians parted company
some time ago.
The reason she is a concern for those seeking peace and
perfection is that she writes about what she calls the Dark Night. However, one
must make a distinction between what I call the highjacking of this very
Catholic mystical term and Taylor
First of all, for those of you who have read the over 600
posts on this blog regarding the way to perfection and union with God, you know
that the first step to holiness is complete orthodoxy. Unorthodoxy keeps people
from the graces of perfection.
Why? To be in union with Christ demands not only a breaking
away from sin, and a purging of sin, but the “putting on the Mind of Christ”.
To think like Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity one must think
like His Own Bride, the Church.
Only in the Teaching and Tradition of the Church do we find
the Mind of God. The sins which need to be purged come from self-love and
self-will. Part of accepting the magnificent teaching of the Church is dying to
self, the ideas one’s has about morality, doctrines, dogmas.
To insist on accepting ideas of others who have departed
from the Tradition and Teaching Magisterium is a sign of rebellion and pride.
Without orthodoxy, one opens one’s heart, soul and mind to
other spiritual forces, namely, demons and listens to the siren song of deceit.
I cannot judge Ms. Taylor, but I can judge her ideas, and a
supposed “dark night” which is the same in Buddhism, or other man-made
“religions”. Objectively, she is
confusing the way of ascetism, a long and honored tradition in all “religions”
with the real Dark Night.
The real Dark Night centers on one’s relationship with
Christ, and not merely the ascetic appeal of death to material things or
distractions.
All humans benefit from denial and dark times, but only in
the true Dark Night can one be discovered by the Bridegroom by Christ.
Who discovers one is the darkness which is not centered on
Christ and His Truth, only found in fullness in the Catholic Church is,
frankly, frightening.
Unless one is orthodox, one is open to the deceit of the
most intelligent of beings, the demons who fake spirituality, who counterfeit
real holiness and real religious experiences.
If on is not orthodox, one is not even on the way to
perfection, as one is following a path which has forked off, away from the
glory of the Catholic Church.
There is no such thing as truth outside of Christ, who told
us “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”
There is no other way to union with God except through
Christ and His Church. Anything else is a false and stunted journey, based on
the ideas of men and not the Mind of Christ.
