One of the worst parts of the Dark Night is the fact that one realizes one should be damned for one's sins. This awareness of the life of failure to respond to grace, the missed opportunities for growth in holiness, the persistence in habitual venial sin, brings one to almost despair.
One realizes that God was giving grace, constantly wooing one to greater love and mercy, and one just got busy about many things.
I beg God not to stop wooing me. And holiness is not about how many devotions we follow, the length of our prayers or even daily Mass. Our relationship with God must be based on love and love alone.
To be days and nights in the throes of the truth of one's self is painful, indeed. But, God whispers in one's ears-Let me do this. Let me perfect you. You cannot perfect yourself.
And so, the person must stop and answer, Yes, God, do it. Thy will be done.
And, like any sinner, one must endure the undoing of years of sins of omission and commission.
Likewise, especially in modern times, when so many people have not experienced stable, loving families, one must wait for God to heal the emotions.
In the Old Testament, the prophets write about the "healing of rebellion." Rebellion is not only in the will, but in the emotions, in the passions.
To submit to God, letting God be God and truly accepting the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross as the absolute necessity of one's salvation, are all parts of the Dark Night.
One waits for God, and sometimes, one must chase after Him, calling Him to keep wooing one, and not to give up.
Yes, God does give grace, but He expect us to use it. One of the graces of the Dark Night is to will to trust in the Love of God one cannot see or feel.
Trust can be an act of the will. I shall trust Thee, Lord and I shall love Thee, even though Thou chastens me.
The Dark Night can be like a small experience of hell. One loves as much as one can, even in the darkness.
Like loving a spouse in the will rather than in the emotions, one loves in the will, as the emotions are torn to shreds by remorse and fear.
At some point, perfect love casts out fear. This comes in the Illuminative State.
In the meantime, one waits at the threshold of the House of God.