In the Book of Kings, we see how, when the temple is complete, the Ark of the Covenant is brought in, God makes Himself present in a special way. But that special way, that special presence, is actually a dark cloud.
And in the spiritual life, God’s presence sometimes makes itself felt to us as a dark cloud. God is there, and yet He’s in a cloud, a dark cloud. We cannot see Him face to face; we cannot understand what He is doing. We have to let God take over, like the priests in the temple. They could no longer minister because of the cloud; they had to let God take over because of that special presence. And that is actually a normal part in the spiritual life, and a crucial part for growth.
When God makes Himself present in that cloud, that doesn’t really let us understand completely, and yet it requires us to trust and let God operate. That’s when we enter the mystical stage of the spiritual life, where God’s operation takes over. And it’s a precious stage of the spiritual life. It’s not the beginning stage, of course; we have to arrive there. But it is a stage when, in that darkness, God purifies us, all that is human.
And it doesn’t mean we’re going through these moments of darkness, or aridity, or lack of understanding of what God is doing, it doesn’t mean that God is far, or absent, or doing nothing. Quite the contrary, when God, in that cloud, descends upon the temple, His presence is quite special, and quite real.
So, short takeaway: we will have to, in the spiritual life, go through moments of darkness, dryness. But it doesn’t mean that God is far; quite the contrary, He’s very near to us. And if we persevere in doing what God wants us to do, those are moments of great merit; those are moments of great growth in virtue, in faith, hope, and love; great moments of preparation for that vision of God face to face in heaven, where we won’t see Him in a cloud anymore, but as He is, face to face.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.