Maartje Skare
Summary: This article reflects on Micah 5:3 as an image of the soul’s journey through purification towards union with Christ. The “giving up” and darkness experienced by the soul are not signs of God’s abandonment, but a mysterious preparation in which former securities and consolations are stripped away so that the soul may learn to walk in the “dark and pure faith” described by St John of the Cross. Within this journey, Mary appears not merely as an example of faith but as Mother in the order of grace. Having received Christ in faith at the Annunciation and remained faithful beneath the Cross, she accompanies the soul in its own passage through darkness and travail. Her maternal role is entirely dependent upon Christ and His Cross: she receives, cooperates with, and nurtures the grace by which Christ is formed in the soul. The article therefore sees the Dark Night as a Marian and paschal mystery: through abandonment, travail, and purification, the soul is progressively emptied of self-reliance so that Christ may be born and formed within it. The ultimate goal is not an experience of Mary, nor even relief from darkness, but total receptivity to Christ—a humble “fiat” in which the soul learns to receive what only grace can accomplish.
Introduction
There is a profound mystery contained in the words of the prophet Micah: “Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel” — Micah 5:3 In its immediate context, Micah is speaking of the coming Messiah. The ruler who comes from Bethlehem will shepherd God’s people, and the period of apparent abandonment will give way to restoration. Christian tradition has consequently read Micah 5:2–4 as profoundly Messianic, finding its fulfilment in Christ.
Yet Scripture can also bear a spiritual application to the life of the soul. Without replacing the literal meaning of the prophecy, Micah’s pattern — being given up, waiting, travail, birth, return, and finally being shepherded by the Messiah — offers a remarkable image of the soul’s journey toward union with Christ. This becomes particularly illuminating when read alongside the teaching of St. John of the Cross and the Church’s understanding of Mary’s spiritual motherhood.
The central thesis of this reflection is this: Christ has accomplished everything for our salvation in His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Mary adds nothing to the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. Rather, she participates uniquely in Christ’s work as Mother, receiving and cooperating with the grace that flows entirely from Him. In the deepest purification of the soul — when our own capacity to understand, feel, and even confidently sustain ourselves in faith is stripped away — we can entrust ourselves to Mary, who remained faithful beneath the Cross. In her maternal care we learn not merely about faith but to surrender ourselves to the grace by which Christ is formed in us. This is especially consonant with St. John of the Cross’s teaching that the ultimate means of union with God is dark and pure faith.
1. “He Shall Give Them Up”
The phrase in Micah 5:3 is striking: “He shall give them up…” The Hebrew expression conveys the idea of being handed over or given up for a period of time. Whatever the precise exegetical questions surrounding the antecedent, the theological movement of the verse is clear: there is a period of apparent abandonment, but it has a limit and a purpose. The word “until” is crucial. God’s giving up is not the final word. There is a mysterious interval between the giving up and the birth. This provides a powerful image for the spiritual life. There are seasons in which God permits the soul to experience extraordinary poverty. Former consolations disappear. Prayer becomes difficult. God seems hidden. The soul’s previous ways of understanding Him no longer suffice.
For St. John of the Cross, this is not necessarily evidence that God has abandoned the soul. On the contrary, the deeper Night is precisely associated with God’s preparation of the soul for union, God drawing closer. St. John describes the second night as occurring when God desires to bring a soul to union with Him.¹ The soul experiences this as darkness because the things upon which it previously relied are being removed and also because of the deep stains of sins. But the darkness is not the destination, it is a purification. It is the passage.
2. The Dark Night and the Necessity of Pure Faith
St. John of the Cross makes a remarkable statement: the means by which the soul journeys to God is faith, and faith is dark because it surpasses the natural capacity of the intellect. He describes faith as an obscure light precisely because revealed truth exceeds what human understanding can grasp.² This means that spiritual maturity does not necessarily mean that we understand more and more of what God is doing. At the deepest level, it can mean that we become increasingly willing not to understand. The soul eventually reaches a place where it cannot rely upon sensible consolation, intellectual clarity, emotional certainty, spiritual experiences, or even its previous understanding of God’s action. St. John describes the purified soul as walking in “dark and pure faith,” which he calls the proper and adequate means of union with God.³ This is important. The soul does not reach union by acquiring some extraordinary spiritual experience. It reaches union by becoming radically receptive to God by being purified. The soul ceases to demand that God reveal Himself according to the soul’s preferred manner of knowing – it has to accept a new divine way. It says, in effect: I believe because God has spoken, even when I cannot see. That is the poverty of pure faith.
3. Mary: Not Merely a Teacher of Faith
It is tempting to describe Mary simply as someone who teaches us faith. She certainly does. But that word is insufficient to express the mystery of her spiritual motherhood. Mary does not merely stand outside us and point toward Christ. The Church teaches that Mary’s motherhood extends to us “in the order of grace.” Her motherhood, begun with her consent at the Annunciation and sustained beneath the Cross, continues in her maternal care for the members of Christ.⁴ This is why the Marian mystery can be understood in terms of reception. Mary received the Word. She received Him in faith before she could comprehend the whole mystery. She carried Him. She nurtured Him. She gave Him to the world. And she remained united to Him when His earthly life appeared to end in apparent defeat. At the Cross, Mary’s faith did not disappear when everything became incomprehensible. It became more radical. She could not see the Resurrection yet. But she remained faithful to the Lord’s Word: I will rise.
4. Mary Beneath the Cross
Mary’s presence at Calvary is perhaps the deepest expression of her faith. At the Annunciation, she believed the word of God when it promised something seemingly impossible. At Calvary, she believed when everything visible seemed to contradict the promise. The same woman who had said, “Be it done unto me according to thy word,” now stands beneath the Cross. The promise appears to have ended in death. Yet Mary does not withdraw her consent. She remains in faith, hope, and love. The Catechism explicitly describes her motherhood as extending from the consent she gave at the Annunciation and “which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross.”⁵ This is tremendously significant for the soul undergoing its own spiritual night. There may come a point when we cannot say with confidence, “I understand what God is doing.” But Mary can stand with us when we cannot understand. There may be moments when our faith feels terribly weak. Mary’s faith was not weak. There may be moments when we cannot see the fulfillment of God’s promises. Mary remained beneath the Cross when she could not yet see the Resurrection.
Therefore the soul can make an act of extraordinary humility: Mary, I cannot believe as you believed. I entrust myself to you. Carry me in your faith while I learn to make my own act of faith. This is not a pious sentiment invented by the soul; it corresponds to what was actually accomplished at Calvary. From the Cross, Christ gave Mary to the beloved disciple as Mother, and in him to every believer: “Behold thy mother” (John 19:27). In receiving her as Mother, we receive not merely her example but, in a real sense, her virtues — for as St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus says, “the virtues of the mother belong to the child.” A child does not earn its mother’s life; it is given a share in it simply by being born of her. So too the soul that has been given Mary as Mother is given a share in her faith. This gift is first communicated in Baptism, where Mary’s faith is planted in the soul like a seed, to be nurtured and to grow within us throughout the whole of the spiritual life. This does not mean that Mary’s faith replaces ours. Rather, we are acknowledging our poverty (the poverty of our limited spiritual means to reach God) and allowing her maternal faith — given to us at the foot of the Cross and sown in us at the font — to assist us, not so that our faith might one day become an act made apart from her, but so that it might mature into our own free and supernatural response within that same union: our act of faith is authentically ours, and yet it never ceases to be an act made in communion with Mary, who remains our Mother in the order of grace for as long as we are on the way to Him.
5. The Maternal Womb of Grace
This brings us to the imagery of the womb. Mary’s physical womb was the place in which Christ’s humanity was conceived and nurtured. In the spiritual order, the Church has long contemplated Mary as Mother of Christ’s members. We should therefore be careful with the language. Mary is not the source of divine grace. Christ is. The Cross is the unique and sufficient source of our redemption. The Church is explicit that Mary’s maternal mediation does not compete with Christ’s unique mediation. Rather, Mary’s saving influence flows entirely from Christ’s merits and serves the union of believers with Him.⁶
This is a crucial distinction. We do not come to Mary because Christ is inaccessible. We come to Mary because Christ Himself has given her to us as Mother, and her whole maternal action is ordered toward bringing us more completely into Him. The recent doctrinal clarification of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith likewise describes Mary’s cooperation as maternal and participatory: it shares in the one unique source of Christ’s mediation rather than constituting a second, independent mediation.⁷
Thus we can speak mystically of Mary’s maternal heart as a place of reception. The grace originates in Christ. Mary receives it. Mary cooperates with it. Mary nurtures its growth in the members of Christ. And the soul receives it through surrender.
6. “Until She Which Travaileth Hath Brought Forth”
Now Micah’s imagery becomes particularly suggestive: “He shall give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth.” The literal Messianic fulfilment points toward the coming of the Messiah. But as a spiritual analogy, we can see here an image of birth through travail. The soul does not simply arrive at union effortlessly. There is a dying to old ways of possessing God. There is a stripping away. There is darkness. There is waiting. There is a mysterious gestation. And then there is birth. The imagery of spiritual birth is not foreign to the New Testament. St. Paul himself uses the language of labor: “My little children, with whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). The goal is therefore not merely that the soul learn about Christ. The goal is that Christ be formed in the soul. Mary’s spiritual motherhood can be contemplated within this mystery. She who once bore the physical Body of Christ becomes, by grace, Mother of the members of Christ. The soul is brought into the mystery of Christ’s life.
7. “The Remnant of His Brethren Shall Return”
The next phrase in Micah is equally important: “Then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel.” The immediate biblical meaning concerns the restoration of God’s people around the Messiah. But spiritually, the word “remnant” provides a beautiful image of purification. The Dark Night strips away what is not God. The soul’s false securities are reduced. Its compulsive need to understand is reduced. Its dependence upon spiritual consolation is reduced. Its tendency to possess God according to its own categories is reduced. What remains? A remnant. A soul reduced to poverty. A soul that can say: “I have nothing except God.” And that remnant returns. But it does not return to itself. It returns to Christ. The soul discovers that the purpose of purification was never annihilation. It was possession of God in a deeper way.
8. Mary and the Soul’s Ultimate Act of Humility
Here we reach perhaps the deepest aspect of the Marian insight. There can be a point in spiritual life where the soul recognises: I cannot make myself holy. I cannot manufacture contemplation. I cannot produce mystical union. I cannot force myself to believe. I cannot create the transformation I desire. I can cooperate with grace, certainly. I can pray. I can repent. I can detach myself. I can practice virtue. But ultimately God must do the transforming. And Mary becomes the perfect creaturely image of this receptivity. Her fundamental disposition is: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” Mary does not say, “I will accomplish this.” She says, “Let it be done to me.” That is the deepest humility. And therefore entrusting oneself to Mary can become an extraordinarily profound act of humility: I accept that I am not sufficient even in my faith. I entrust myself to the Mother who believed when I could not. I place myself within her fiat and ask her to bring me wholly to Christ. This is not an evasion of faith. Paradoxically, it can prepare the soul for pure faith.
9. The Cross Has Already Accomplished Everything
Everything must ultimately return to the Cross. There is nothing lacking in Christ’s sacrifice that Mary or the soul needs to complete. Christ has accomplished redemption. The soul’s transformation is therefore not the completion of Christ’s work but the reception of its fruits. Mary’s role is precisely subordinate to this. The Church teaches that Mary’s maternal influence flows from the superabundance of Christ’s merits, rests upon His mediation, and exists to foster union with Him.⁸ Thus the whole mystery can be expressed: Christ accomplishes. Mary receives and cooperates. The Church receives. The soul receives. There is a beautiful order here. The source is Christ. The maternal receptivity is perfectly manifested in Mary. And the soul learns to become receptive to the same grace.
10. Mary as the One Who Believed for Us?
We must phrase this carefully. We cannot literally say that Mary’s faith replaces the soul’s own act of faith. Every Christian must personally respond to God’s grace. But there is a profound truth behind the expression “Mary believed where we did not.” Mary’s faith is perfect creaturely faith. At the Cross, she remained where others fled. She trusted where others were bewildered. She hoped when the fulfillment of the promise was hidden. Therefore we can entrust ourselves to her maternal faith. The prayer of the soul becomes: Mother, where my faith is weak, hold me in your faith. Where I cannot hope, hold me in your hope. Where I cannot love, obtain for me the grace to love. Teach me, but more than teach me, receive me. Carry me toward your Son, and let my own free and perfect act of faith be born within that same embrace.
This is not placing Mary in the position of Christ. It is allowing Mary’s own relationship with Christ to become a maternal participation in our journey toward Christ. Nor does this mean that Mary is a stage the soul eventually leaves behind. Even as the soul’s own act of faith matures and deepens, it remains an act made in union with Christ and with Mary; her maternal faith does not give way to independence but continues to sustain and accompany the believer’s free response, for as long as the soul is on pilgrimage toward the fullness of that union. The Church’s teaching is precisely that Mary’s motherhood fosters, rather than obstructs, immediate union with Christ.⁹
11. The Dark Night as Marian and Paschal
Seen in this light, the Dark Night has a profoundly paschal character. Christ dies. Mary remains. The disciples experience bewilderment. Mary remains. The promise appears to have failed. Mary believes. The Resurrection has not yet appeared. Mary waits. This is a powerful image of the soul’s own journey. The soul may experience: “He shall give them up…” — the old securities disappear. Then: “…until…” — God’s hidden work continues. Then: “…she which travaileth hath brought forth” — Christ is progressively formed in the soul. Then: “the remnant … shall return” — the soul emerges from purification stripped of self-reliance. Then: “he shall stand and feed his flock” — Christ Himself becomes the soul’s Shepherd. And the destination is not merely relief from suffering. It is union. St. John of the Cross describes faith as the road by which the soul journeys into this union, and the deepest purification as preparing the soul to walk in pure faith.¹⁰
12. The Final Goal: Christ Formed in Us
The purpose of Marian devotion, therefore, cannot ultimately be Mary. The purpose is Christ. Mary is completely transparent to Him. The Catechism expresses this beautifully: Mary is wholly transparent to Christ; she “shows the way” because she belongs entirely to the mystery of her Son.¹¹ The more truly we entrust ourselves to Mary, the more she disposes us to say what she said: “Be it unto me according to thy word.” And what is the Word? Christ. What does God desire? That Christ be formed in us. What is the ultimate means? Faith working through love. What accomplishes it? Grace. Where does grace come from? Christ. And who is the creature who shows us perfectly what it means to receive that grace? Mary. Thus Marian consecration, Marian entrustment, and Carmelite purification can meet at one point: total receptivity to Christ.
Practical Application: How Can We Live This?
This theology is not merely something to contemplate. It can become a concrete way of living the spiritual life.
1. Entrust yourself consciously to Mary. Especially at the beginning of prayer, say something simple: “Mary, I give myself entirely to you. Receive me as your child and bring me wholly to Jesus. Where my faith is weak, obtain for me the grace of pure faith.” Do not make the prayer complicated. The essence is surrender.
2. When God seems absent, do not immediately conclude that He has abandoned you. Remember Micah: “He shall give them up… until…” And remember St. John of the Cross. The absence of consolation is not necessarily the absence of God. Sometimes God is purifying the soul precisely by removing the ways in which it previously experienced Him. Remain faithful to prayer without demanding a particular feeling.
3. Make acts of faith without waiting for feelings. This is central to St. John of the Cross. When you cannot feel God’s presence, say: “I believe You are here.” When you cannot understand: “I believe You are working.” When you cannot see the purpose: “I trust You.” When prayer feels empty: “Jesus, I choose You without consolation.” This is especially valuable because the act of faith becomes increasingly pure when it is not supported by sensible experience. St. John specifically describes faith as the dark means by which the soul is led to union.¹²
4. Let Mary carry your poverty rather than trying to hide it. You do not have to approach Mary pretending to possess the faith you wish you had. You can say: “Mother, I do not know how to believe as you believed. Believe with me and for me as my Mother, and obtain for me the grace to surrender completely to Jesus.” Then remain quiet. The purpose is not to manufacture an emotion. It is to surrender.
5. Stay beneath the Cross. When something in your life becomes incomprehensible, resist the immediate temptation to flee spiritually. Remain with Christ. Remain with Mary. The Cross teaches us that God can be accomplishing His greatest work precisely when His action is least visible. Mary did not see the Resurrection yet. She remained.
6. Ask not merely for consolation, but for transformation. A mature prayer is increasingly: “Lord, do not merely make me feel close to You. Make me like You.” That prayer opens the soul to purification. Sometimes God’s answer to this prayer will be consolation. Sometimes it will be purification. The second can be more painful, but it can also prepare the soul for a deeper union.
7. Receive the sacraments and remain within the Church. The mystical life should never become detached from ordinary Christian life. Remain faithful to the Eucharist, Confession, Scripture, prayer, charity, and the teachings of the Church. The deepest mystical surrender is not escape from ordinary Christianity. It is the transformation of ordinary Christian life by grace.
8. Practice the Marian “fiat.” In difficult circumstances, try replacing “Why is God allowing this?” with “Let it be done to me according to Your will.” This does not mean passivity toward injustice or refusing legitimate action. It means surrendering the deepest outcome to God. That is Mary’s posture. And it is the posture of the soul entering pure faith.
Conclusion
The words of the prophet finally lead us beyond the darkness itself: “He shall give them up, until she which travaileth hath brought forth.” The “until” is decisive. God does not abandon the soul in its darkness; He gives it over to the work of purification until something new can be born. What appears to the soul as deprivation, abandonment and even death is, in the hidden work of grace, the travail preceding birth.
Mary stands at the heart of this mystery. She is the one in whom the Word was first received in faith, conceived by the Holy Spirit, and brought forth into the world. Her whole existence reveals the law of spiritual birth: the soul must become receptive to God, allowing Him to accomplish in it what it cannot accomplish by itself. Her “fiat” is therefore not merely the response to the Annunciation; it is the fundamental disposition of the creature before God. Mary remains faithful through the hiddenness, the poverty, the sword, and finally the darkness of Calvary. In her, we see that the same Christ who is conceived in faith must also be brought to birth through a life entirely surrendered to God.
This sheds a deeper light on the Dark Night described by St John of the Cross. The Night is not an end in itself, nor is it merely a purification from imperfections. It is ordered towards the transformation of the person into Christ. God strips away the forms of attachment and self-reliance that prevent the soul from receiving Him in the depth to which He calls it. The soul experiences this as darkness because the work belongs principally to God: it cannot see what He is doing, nor can it bring about its own transformation. It can only consent, persevere, and remain open to grace.
Here, Mary becomes more than an example placed before the soul. She reveals the form of the soul’s own journey. The mystery of Christ’s birth in Mary becomes, by grace, the mystery of Christ’s formation in us: “My little children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Gal 4:19). The travail is real because birth is real. The darkness is permitted because God is leading the soul towards a new mode of life in Christ.
The goal, therefore, is not simply to emerge from the Night. It is to emerge transformed. The soul that has passed through this darkness discovers that God was not absent; He was working more deeply than the soul could perceive. What had to die was not the soul itself, but the old way of possessing, understanding and even seeking God. What is born is a deeper capacity to receive Him, to live by faith, and eventually to love with the charity that comes from God alone.
Thus the prophecy of Micah can be read as a profound key to the spiritual life: God “gives up” the soul only “until” the travail has accomplished its purpose. And Mary shows us what this purpose looks like. She is the Mother in whom Christ was first brought forth; she is also the image and mother of the Church in whose members Christ is continually being formed. The Dark Night is therefore not the opposite of Mary’s presence. It is precisely within this hidden travail that her maternal vocation accompanies the soul towards its birth in Christ.
The final word is therefore not darkness, but birth. Not abandonment, but surrender. Not death, but transformation. The soul passes through the Night so that Christ may live more fully in it. And Mary, who first received Him with her “fiat” and brought Him forth into the world, teaches the soul to make that same movement of complete receptivity: to let God be God, until Christ is fully formed within us.
Notes
- St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel / The Dark Night, on the second night as God’s preparation of the soul for union (Christian Classics Ethereal Library edition).
- St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, on faith as an obscure light exceeding the natural capacity of the intellect (CCEL edition).
- St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, on “dark and pure faith” as the proper and adequate means of union with God (CCEL edition).
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, on Mary’s spiritual motherhood “in the order of grace,” begun at the Annunciation and continuing in her maternal care for the members of Christ (see also Lumen Gentium, ch. 8).
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, on Mary’s motherhood as extending from her consent at the Annunciation, “which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross.”
- Catechism of the Catholic Church / Lumen Gentium, on Mary’s maternal mediation as flowing entirely from Christ’s merits and not competing with His unique mediation.
- Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, recent doctrinal clarification on Mary’s cooperation as maternal and participatory, sharing in the one unique source of Christ’s mediation.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, on Mary’s maternal influence as flowing from the superabundance of Christ’s merits and ordered toward union with Him.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, on Mary’s motherhood as fostering rather than obstructing immediate union with Christ.
- St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, on faith as the road to union and purification as preparation for walking in pure faith (CCEL edition).
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, on Mary as wholly transparent to Christ, who “shows the way” because she belongs entirely to the mystery of her Son.
- St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, on faith as the dark means by which the soul is led to union (CCEL edition).
- St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, on the soul’s surrender of dependence on lesser lights in order to be guided by faith alone (CCEL edition).