The paths of two Johns converge today.

A good friend of mine relayed to me that the priest's homily focused on the troubling doubt of John the Baptist in today's gospel (Matthew 11:2-11) reading for Gaudete Sunday (the third Sunday of Advent). We are troubled by John's doubts because he is the very cousin of Jesus, the forerunner. Yet, beaten, broken, in prison and faced with death, he struggled with feelings of being abandoned by God. The priest, according to my friend, called this John's Dark night of the Soul.

This is an obvious tip of the hat to another John- Saint John of the Cross, whose Cathedral in Spain I saw a few months ago.

Saint John of the Cross was in pretty much the same situation- imprisoned, beaten- when he wrote his classic Dark night of the Soul.

The connection is very apropos because this Saint John describes the very purgative nature of this particular type of desolation and the profound paradox of how Jesus identified Himself with those who feel forsaken when He cried out from the cross: My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

That this priest was able to draw this parallel was something I found both appropriate and clever. Obviously, he did so with the fact in mind that today- December 14th- is also the feast day of Saint John of the Cross.

After finishing this conversation, I returned to my devotionals, one of which is a book of reflections for Advent, simply broken up by the weeks. In other words, no specific calendar days assigned.

In one of the Gaudete Sunday reflections, Father Vincent Twomey of Ireland (2008) refers to John the Baptist's struggle with the following;

"The important thing is that John turned to the Lord in his existential predicament - perhaps we could say in his dark night of the soul."

I love being Catholic.