Why is 3 am called the midnight of the soul?

Well just basically, its when all is dead quiet with you and your thoughts and you look at your life and you care or despair about what you feel the most about in your life whether it is missing, or guilt or anger, or that which is mostly suicide decision time like when they found Aaron Hernandez in the morning. It was mentioned in that article. Dark night of the soul is what it was, not midnight of the soul. Oops. This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at December 11, 2018 10:01 PM MST

"Dark night of the soul" is much more than that, and has nothing to do with 3am.  The poem or practice comes from a 16th century Spanish Priest known as a mystic, who's practices were not well received by the Catholic Church and for which had him imprisoned, which is when he penned “Noche Oscura” or “Dark Night.”. He did escape. About six years later, St. John wrote a commentary on the first two stanzas of the poem. His treatise is now referred to as Dark Night of the Soul. It runs about one hundred pages, and was first published in 1618.

Quote from https://thornsandthickets.com/2018/08/20/dark-night-and-dark-night-of-the-soul-by-st-john-of-the-cross/

St. John might tell us that computers and cell phones are diversions that cannot fulfill the inward desire of man to reach God, and such digressions only drive us further from holiness. For the few who seek the narrow path, though, God can bless those individuals with a holy darkness. For St. John, the mind is not able to complete the work of God in the soul. The sensual nature of the soul is capable of learning and appealing to God, but it cannot know the means of achieving union with Him. Only God can perform that work, and He does so through a darkening of the carnal nature of the person. The soul entering this night has already reached a state of perfection; it is the desired, but often unrealized, hope of the immortal part of man. St. John says that the Passive Night is preceded by the Active Night, and the Active Night is the primary focus of his essay. It is during the Active Night that the soul attempts to contact God using its sensory faculties. God allows this futile act in order to bless man with sweet, spiritual milk which comes in the form of answered prayers, visions, and ecstasies…various manifestations of God’s active presence. St. John discusses the seven deadly sins in juxtaposition to the seemingly fruitful acts of Christians. For example, he writes that many Christians must be cleansed of their spiritual gluttony and pride, in which they inform others of their piety and are sure to make their spiritual lives known to receive human praise. The Passive Night can never come to those who still seek approval through the sensual soul; therefore, the value of the Active Night is that it exposes the contrary will of the sensual soul which struggles against God’s will. In “Dark Night,” St. John uses symbolism to identify the soul’s sensual nature as a house and the soul’s spiritual nature as a lover. The spiritual nature cannot be freed until the house is quiet: “When this house of sensuality was now at rest—that is, was mortified—its passions being quenched and its desires put to rest and lulled to sleep by means of this blessed night of the purgation of sense, the soul went forth, to set out upon the road and way of the spirit, which is that of progressives and proficients, and which, by another name, is called the way of illumination or of infused contemplation, wherein God Himself feeds and refreshes the soul, without meditation, or the soul’s active help” (Dark Night of the Soul, 46). God does not need for the soul to do His work for Him; in fact, the soul can do nothing but receive the Spirit, and this is its true nature and one desire.

Through practices the soul may release it's desire for sin, and achieve union with God.

On a dark night,

Kindled in love with yearnings—oh, happy chance!—

I went forth without being observed,

My house being now at rest.




In darkness and secure,

By the secret ladder, disguised—oh, happy chance!—

In darkness and in concealment,

My house being now at rest.




In the happy night,

In secret, when none saw me,

Nor I beheld aught,

Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart.




This light guided me

More surely than the light of noonday

To the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me—

A place where none appeared.




Oh, night that guided me,

Oh, night more lovely than the dawn,

Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover,

Lover transformed in the Beloved!




Upon my flowery breast,

Kept wholly for himself alone,

There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him,

And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.




The breeze blew from the turret

As I parted his locks;

With his gentle hand he wounded my neck

And caused all my senses to be suspended.




I remained, lost in oblivion;

My face I reclined on the Beloved.

All ceased and I abandoned myself,

Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.

Excellent site---

And a comment on the site by its author that might be of interest to those who believe a personal God.

I might be well-advised to read the works of those who successfully blended systematic theology with a more mystical type of spiritualism. While I could appeal to several theologians who have captured my heart, I find a great deal of comfort in the writings of St. John of the Cross—a man to whom wisdom and humility were bestowed in order that he might perceive spiritual mysteries. St. John was a man who was certainly not driven from his faith despite a depth of university learning.

(And that's my intent in life as well.)

Listen properly in future then...:(