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Continuation of Commentaries
on the Maxims on Love of St. John of the Cross
by Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd
Maxim - 9.
Preserve a loving attentiveness to God with no desire to feel or understand any particular thing concerning Him.
The
command - or admonition - to preserve indicates that we do have a certain
amount of control in regard to what St. John of the Cross is suggesting.
Those persons - or person - were clearly the Discalced
Friars and Nuns for whom he was either a confessor or spiritual guide. He, St. John of the Cross, knew that
they had the power to preserve it because the life-style they were living in
community and the places they frequented every day were designed to help them
preserve a loving attentiveness to God.
Their choir and church, the rooms and halls of their monasteries were
filled with objects of a religious nature that had to remind them frequently of
where they were, who they were, and what they were in the monastery to
accomplish. Thus, if anyone of them
were unable, for a protracted period of time, to remain in loving attentiveness
to God, it was because they were focusing all their attention on something
foreign to their profession as Discalced Carmelite Friars and
Nuns.
When we apply that Maxim to lay people, and to Secular
Carmelites in particular, preserving that loving attentiveness is not as
easy. For Friars and Nuns, they
came into surroundings that fostered it.
For lay people and Secular Carmelites, they had first to create the
surroundings that would foster it.
To explain somewhat the difference, we can say the Friars and Nuns were
wearing a Religious habit all day, whereas Carmelites wear a small
scapular - their habit - under their clothes, hidden from their physical
awareness. The difference I speak
of is the difference in the ease whereby they could preserve
attentiveness to God.
So
for a lay Carmelite the physical helps in his/her surroundings would be statues
and holy pictures, crucifixes, above all, as well as reading the breviary, the
Bible and spiritual books, etc. All
of these would be reminders of God and of his/her relationship to God. From the reminder the attentiveness St.
John speaks of would follow.
St.
John also qualifies the character of the attentiveness. He calls it a loving
attentiveness to God. To be a
loving attentiveness the will or the heart has to be the faculty that is
primarily occupied. Here we have to
remember that we are not always “conscious” of the activity of the heart, the
will. Although the heart has a way
of perceiving and communicating, it is a non-verbal way of perceiving. It is free of ideas, basically, although
also basically dependent upon some kind of sense
perception.
Perhaps an example that I reply upon to help people
understand what contemplative prayer is, will be helpful at this point. In fact, loving awareness is a big part
of contemplative prayer.
The
example I have in mind is something all of you parents have seen, and surely
been a part of many, many times. I
see it so often, sometimes every Sunday, when I offer Mass in a Parish. It is the sight of young children,
usually 3 - 5 years old, who either are held in the arms of their mother or
father, or snuggled up close to one or the other in the pew. The child usually rests his/her head on
the parent’s shoulder or against the arm, and is fully conscious and alert. But the look on the face is one of
contentment and security. The child
senses the presence of the parent at least with the sense of touch, hears the
parent breathing, smells the cologne or after-shave, and occasionally looks at
the mother or father’s face. That
child’s state is certainly one of loving awareness or attentiveness to the
mother or father. I am quite sure
the child does not think or have clear-cut ideas or words in his mind. That is what the loving attentiveness
St. John speaks of here, which is the greater part of contemplative prayer, is
like.
As
we go on to the next part of the Maxim, with no desire, we remark first
of all that desire is also a function of the heart and is not
compatible with a loving attentiveness.
In the example of the child and its parent given above, it seems to me
that there would be a desire on the part of the child to “melt” into the
mother or father, and should there be a movement on the part of the parent to be
free of the child pressing against him/her, the child would desire to
remain in the parent’s arms or pressed against him/her. It seems to me; also, that the only way
we are able to perceive or feel that we do love something or someone is
by means of the desires that we experience. The only other way we know that we love
another is to know with our intellects that we are doing something to please or
enrich the person - or better - doing what is for the greater good of the
person, especially the soul of another person. We know we love God when we unite
our wills to His, since love, being of God, is a spiritual entity and not
directly perceived through sight, sound, taste, smell or
touch.
Thus, when St. John of the Cross says with no
desire, he has in mind very specific kinds of desire: namely to feel or
understand. This confirms what
we have said above loving attentiveness that is part of contemplation being
devoid of ideas or sense perceptions that are clear or vivid. And that is why St. John of the Cross
adds “any particular thing concerning Him.” As far as feeling of consolation
or any other kind of delightful sensation.
What would be OK would be a desire for some very general feeling such as
the sense of someone’s presence that is not communicated through a
particular sense. We could compare
that to the generalized sense of presence or contact the child experienced in
the parent’s arms.
As
far as understanding anything particular about God is concerned, I think St.
John of the Cross means having a desire to understand the mystery of His nature
as Trinity, or any of the truths we accept on Faith - Jesus being true God
and true Man, the Real Presence in the Eucharist, etc. The furthest we can go in understanding
these is only the very general understanding that these truths of Faith do
not violate reason or contradict reason; they simply transcend reason and
understanding. In concluding
the comment on this 9th Maxi, I believe we can paraphrase it by saying:
Maxim 10.
Habitual confidence in God, esteeming in yourself and in your sisters
those things which God most values, which are spiritual goods.
At
first sight, the two parts of this maxim, which are separated by the first
comma, have nothing in common, or at least are only indirectly
related.
Confidence is a synonym of trust, and trust always
implies letting go of self-reliance at least, and letting go of
control at most. Or, really,
confidence in another person means letting go of self-reliance. As you know, self-reliance means basing
one’s security or certitude of obtaining or accomplishing something upon one’s
personal abilities and powers.
Having said that, it is necessary to revise what I said
about the two parts being unrelated.
The two are connected because to esteem means to place a
high value upon something or someone, and confidence is based upon the
esteem one has for the means or tools at one’s disposal to achieve a certain
goal or obtain a certain good thing.
That being the case, this maxim advises a Religious
Sister, or anyone who is in pursuit of perfection (through union with God), to
value most highly the almighty power of God to give us what is best for
us, really to give us that perfection of charity through union with
Himself. We also rely on the
Infinite Love of God and Infinite Wisdom of God, which has Infinite power at
their service.
Thus, by following the advice to esteem only attributes
of Gob that guarantee our eventual sanctification, we learn to esteem only
spiritual good things in ourselves and others, things that partake of those same
attributes in God that we rely on.
It is my opinion that by spiritual goods St. John means gifts of grace,
and the things we are not to esteem in ourselves and others are
mere gifts of nature. In
other words, in and of themselves, gifts of nature, no matter how exalted,
cannot lead us to, or obtain for us, the perfection of holiness we are called
to. As a matter of fact, they
cannot even lead to salvation. They
cannot even bring us to the threshold of purgatory. In point of fact, it seems from the
experience of the human race that really extraordinary gifts of nature are more
of a liability than an asset which it comes to salvation and sanctity, because
they did not preserve Adam and Eve from sin, just as they did not preserve Satan
from rebelling against God.
Throughout the history of the Church, many, many Catholics, even Bishops
and priests, have defected or become heretics because they were too proud to
submit to the representatives of Jesus in their lives. It continues to happen today with
dissidents and dissenters. We can
paraphrase the statement of Jesus, or rather substitute in it the words,
“richly endowed with natural gifts” for the word rich. It is easier for a camel to pass through
the eye of a needle than for a person “richly endowed with natural gifts” to
enter the kingdom of Heaven.
So
if we wonder what are those spiritual goods we should value in others and
ourselves we have to look at Jesus.
In a general way, they are all the qualities implied in the teaching of
St. Paul: “Let that mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus...etc...”
(Philippians 2:5-8) and in a more specific way - the attributes Jesus Himself
esteemed and recommended in the Beatitudes. He certainly esteemed them because He
said Blessed (lucky, fortunate) are the poor, the meek, the merciful, the clean
of heart, the sorrowing, those who hunger and thirst for holiness, who are the
object of persecution. These are
the spiritual goods to be esteemed.
If humility is not mentioned specifically, the greatest of all spiritual
goods, it is because it is included in all the Beatitudes, one way or
another.
Maxim 11
Enter within yourself and work in the presence of your Spouse, Who
is ever present loving you.
Once again we must consider two meanings for the word
and. It can be disjunctive
or conjunctive. Where it is
disjunctive it means the things it joins are different and separate. When it is conjunctive it means the two
things belong together or are somehow the same.
What I mean is, does this Maxim tell us: Enter within
and work within, or enter within (one thing) and work externally (another
thing). Surely the latter is
possible. But can we also
work within?
We
do know that we ought to enter within ourselves when we pray Because we strive
to be free of all external circumstances that distract us from giving all our
attention and affection to the Trinity, Whom we love and Who abides in the
depths of our souls. Since we do
try to enter into loving conversation with the Three Divine Persons, perhaps
that is the work that St. John has in mind. However, my notion of work has to do
with activity that achieves a tangible good effect, such as improving something,
producing something, or conferring benefits of any kind or another upon
others. According to that concept
of work, working within would necessarily have to do with improving the state of
one’s soul, producing a good effect in the soul (which amounts to the same
thing) and conferring a benefit upon the soul. Or perhaps the work within is restricted
just to removing the obstacles that prevent God Himself from producing good
effects in our souls, since by ourselves we can do no good thing; all good in us
is produced or granted by God. To
the extent this latter idea is true, this maxim is related to the previous one,
since the results achieved by our working within by removing obstacles (defects,
venial sins, imperfections, bad habits) is to dispose us to receive the
spiritual good things we are to esteem in ourselves and
others.
Having said all that, now I wonder whether it
is possible to enter within and be within while working
outside ourselves, that is, being directly and primarily occupied with affairs
and people rather than with our own souls.
Once we give diligent attention to what is outside us, how can we remain
within?
Perhaps the way out of this dilemma is to be found in
the latter 2/3 of this maxim: namely “...in the presence of your Spouse, who is
ever present loving you.”
I
do believe it is possible to enter into our work, our exterior activity, in
such a way that it can be truly said: “He/she puts his/her heart and soul
into his/her work.” That seems
to say: such a one is totally immersed in the perceptions of sense and feelings,
etc. that accompany all exterior activity.
A skier, for example, could be wholly attentive to the feelings and
sensations of speeding down a steep slope.
Perhaps we enter within ourselves, when we are about to work, by remembering
and keeping before our mind’s eye that Jesus, indeed all Three Divine Persons
are present within and that they all love us. For God to be loving within us means to
be constantly desiring the very best for us at the least, and then communicating
more of Himself (His Life) to us when more room is made in our Hearts and
Souls. Perhaps St. John wants
us to think of Jesus present as Spouse, loving us, in the sense that He is
at work “husbanding” our resources of grace and nature so that they will yield
the 100 fold of fruit - that is, an increase of divine life in souls and in
the Church. This new life in
other souls constitutes the “children” brought into God’s family of whom Jesus
is the Father and the Church, in and through souls working within in Jesus’
presence, as their Mother.
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MISSION
STATEMENT: This web site was created for the purpose of completing the work
of Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, O.C.D These conferences may be reproduced for private
use only. Publication of this material is forbidden without permission of
the Father Provincial for the Discalced Carmelites, Holy Hill, 1525 Carmel
Rd., Hubertus, WI 53033-9770. Texts for the Maxims on Love were taken from
The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, by Fr. Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D.
and Fr. Otilo Rodriguez, O.C.D. 1979 Edition. Copies of the book are available
at ICS Publications, 2131 Lincoln Rd., N.E., Washington, D.C. 2002-1199, Phone:
1-800-832-8489.