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Continuation of Commentaries
on the Maxims on Love of St. John of the Cross
by Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd
Maxim 14
Endeavor always that things be not for you, nor you for
them; but forgetful of all, abide in
This maxim is very difficult to understand. That is, for a person who is not a
hermit. It appears that only a
hermit, that is, someone who lives totally apart from other people out in some
deserted spot, could possibly hope to comply with this maxim. It was indeed possible for the Friars
and Nuns (Nuns particularly) to abide by this admonition, because they had no
other obligation toward society in those times other than to pray and suffer for
the salvation of souls and the good of the Church. But it would still be somewhat difficult
for them because they lived in a religious community, and so had to interact
with their fellow religious, the other friars and Nuns, and also they had
responsibilities and chores to do for the smooth, peaceful running of the
Monastery. Thus this Maxim reminds
me of one of the counsels to a Religious we spoke about quite a few months ago,
namely: "Live in the Monastery as
if you were the only one in it."
that is, have the mentality of a hermit.
But
perhaps even a hermit would have difficulty with the first part of the maxim:
"Endeavor always that things be not for you." Perhaps St. John+ means it in the sense
that a suit of clothes, tailored perfectly for our measurements, is for
us. Such a suit of clothes
could be worn only for ourselves, or someone with our exact measurements, and
that is rather unlikely. Thinking
of the first part of a maxim, letting things be for us would then means,
allowing them to have no other meaning or usefulness except in relationship to
ourselves. That would suggest a
possessiveness of things that would exclude their ever being used to benefit any
other person except ourselves. This
attitude, taken to the extreme produces "hoarding". Hoarding means not only stock-piling
things against the day we might need them, but also keeping them out of the
reach of others, lest, if and when we do need them, they are no longer
there. We see examples of this in
the animal kingdom. Squirrels hide
acorns and other nuts and berries for their exclusive benefit later on. Dogs will bury bones for their exclusive
use later on. In such cases, they
usually forget where they hid them, so most likely, no squirrel or dog ever
benefits from that type of hoarding.
Therefore, I think we can justly conclude that we endeavor that things
be not for us when we are willing to see our things, even those set aside
exclusively for our own use, given freely to anyone who needs
them.
This interpretation would be in full accord with the
Gospels. On one of the latter
Sundays of the Advent season, we heard St. John the Baptist's answer to those
who asked him what they should do.
The question was asked against the background of his exhortation that his
hearers "bring forth fruits worthy of repentance." His response was: "whoever has food, give some to whoever
has none. Whoever has two coats
should give one to someone who has none."
And again, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount taught: If anyone asks you for your cloak, give
him your tunic as well. If anyone
asked you to go one miles, go two.
Do not turn away from anyone who wants to borrow something from
you."
Thus we can attempt to paraphrase this maxim. We can cast it in terms of stewardship
or trusteeship: "Endeavor to act
always as the trustee of all the things that you have in your possession." That is consider them not your own, but
belonging to whomever you meet that needs them. Consider yourself only their guardian
and/or preserver (a legal word is conservator) for the benefit of other
people. When the question arises,
"But what about my own needs?" The
answer we should give ourselves is:
"Others are the guardians and conservators of the things I need, and they
will see to it that I lack no necessary thing!"
Having said all that, perhaps we can find it easier to
get at what St. John+ means in the next part of the maxim: "{Endeavor always that} you{be
not} for them."
We
mentioned how letting "things be not for oneself can cause one to become a
hoarder. This gives us a hint of
what it means for a person to be for things. Such a great amount of time and
attention and energy is devoted by hoarders to build up their stockpile of
commodities that they have little time for anything else. When building up a hoard of things
becomes the only preoccupation of a hoarder, that person becomes a miser. A miser is someone who so totally
devotes, dedicates, almost consecrates himself to storing up wealth, that he is
completely oblivious of himself and his basic needs and would rather endure the
most appalling filth and squalor rather than spend ten cents to satisfy basic
human needs. In such a scenario,
the miser really exists and has meaning only to be for {for the sake of}
his hoarded up goods. What is so
terrible about this is that God created all non-human creatures for the benefit
of his human creatures. This
mentality perverts the order and is an abomination in the sight of God. Now obviously, St. John+ is not
suggesting that any of the Friars and Nuns he writes for is in danger of
becoming a miser. Nevertheless, it
is possible for everyone, good people included, to inadvertently slip into
making their role as guardian and conservator of things more
important than the reason they are guardians, i.e.. for the good of others. In civil law, guardians and conservators
are to make reasonable good faith efforts to preserve and increase the assets
entrusted to their care for the benefit of their respective wards. but they are not to make that aspect of
their role more important than using the assets for the greater good of
their wards.
To
apply this principle to the Nuns and Friars for whom St. John+ is writing, we
would say that their monastic routine is organized in such a way as to maximize
the time and opportunities available to pray and sacrifice for the good of
souls. Also, of course, to maximize
time and opportunity to do the spiritual reading and reflection to help them
grow in love for God. If the Friars
and Nuns were to give themselves to these exercises and to the daily round of
prayer and work for the enjoyment (or good feeling about themselves) they derive
from them personally - or perhaps better, to permit nothing to take them away
from them, not even the legitimate needs of others in community - that would
amount to letting oneself be for
those
things.
When we come to the 3rd phrase of this Maxim 14, we
discover that St. John suggests what he means by the first two phrases. In that 3rd phrase he advises us: "but
{be} forgetful of {them} all..." He
suggests, I believe, that letting things be for us and letting
ourselves be or things is the same as being unduly mindful and concerned
with them, the opposite of being "forgetful" of them all.
Perhaps we have to think of "forgetfulness of things" in
a manner similar to how we think of Our Lord's admonition that "we hate" father,
mother, spouse, brothers or sister.
He does not mean "hate" in the sense of wishing that harm should befall
our human relatives. What Jesus
means by "hate" is that whenever there is a clear necessity to choose between
God and blood relatives, we must choose God's Will and His interest over the
interest and wishes of blood relatives.
Therefore, here, being forgetful of all things would
mean "don't let the duty to guard and preserve what God gave you for the
good of others, nor the actual application of them for the good of others
distract you from doing what St. John+ admonishes in the 4th and final phrase of
this Maxim 14, namely, "abide in recollection with your
spouse."
Being forgetful of all, then, must not mean being
neglectful of all, or acting as if those things and our duty to consider
ourselves trustee of them for others did not exist. Therefore, abiding in recollection with
Jesus, the Spouse of Our soul means:
being aware of Jesus and ourselves both together as thinking and
acting in conjunction, which requires communication, as working together at
preserving and developing our abilities and good and human assets, and as
working together at benefiting others with them. In this we see ourselves not as
individuals entrusted with weighty responsibilities by a master who dwells far
away, but by a master who is our constant companion, yet the very one who is
being personally benefited by the applications of all our goods of mind and body
and material resources to benefit others.
Since Jesus did say: "what you do for the least of my brothers you do for
me," abiding in recollection with Him means having Him present as owner of all
we have and are, because He identifies with us and enables us to be good
stewards, and also is present in all our human relationships. I think that what I have said is at
least one way, if not the only way, of observing this Maxim without having to
become a hermit.
Maxim 15
Have a great love for trials and think of them as but a
small way of pleasing your Spouse, Who did not hesitate to die for
you.
In
this Maxim, we have the use of the word "love" in a way that means "to cherish"
or "to esteem as very dear" or "very precious." We do not mean love in the truest sense,
which is "to earnestly desire what is best for another." The truest meaning of love, then, is benevolence.
At
times when we "cherish" or "esteem as very dear and precious" we do so only in
relationship to something else. The
value, the precious-ness of that something very often is determined by its
usefulness in obtaining what is very important for our own well being and
happiness. As you know, when basic
commodities are scarce, they command a higher price. They become more
"valuable".
There are certain things we "cherish" not because of
their usefulness in obtaining what is essential to our well being or happiness,
but because they have a precious quality in and of themselves. We "cherish" a newborn baby, not because
the baby can do anything for us, rather its parents have to do everything for
the baby. It is because the newborn
baby strikes a responsive chord in the hearts of the parents and
others. That is the chord
which causes them to devote and to orient their entire lives to and around
procuring the happiness of the baby.
In that sense, the newborn is the cause of extraordinary pure joy in the
parents and others. Thus the baby,
of itself, is precious. In
the same way, when that we love or cherish God, we do so, not because of
any benefits we derive, but because He is so lovable and good in and of Himself
that it gives the soul and the heart such tremendous happiness in contemplating
the evidence of His Goodness and in freely submitting to His
Will.
It
is certainly true that we can cherish trials because they are valuable in
obtaining for us something we need for our well being and happiness. St. John tells us what it is that causes
well being and happiness in us. It
is "pleasing Jesus" the spouse of our souls. Of course, in order to see that trials
enable one to do that, one would first have to cherish, or love Jesus, because
He is supremely lovable, and because it is He alone who gives life and happiness
to our souls.
Now
when we reflect on the meaning of trials, we must bear in mind how the word
trial occurs in everyday speech, apart from a spiritual, religious
context.
One
meaning of a trial - a synonym - is "a test." Tests determine what qualities
are present and also the degrees of the qualities and attributes
present. Tests also determine the
presence or absence of certain elements.
Another related meaning is a process to arrive at a
conclusion based on evidence.
The trial part has to do mostly with the bringing in of
evidence.
So
though there may be other meanings of the word trial, these just mentioned must
definitely be kept in mind when considering this Maxim.
Spiritually, speaking, trials tend to be things that
make us suffer in some way. the
suffering could be physical, emotional or spiritual or combination of two
or all three. If St.. John had
said, "have great love for suffering" in this Maxim, he would have been
saying the same thing. Spiritually
speaking, sufferings {trials} are valuable for several
reasons.
1. They
help us to know what it is our lower nature seeks as a source of gratification.
2. They
help us to know what our natural higher nature, our ego, looks for as a source
of psychological or emotional gratification.
3. They
help us to know to what extent our human reason and intellect stand in the
way of the operation of the supernatural virtues of Faith,
Hope, and Charity.
Actually, lower nature, ego and mere human understanding,
all three, help us (by the
All
three cause us to suffer when we deny them what keeps them pacified, what gives
them all they want for the sake of the "pleasure" or
gratification.
These sufferings are pacified {gotten rid of} in and
through the seven capital sins, which are Vainglory, Envy, Geed, Lust, Gluttony,
Sloth and Anger. These are the
things that kill the soul, that is, drive God away, and deprive us of Divine
Life. All of them cause us to seek
our happiness in transient, corruptive things or experiences. All of them cause us to be
self-seeking. They rob us of our
ability to love, that is to desire and actively work for the good of others at
the cost of own ease and convenience, honor and esteem.
Now, of course, what pleases Jesus, the Bridegroom, the
Spouse of the Human Soul, more than anything is for us to keep our souls alive
and to let Him communicate His life and happiness to us! So when, because of the Capital sins, we
are tempted to seek to please ourselves (our natural selves) we suffer because
we have to make a choice between pleasing God or pleasing ourselves, and we do
not like to make those kinds of choices, naturally speaking. We would prefer to hang on to all kinds
of good, natural and supernatural and not to have to choose to reject one and
keep the other.
Sometimes these temptations which cause us to suffer(or
to feel the absence of something pleasurable to senses and ego) arise within
ourselves. Then it is reason guided
by Faith which inflicts the suffering upon us. Very often, and maybe most often, it is
experience inflicted on us by others that cause us suffering. St. John of the Cross already spoke
about these in the counsels to a religious that we spoke of in a previous
conference. He said, "Some will
chisel you (work and try you in virtue) with words telling you what you would
rather not hear; others by deed, doing against you what you would rather not
endure; others by their temperament, being in their person and in their actions
a bother and annoyance to you; and others by their thoughts, neither esteeming
nor feeling love for you!
St.
John+ says that these are to be cherished as so many ways of pleasing Jesus.
As such they are evidence of the fervor of our charity.
They become big and significant ways of giving evidence
of the fervor of our charity when these trials cause very severe suffering. The Passion and Crucifixion which caused
Jesus' death were so very great that they are incontrovertible evidence that
he and His Father love us with an infinite love. If we equate Jesus' pleasing us
with Jesus' giving us life when we were dead in sin, then that is why
St. John+ ends this Maxim by saying....your Spouse, Who did not hesitate to
die for you. Compared to that
Infinite Love, any and all suffering we undergo to please Him, looks
very small indeed.
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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:
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