| <<<Home | Maxims Directory |
Continuation of Commentaries
on the Maxims on Love of St. John of the Cross
by Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd
Maxim 24 .
To be taken with love for a soul, God does not look
upon its greatness, but upon the greatness of its humility.
The
first point for reflection here is the phrase: "to be taken with love." We wonder what St. John means by
that. Well, I just looked up the
original Spanish, and I do believe the text could also have been translated: "to
fall in love with." So the entire
maxim becomes: In order to fall
in love with a soul, God does not look upon it's greatness, but upon the
greatness of its humility.
We
do then, know the difference between loving someone, and being in
love with someone. We spoke
about that when commenting on Maxim 18 that says, the soul that walks
in love neither rests nor grows weary.
There we reflected upon what it means to be in love in order to
get an idea of what it is to walk in love.
That being the case, we have to wonder in what sense we
can apply the notion of falling in love (and then remaining and
being in love) to God. That
is because in our commentary on Maxim 18, we said that the one in love
takes on the whole value system of the beloved, and can only desire and work for
the realization of all the desires of the beloved and thus for the happiness of
the beloved. It means that the one
in love finds his/her meaning and happiness in life only in promoting and
enhancing the good of the beloved.
Thus, we wonder, can God go so completely "out of Himself," so to speak,
that He finds meaning and happiness only in making souls happy? Well, of course, we have to look at
Jesus, who reveals the Father, and Divinity, for that matter, to us. He really did go out of Himself,
so to speak, in becoming Incarnate precisely because He, representing the entire
Trinity, wanted to make us happy, that is, restore to us the possibility of
choosing eternal beatitude. Jesus,
as Saviour, finds His meaning and happiness in Redeeming us.
Thus we have to conclude that we cannot say of God what
we can say of ourselves. All of us
can both love others and still be in love or fall in love with
some one other person. With God
there is only one possibility: He
can only be in love with each and every human soul. We, because we are creatures limited by
space and time, that is, because of the material component of our humanity,
cannot possibly orient our entire being to all other humans and be
for all other human beings at one and the same time. God, being a pure spirit and Infinite
and Eternal is able to be
for every human soul (or person) at one and the same instant as completely
and perfectly as if no other soul (or person) existed.
But
St. John still says in this Maxim 24:
"(In order) to be taken with love (to fall in love)", which implies that
He is not already in love)," with every human soul, as I have
suggested. So I have to modify what
I said to mean: God is ready,
willing and able to be in love
with every human person, but whether He is or not, or rather, to what
degree He is in love with any one of us (from 0% to 100%) depends upon
each individual. We are free
and able to prevent Him from being in love with us in actual
fact. But, no one of us can
ever prevent Him, since He is subsistent LOVE, from always wanting
eagerly to be in love with each one of us.
As St. John tells us, the degree to which God is actually and
effectively in love with any human person depends upon that person's
humility. If we have
no humility, He cannot effectively love us. If we have 100% humility, God is able to
be completely in love with us and is able to find His perfect happiness
(with respect to each individual) therein.
So
now we have to turn and consider and reflect upon a person's "greatness" and a
person's "greatness of humility."
What do we mean by a person's "greatness?" I believe that St. John has in mind each
person's "greatness" or degree of "talent" and "ability." Persons can differ by reason of the
number of distinct talents they have, and in those who have identical talents,
they may differ in regard to how well they have developed the talents and
abilities God has endowed them with.
Certainly no human being has control over the talents and abilities
he/she is born with, but each of us does have a certain amount of control over
what we do with these talents and abilities.
To
help us get a better handle on what we mean by talents and abilities, we must
keep in mind that these are things that are morally neutral. That is, they do not determine whether
we are morally good or morally evil. Another way of saying it is that these
natural talents and abilities exist in sinners as well as in saints. They exist in demons as well as in
angels. They are such things as
intelligence, musical ability, artistic ability, physical strength, mechanical
skills, linguistic skills, and a whole host of others: cooking skills, athletic abilities,
etc.
How
important that last paragraph is can now be appreciated by observing that
therefore, humility is not a talent or ability. It is not an ability or talent in the
same way that all the other moral virtues (good qualities) or the vices (bad
qualities) are not talents and abilities.
Examples of good moral qualities would be: honesty, chastity, justice, prudence,
truthfulness, temperance, generosity, charity. Vices are opposite of those evil
qualities. All of those good
qualities especially humility, are things that we conceive in ourselves (with
the help of God's grace) by our free will and our free choices. Then once we have conceived them, we can
freely decide to cooperate with further graces from God that cause them to grow
and become perfect. Thus, the
greatness of these moral qualities also depend upon us, that is upon our free
cooperation with the help God offers.
And the same is true of the vices.
People conceive them in themselves through their free choice, and of course, once conceived Satan and
all Hell are ever ready to help them, those people, become perfect in
evil.
One
other aspect of a person's greatness (before we begin to say more about
humility) has to do with the particular role or part someone has been chosen to
play in the plan of God for all of Mankind. This is intimately related to the
natural or kind of gifts and talents and abilities that one receives together
with his/her human nature at birth.
Those destined (qualified) to exercise authority, for example, would be
"greater" than those subject to their authority. Those otherwise destined (qualified) to
bear heavier burdens for the good of all society would likewise be greater than
those who are qualified to carry only lesser burdens. Again, being qualified to carry a
greater burden does not mean that one automatically does accept and bear those
heavier burdens. Again, it is all a
matter of free will and free choice, and one may choose to carry 0% of the
burdens God would like them to carry, or anywhere up to 100% of that
burden. But, no matter how we look
at it, either as developing and using in-born abilities or as bearing burdens
and responsibilities, it is always humility that has to play a key
role.
How, then, does this maxim require us to think about humility,
and in particular, the greatness of humility. What I am suggesting is that humility
is a certain way of looking at ourselves, and thinking about ourselves vis-a-vis
the talents, abilities, qualifications for carrying burdens and exercising
authority, both apart from
Apart from what we have done with all the in-born
talents, abilities and qualifications we have, humility lies in freely accepting
and acting upon the truth that none of these have been merited or earned by us,
but that all are a free gift of God.
The reason I say accepting and acting upon that truth both
together, is that one may "speculatively", that is, with the mind alone
accept the truth that we have our being and all its in-born talents, abilities
and qualifications as a gratuitous gift from others, but we have not accepted
that truth with our free will, or better, with our hearts, until we act
upon those truths. Thus, if we
acknowledge that we are qualified to bear a certain burden, we act upon that
acknowledgment by actually picking up and carrying that
burden. The burden, again, has to
do with cooperating with God in the working out of His plan for all
humanity.
Humility then, can be minimal, just slightly greater
than zero, when we only pick up and carry - i.e., use our talents and abilities
to do God's work - the work He wants us to do - only a very small part of the
entire burden. Humility is maximum
and perfect when we pick up and carry 100% of the work God wants us to for the
good of the entire human race.
Considered together with our past history in the use of
our talents and abilities and qualifications to play certain roles in God's
plan, humility lies in taking all the blame for our failures, and giving God all
the credit for our successes. We
have very little humility in this regard, when we try to find excuses for what
we have done. With no humility we
try to shift the blame to other individuals or to circumstances beyond our
control. Someone with no humility
refuses to acknowledge that he/she has deliberately refused to use talents for
the good of others, or what is worse, refuses to acknowledge that he/she has
used them to hurt others and thus the common good as well. In other words, refuses to admit to
having sinned. Someone with very
little humility will accept only a small portion of the blame for sin. And on the other hand no humility means
claiming credit for all the good one has accomplished, and little
humility means claiming most of it, and sharing only a little bit with others,
particularly with God. We have the
best example of no humility (which translates into 100% pride) in Adam and Eve
after the Fall.
As
you recall, Adam tried to shift all the blame to Eve, and she tried to shift all
the blame to the serpent. The best
examples of 100% humility is found, as you know, in the New Adam and the New
Eve. They attributed all the credit
to God, acknowledging that every particle of their talents, abilities and
qualifications were gifts of God.
Each of them carried 100% of the burdens and responsibilities they were
qualified to carry for the good of the entire human race. And having said that,
it becomes clear that another way of knowing - or discerning humility - is in
terms of willingness to serve others rather than to be served. The more sincerely willing a person is
to serve, the more humble he/she is.
And another way of saying that is to say that a proud person attempts to
turn all the abilities and talents and qualifications to his/her own personal
gain and gratification, particularly in trying to escape completely the
necessity of bearing burdens for the good of the entire human
race.
I
said that humility is the key - the greatness thereof - to causing - or rather
allowing - God to fall and be in love with us, according to this Maxim 24 of St.
John of the Cross. And from what we
have said so far, there are two components, so to speak, of God's being in love
with us factually and effectively.
One is that He finds no obstacle in our conduct and thinking that
prevents Him from pouring all the graces He desires into our souls. These graces
then lead, with the cooperation of our yes, or Fiat, to the other component, the
perfect development of our talents, abilities and qualifications for fulfilling
perfectly the role He has assigned to us for the realization of His plan - one
of Infinite Mercy and Love - for the entire human race. Thus, for God to be "taken with love" or
"in love" with His human creatures is slightly different for each human being,
and is unique for each human being.
If we think of God's plan as a Mosaic, each human being represents a tile
in that mosaic, larger or smaller, closer to the center or closer to the
fringes, being distinguished from all others by shade and color in many
instances, but always completely unique as to where it is placed relative to the
overall plan or picture. Humility
that is perfect allows God, the Master Artisan and Artist, to take us in rough
forms, shape and polish, then set neatly in place.
Let me conclude, finally, by a brief reflection on how
we might determine whether we are really humble, as I said, we can
all agree mentally that all we have and are is ultimately God's gift, and
that all the credit for good we do goes, ultimately to God, and all the blame
for sins we commit goes ultimately to ourselves, yet how can we be sure we
accept this with our hearts?
Here, fallen human nature comes to our aid, strange as
that may sound. The question we
have to ask ourselves what spontaneous feelings and sentiments arise in us when
we see that we have been able to accomplish a good work, or that someone praises
us for some good quality we have or for some deed done? Do we find ourselves inwardly gloating,
and smiling and basking in the sunshine of that compliment, or do we
instinctively sink into our nothingness and turn our thoughts to God and give
Him the credit, and be quick to burst into praise of His Wisdom and Power and
tender kindness for making use of someone like ourselves to be His servants and
instruments in carrying our His Merciful designs on the human
race.
On
the other hand, when we are blamed and reproached for something, do we fall into
discouragement and get depressed at worst, or be quick to make excuses (even if
only in our minds) and to justify ourselves at best, or do we remain cheerful
and willingly accept the reproach as merited, and see in it a gift from God
inviting us to rely less on ourselves and more on Him as we go about doing His
work in the world?
If
we say yes to the first part of both questions, and no to the
second parts, we have not yet attained a high degree of humility. But if we can say no to the first
parts, we have not yet attained a high degree of humility. But if we can say no to the first
parts, and yes to the second parts, then we can be reasonably sure that God
has looked upon us, and been taken with love.
When we are perfectly humble and God is completely taken with love,
we can then make the Magnificat of Mary our own hymn of perfect praise.
| <<<Home | Maxims Directory |