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Continuation of Commentaries
on the Maxims on Love of St. John of the Cross
by Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd
Maxim 25.
"He who is ashamed to confess Me before men, I shall be ashamed
to confess him before My Father," says the Lord. (Matt. 10:32; Luke 9:26)
Of
eighty maxims St. John gives us, this is the first that he takes in its entirety
from Sacred Scripture. Only in one
other does he quote Scripture, and then it is only to support the maxim that he
does give.
At
first sight, this statement of Our Lord Jesus does not seem to satisfy the
definition of a maxim, which is:
a succinct formulation of a fundamental principle or rule of
conduct. To be a maxim, a
saying directly enjoins a particular deed or mode of conduct upon us. this statement of Our Lord is more an
observation, a statement of fact.
But of course, it is easy to change this into a maxim. We do it by stating: See to it that you confess Jesus
before others, so that Jesus will confess you before His Father. And surely, that is what St. John of the
Cross must have had in mind for us to do when he included it among the
maxims.
What then do we mean by the phrase: "Confess Jesus?" I think we can say that it means: to give evidence that we know
Jesus, in the same way that we want Jesus to know ourselves. The reason I say that is because in one
of His discourses (Luke 13:23-27) Jesus was responding to the question: "Lord, are they few who will be
saved?" He did not respond
directly, but simply said: "Strive
to enter by the narrow gate, because many will try to and be unable." Then He said: "after the householder has
entered the house and closed the door, you will stand outside and knock, saying
'Lord, open for us.' And He will
tell you: 'I don't know where
you're from.' And you will
say: 'We ate and drank with you,
you taught in our streets.' And He
will say to you: 'I don't know
where you are from. Depart from me
you workers of iniquity."
Thus, we would confess Jesus, that is, we would know Him
when we give evidence that we know where He is from.
Now, obviously, it is not enough to have intellectual
knowledge only that Jesus is from God, and that He is God, one with God
the Father and God the Holy Spirit.
It is necessary to let that intellectual knowledge become the source and
inspiration of all our human activities, and to give form and substance to our
lives. Since we know that Jesus is
the Way, the Truth and the Life, we give evidence that we know this when we
imitate that conduct.
This raises a question: Is it possible to imitate Jesus when one
is all alone in secret, that is not in the presence of others, as it is possible
to pray in secret, and indeed advisable to pray alone and not in the presence of
others? I am convinced that it is
next to impossible to imitate Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life when
there is no one to relate to.
Praying in secret does imitate Jesus in that praying is a loving
interrelationship with God.
But
can we say that there are many ways that we can imitate Jesus when we are with
people? Is it true that only some
of those ways really imitate Him as Way, Truth and Life?
I
guess the answer to that is that only those ways of imitating Jesus that certain
people are ashamed to be seen doing are the ways of imitating Him as Way,
Truth and Life. For example, would
anyone feel ashamed to give a brilliant discourse before a crowd of people as
did Jesus on many, many (actually all) occasions? Would anyone be ashamed to perform
remarkable cures in the presence of huge crowds? Would anyone be ashamed to have a large
number of followers, disciples, to carry on his/her work? Probably not. Therefore, in doing these things, one
would not be following Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the
Life.
So,
to imitate Jesus as Way and Truth and Life a person would have to be willing to
serve, rather than be served, and to give his/her life as a ransom for
others. Or, one would have to be
willing to look foolish and be thought of as foolish and of no account by the
ones society considers great. This
happens when, after being struck on one cheek, the victim turns and offers the
other. Also, it happens when, after
someone has asked for our cloak, we give them our tunic as well. Again it happens, when, after having
been injured or ill treated by others, we not only refrain from seeking revenge
or breaking off relationships, but actually treat them as dear friends and never
cease being good to them. That is
what the important people of the world consider weakness and foolishness. I guess to sum it up, we imitate Jesus
as Way, Truth and Life when, in the presence of all, we are meek and humble of
heart. Jesus did say: "Learn [this] of Me, for (read
that) I am meek and humble of Heart.," What we learn we
know. So when we know Jesus
as meek and humble of Heart and imitate Him, we are truly confessing Him before
others.
An
objection could be raised: Most of
us very seldom, if ever, are in the presence of others who would consider us
foolish for being meek and humble of heart. If none of those around me are such as
to cause me to feel ashamed to confess Jesus in that way, how can I be sure that
Jesus will not be ashamed to confess me before His Father?
Well, in the passage from Scripture I quote above, I used
the translation "I don't know where you are from." Another version translates that as: "I don't know where you come from." That
suggests a further possibility: "I don't know where you are coming
So
in all our lives, on those occasions when we can imitate Jesus by teaching and
doing good for the benefit of others, and find ourselves well thought of by our
relatives, friends and acquaintances, Jesus is looking at our hearts. If we are truly humble, and we
acknowledge that all that we do that is good has God as its author, that He gave
us our talents as a free gift, and if our primary and predominant joy in serving
is to see others helped and happy rather than to gloat inwardly over the
fact that we did these good works, then our motivation is
good.
But
meekness can be present, too.
Meekness, after all, is the virtue that overcomes the temptation to be
angry and resentful. Suppose there
is no recognition on the part of others, no word of thanks, no least sign
of appreciation, but rather the feeling that we are being taken advantage
of? If in that circumstance we
continue to serve and do good as whole-heartedly as when there is recognition
and thanks, then again we have the meekness that imitates Jesus, our Way, Truth
and Life.
Finally, perhaps its not true that we seldom are among
people who would think us foolish for confessing, by our deeds, that we know and
imitate Jesus. This maxim
was given by St. John to Friars and Nuns, those whom we would expect would never
ridicule those who are meek and humble of heart. So I guess what St. John is telling us
by this Maxim, given to those who profess vows to follow Jesus in poverty
and obedience and chastity (which latter by the way, worldly people especially
think is utter foolishness), is that Pride in us always remains so difficult to
overcome, that not even Religious life and a life outwardly dedicated to serving
God is an infallible guarantee that we have attained the meekness and humility
of Heart that will cause Jesus to confess us before His heavenly
Father.
And
after all that, it finally occurred to me that St. John+ is talking about "human
respect," which means caring more about what people might think about us
than we do about offending God, even if it means committing serious sin. The really frightful thing about this
"human respect" is that one never knows for sure what others would think
of us for doing the good and honorable thing. Perhaps if one were to overcome the fear
of what others might think, and do what God wills for us in a
particular situation, he would discover that his fear was
groundless.
The
best example of what horrendous sins human respect can lead to is found in the
action of King Herod in the Gospel.
Because He was afraid of what his military officers and the leading mean
of Galilee might think if he did not keep his promise to Salome, Herodias'
daughter, he gave the order to have John the Baptist beheaded. The fact that "human respect" governs an
awful lot of what we say and do indicates how deeply rooted pride is in us as a
result of original sin.
Maxim 26
-
Frequent combing gives the hair more luster and makes it
easier to comb. A soul that
frequently examines its thought, words and deeds, which are its hair, doing all
things for the love of God, will have lustrous hair. then the Spouse will look upon the neck
of the bride and thereby be captivated, and will be wounded by one of her eyes,
that is, by the purity of intention she has in all she does. If, in combing hair one wants it to have
luster, one begins from the crown.
All our works must begin from the crown (the love of God) if we wish them
to be pure and lustrous.
This maxim does not require much comment, because St.
John+ himself explains its chief meaning.
It is about motivation and intention. As he says, the combing is an
inquiry into one's motives, or better, into the reason why one acts as he
does, and thus, what one is trying to achieve by its words and deeds. An old saying in moral Theology is: The Last in execution is the First in
intention.
St.
John is telling us in this figurative language that our thoughts, words and
deeds have various degrees of beauty and attractiveness in the sight of
God. It is even possible that they
have none at all, and thus are offensive in the sight of God. He makes it very clear, too, that that
which pleases Him and makes our thoughts, words and deeds attractive to Him is
purity of intention.
He
is also suggesting, I think that if we never examine our motives to correct them
and keep them pure, they very easily lose their quality of purity. It is the same as with hair. If never attended to, it soon looks a
mess. Thus, if we fail often to
make deliberate efforts to keep our intentions pure by choosing to do all things
for love of God, we lapse back into acting out of love for ourselves or for
someone or something other than God.
Implicitly, St. John+ is telling us that in addition to
losing their luster, the motives behind our thoughts, words and deeds can become
entangled and knotted, so that it is extremely difficult to disentangle them, if
not impossible. Then the process of
doing so can be very painful, just as it would be for someone with entangled,
knotted long hair to get all the strands separated and straightened. We can take that a step further by
observing that it might require painful mortification or penance and other forms
of self-denial and detachment from persons and things in order to accomplish
it. Sometimes we are unable to do
that by ourselves, at which times God in His Mercy has to send us trials and
sufferings that purify our motives by destroying any disordered love we might
have for persons and things.
I
cannot help thinking that this maxim of St. John follows logically from the
maxim that precedes it in this list.
He must have had in mind the "human respect" we just finished talking
about. He may be telling us in this
way that we are all more afflicted by "human respect" (or respect of persons)
than we tend to believe. So if we
examine our thoughts, words and deeds to see whether we are trying to please
others more than we are trying to please God, then perhaps that kind of inquiry
is the most efficient way of accomplishing the "combing" that restores (or
gives) luster to our conduct in the sight of God.
I
think we can also say that there is a connection between this Maxim 26 and Maxim
24 as well. For Jesus to be
captivated by the lustrous hair on the neck of the soul would correspond to "God
being taken with love" for a soul.
In maxim 24 St. John+ says that it is the greatness of the soul's
humility that causes Him to be taken with (captivated by) love. Hence, another way of doing the
"combing" Maxim 26 speaks of is to examine our thoughts, words and deeds in the
light of the virtue of humility.
Probably this examination as to the humility that does or does not form
the basis of all our deeds in the best way to purify our thoughts, whereas
making use of the concept of "human respect" is the best way to purify our deeds
and words, i.e., give them the luster that pleases God.
This maxim also provides another meaning for the
expression: "to be taken with
love." It suggests that this means
"God cannot take His eyes off the soul" that has such lustrous hair., i.e.,
thoughts, words and deeds springing from humility and from love of Himself. What is the effect of this constant
"looking upon" the soul with the lustrous hair? St. John+ himself tells us in the Stanza
5 of the Spiritual Canticle. In
response to the question of the soul having gone out in search of the
Bridegroom, the woods, the thickets, the green meadows enameled with bright
flowers tell her: "Pouring our a
thousand graces He passed these groves in haste; and having looked at them, with
His image alone, clothed them in beauty."
One quick glance of the Bridegroom impressed enough of the image
of Himself upon those things, that they became clothed in beauty. Imagine then, how much or Himself and
His infinite beauty He infuses into the soul whose luster is such that He cannot
take His eyes off her.
Before leaving this Maxim 26, I want to make two observations.
First, what gives luster to long hair is the "grease" that the scalp
produces. Combing that begins at the scalp, or crown
picks up the grease by the bristles of the brush and distributes it along
the entire length of each strand of hair.
That grease, or better "oil" is the equivalent of the love of God that
St. John identifies with the crown, or scalp itself. The second observation has to do with
the many activities we engage in daily that are neutral in themselves.
That is, they are neither inherently good, nor inherently evil. These can be transformed into morally
good or morally evil by the intention with which they are performed. If we form the habit of making the express
intention of doing them for love of God, they become not only
good, but take on the luster that is so attractive to the eyes of Jesus, the
Bridegroom.
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