| <<<Home | Maxims Directory |
Continuation of Commentaries
on the Maxims on Love of St. John of the Cross
by Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd
Maxim
27 -
Heaven is stable and not subject to
generation; and souls of a heavenly nature are stable and not subject to the
engendering of desires or of anything else, for in their way they resemble God,
Who does not move forever.
Before beginning, let me say that whatever I say in commenting upon this
maxim is pure speculation. I do
hope to be logical and philosophically accurate in my reflections upon this
maxim, but I am not sure I understand what it is St. John intends to teach as a
help to us in our journey toward union with God.
Let's consider first the statement: Heaven is stable, and not
subject to generation. The
first thing that comes to mind is the episode in the Gospel, when certain
Sadducees, who did not believe in the Resurrection, asked Jesus about the seven
brothers, all of whom married the same woman in succession, as each preceding
brother died. "In the
Resurrection,": they asked, "whose wife will she be? Remember", they said, "all seven married
her." Jesus' answer was, "you
are mistaken, you know neither scripture nor the power of God. In the Resurrection they neither marry
nor are given in marriage. They are
like the angels of God in Heaven. (Matt. 22:28-30, Mark 12:23-25). Luke has Jesus giving a longer answer:
(20:33-36): "The children of this age marry and are given in marriage. Those found worthy of that [other age]
and of resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor take wives; nor can they
ever die again. They are equal to
the Angels and are children of God, since they are children of the
Resurrection."
We may conclude, therefore,
that the statement under consideration (underlined above) means that the
individuals who make up the population of heaven never cease to be inhabitants
thereof, and thus never need to be replaced. Once a person gets there, he remains
forever. This is a valid inference
because the citizens of that world differ from the citizens of this world, who
die, and need to be replaced. If
God did not want the people on earth who die to be replaced, He would never have
created us in two sexes nor given us the institution of marriage. How well the Jews understood this is
proven by the fact that a woman who did not bear children was considered an
opprobrium, and looked down upon by the Jewish people. Furthermore, the Jews were so taken with
the fact that they were related to God through the Covenant made with them
through Moses and as descendants of Abraham, that they often prayed to be spared
the experience of death and given a longer life on earth on the grounds that
once in the grave they would no longer be able to praise Him. As Psalm 29 [30] states, "What do you
gain by my blood (that is, my death) if I go down to the Pit? Can dust praise you or proclaim your
faithfulness?" It was as if God
needed a people so that He could be their God, and that they in turn could give
Him praise. That is why they, the
Jews, felt that they needed children to replace them and carry on the Covenant
relationship.
There seems to be another difference between
the citizens of Heaven and the citizens of earth.
The citizens of heaven are said here to be free of engendering desires
or of engendering any other thing. That
is suggested by the fact that souls still on earth who resemble the souls
in heaven also engender neither desires nor any other thing. Well then, souls on earth who are not
heavenly in nature would be doing exactly that. What could that possibly mean?
We know that it is impossible
for anyone who loves NOT to have desires.
It is by means of our desires that we not only know that we love, but
whom or what it is we love. So there must be some special meaning
to engendering desires. It seems to be that most of our
desires do not originate with us, but have their origin in some good outside
ourselves. God has created us
in such a way, as we have had occasion to observe before, that whenever we
perceive "goodness" in a person or a thing, we automatically desire to possess
or be united with that person or thing so that we could "enjoy" that very
"goodness." Thus these desires are aroused in us. We do not engender them. For us to engender desires, then, seems
to mean to think up or create with the imagination something or someone that
does not already exist, that is, that possesses a "goodness" that does not
exist already. Because the desire
to possess that good which is the creation of the individual who creates it
originates within him, I think we can say he has truly engendered that desire.
Perhaps an example of this would be the desire that Eve, our common
mother engendered with the help of the serpent.
He helped her to conceive the idea that she and Adam could be the equal
of God, that somehow they could be infinite, uncreated being.
That appealed to her as something good and thus desirable, so that
we can say that because she formed that notion, she engendered it. This is not a perfect example because
the serpent guided her thinking. But
surely, because of fallen human nature, an individual who does not
have a heavenly soul might easily decide there is no existing "goodness" good
enough for him, so he would fabricate something in his mind that would possess
the "goodness" he believes is "good enough" for him. Souls of a heavenly nature on earth know
as well as the citizens of heaven, that there is no "goodness" that exists
apart from God and that His goodness far exceeds their imagination and understanding,
and all possible desire, and so they could not possibly try to fabricate something
in their minds in order to desire it.
We can say, too, that engendering
desires differs from "inflaming" the desires, or "stirring up" the desires.
This is something we all should try to do through the practice of meditation
and spiritual reading. Because
of the Faith given us in Baptism, and nourished throughout the years, we all
have a desire for union with God. But the more we can stir that desire into
fervor and flame, the more surely we will undertake to do those things that
cause us to love Him more, and thus more surely and perfectly carry out His
Will, (on the one hand) and on the other hand, to avoid those things which
cause our love for Him to cool, or which cause us to violate His Will in our
regard.
We now have to consider the
assertion that souls of a heavenly nature, because they are stable
and do not engender desires or any other thing resemble God, because God does
not move forever.
St. John was versed in what we know as Scholastic
Philosophy and which was the handmaid, so to speak, of Theology. The purpose of philosophy is to provide
a means of perceiving all facets of reality as being interconnected into a
beautiful, well-ordered, harmonious whole.
St. Thomas and his writings represent the highest and most noble of
the understanding of all reality Scholastic philosophy was capable of producing.
In that Philosophy, God is presented as the First Mover, who
moves everything else that exists, but who Himself remains unmoved. This concept of God arose from the experience
of motion (which includes the idea of change) in the universe.
The phenomenon of motion and change led to one of the 5 proofs of St.
Thomas of the existence of God. He
argued: Things about us move and change, particularly things that come into
being. Obviously, these things do not move
themselves, nor give themselves their being. So they had to be moved by some
existing being. But the idea
of an endless chain of movers all the way back with no beginning is repugnant
to the human mind, or to logic. Therefore,
there has to be a First Mover, not moved by anyone else, and First
Mover is GOD.
Thus, saying that God does not move is the
same as saying that God never changes, even though there is dynamism in God. As we read in the Letter of James: "Make
no mistake about this, my dear brothers, it is all that is good, everything
that is perfect, which is given us from above. It comes down from the Father of all light.
With Him there is no such thing or alteration, no shadow of a change"
(1:17).
To help us understand this,
Scholastic philosophy tells us that it is only good that should
exist. Here on earth we are capable
of choosing nothingness that is the absence of a good. In other words, we can choose what is
not of God, and therefore non-existent.
In Heaven, once souls have seen God, the Beatific Vision, it is
absolutely impossible for them to do evil, to choose nothingness. They can only choose God and what
is of God. Thus, they do not
change nor desire to change. They
remain united to God in Love, totally conforming their wills to the Divine Will.
Heavenly souls on earth also seek nothing else but God and what is of God, even
though still not confirmed irrevocably in good. So, going back to what we said at the
beginning, heavenly souls on earth do not desire anything, any good, that does
not partake of the goodness of God.
In that sense they also do not move. God cannot move in the sense that being
subsistent goodness, He cannot possibly do what does not partake of
Divine Goodness. If he could, that
would be the equivalent of His ceasing to exist, which is impossible, because
Perfect Being cannot ever become non-being. Perfect Existence can never become
non-existent. God is eternal and
infinite (without limit).
Maxim 28.
Eat not in forbidden pastures
(those of this life), because blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice
sake, for they shall be filled [Matt 5:6]. What God seeks, He Himself being God by
nature, is to make us gods through participation, just as fire converts all
things into fire.
Perhaps this maxim followed
immediately after the preceding one because St. John was still thinking in
terms of Scholastic Philosophy which St. Thomas Aquinas relied on to give
us his 5 proofs of the existence of God. He may have been thinking of something
analogous, or comparable, to the notion of God being the First mover,
who Himself remains unmoved. Here
we can suppose that He was thinking of the fact that life exists in
this universe, at least on earth, that only part of the universe of which
we have personal tangible experience.
His thought may have proceeded in this fashion: I see life all around
me. Even I have life. And I see that all living beings are given
their life by pre-existing living beings. But again, the notion of an endless chain
of living being stretching farther and farther back in time is repugnant to
the human mind. Thus, there had
to be a First living Being who did not receive His being from a previous
existing living Being. Therefore,
that First living being the source of all Life, is GOD.
To continue to speculate as to how this maxim
came to be written by St. John of the Cross, we can suppose that he remembered
that all life as we know it needs to be nourished.
If living beings on earth are not fed, they die of starvation. Of course, we know, too, that life as
we know it on earth comes to an end for any living thing that has a material
component. So, living things
die even if never deprived of nourishment.
Therefore, this maxim has to
do not with material, corruptible living organisms on earth, but with living
beings that never go out of existence once created because they are of a spiritual
nature, such as angelic beings and human souls.
Therefore, on the basis of what has been said about God being the Source
of all life and Being in Himself Subsistent, un-received Life, we draw the
conclusion that spiritual beings can only live when they feed on God, or rather,
feed on the LIFE that is GOD.
So, now looking at the first
sentence of this 28th Maxim, we conclude that the forbidden pastures of this
life on earth are those created entities which make us think that our
souls are alive, but which in reality cause our souls to die.
Because of original sin and the fallen, disordered human nature which
is its direct result, we tend to think our souls are alive when we possess
knowledge, which is food for the intellect, and also when our memory is filled
with the remembrance of resources we possess capable of overcoming all dangers
and threats that would diminish or take away our life.
Still again, to complete the picture, we think our souls are alive
when our will is in control, when it can impose itself upon others and thus
get whatever it wants. And let
me not forget to add that our souls tend to think they are alive when all
the senses of our lower nature experience pleasure and delight. And as we said in a previous conference
on the maxims, the will experiences the highest kind of delight, a spiritual
delight, when it obtains all it wants.
This shows the interconnectedness between the Intellect, the Memory
and the Will. That is because
the Will relies upon knowledge in the intellect and the remembrance of the
resources it has at its disposal to get what it wants, whether it seeks spiritual
pleasure in the will alone, or a combination of physical and spiritual pleasure
based on gratification of the senses, as it goes about seeking life for the
soul.
In that first sentence then
of this maxim, St. John is identifying the LIFE of the soul with Justice.
This is an Old Testament concept, which we also identify with holiness
and righteousness. Since Yahweh
did say to Abraham Be holy as I am Holy, then we are alive - our souls are
alive - only if we resemble God in the way we relate to all persons
and things that we encounter on our journey through this world. He is also reminding us that God is the
source of the ability to resemble Him in our relationships, and indeed,
we resemble Him because He gives us a created share in His very uncreated
LIFE. And in order to keep our
souls alive by maintaining and nourishing our created participation in God's
LIFE, we have to feed upon God Himself.
In the first sentence of this Maxim St. John+
speaks of the soul being filled.
That is a direct result of feeling hunger and thirst, and then
eating and drinking the LIFE of God. But
since we never stop experiencing a hunger for the LIFE which is God to keep
our souls alive, it seems we can say that the more we share in God's life,
the more our capacity to share in it grows.
And I think it continues, even in Heaven.
The last sentence of this maxim
suggests that it is possible for our souls to be immersed in God, the way
combustible material can be immersed in fire.
Indeed even non-combustible things like iron or rocks can be transformed
into fire by being immersed in fire and become red and even white hot.
How do we both feed our souls
on God and immerse our souls in Him? It is by Faith Hope and Charity. Faith enables us to know God as He is
in Himself, Hope relies on God's truth and goodness to enable us to remain
united to Him, and charity enables us to love as He does, as Jesus does -
to serve and to give our physical life to ransom souls that otherwise would
be eternally dead.
| <<<Home | Maxims Directory |