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Continuation of Commentaries
on the Maxims on Love of St. John of the Cross
by Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd
Maxim
44.
If you wish to glory
in yourself, but do not wish to appear ignorant and foolish discard the things that are not yours, and you will have
glory in what remains. But certainly, if you discard all that
is not yours, nothing will be left, since you must not glory in anything if
you do not want to fall into vanity.
But let us descend now especially to those graces, the gifts of which
make men pleasing in God's sight. It is certain that you must not glory
in these gifts, for you do not even know if you possess them.
Before beginning to comment
upon some of the words and phrases in this maxim, let me say first of all that St. John of the Cross
says, in effect, "Do not glory in yourself." Then we can ask ourselves: Where is St. John of the Cross coming
from in giving us this Maxim? What
truth or fact prompted him to give it to those dependent upon him for spiritual
direction? We can only guess. The answer that occurs to me is that he
knows that every human being wants to have something to glory in. He seems to hold as a given, also, that
most human beings do not even know that they are always looking for something to
glory in. Furthermore, he seems to
be implying that it is O.K. to glory in something. Thus, by this Maxim he wants us to avoid
settling upon something that cannot satisfy a legitimate desire to glory in
something. Although there may be
many things that cannot be a justifiable
matter to glory in, one thing St. John does identify. We should never glory in
ourselves.
Now, let us turn to the
words and phrases themselves.
What is the meaning of the
expression: To glory
in? It seems to me
that we "glory in something" when we let the thought or the memory of that
something become the source and the occasion of a feeling of great contentment
and satisfaction. Of course, since
great satisfaction and contentment arise in us only when we are aware of being
united to or in possession of a great good, to glory in
means to immerse ourselves in and to bathe and to rest in the knowledge that
we are united to a great good. And
knowing that this is the meaning of to glory in, we see that it is
not wrong to have a desire to glory in something. That is because we know that God created
us for good, that is, to be united to Him who is the one, True, Supreme
Good, and who alone can satisfy the craving for Good He has placed in our
hearts. As St. Augustine tells
us: "Thou has created us for
Yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." A restless heart is not in the
possession of a true good, and therefore is unable to glory in the things it
possesses or is united to.
Now we can ask the question? How do we reconcile this maxim, this
admonition of St. John of the Cross with the findings of modern psychology. One thing we have learned about the
human person is that the firm foundation for a healthy psyche and for healthy
human relationships is that a person feel good about himself. Another way of saying this is to affirm
that good mental health cannot exist in a person who does not have a firm
conviction of his/her personal self-worth and dignity. Therefore, if every well-balanced human
being is able to say of his/her self:
"I am basically good. I am
worthy of the reverence and esteem of others," is this not the same as to
glory in oneself? Why then does
St. John of the Cross tell us, in effect:
"Do not glory in yourself?"
The answer to this latest question is found in the entire Maxim 44.
Earlier we said that to
glory in something is the same as to bathe in the awareness that
one is united to and in possession of a true and great good. But St. John explains that it is not ourselves,
our substantial being, our personhood that we can be united to and possess,
but only those things that are distinct from us. We know he is correct because otherwise
the mere fact that we exist would be sufficient to cause us to always have
deep contentment and satisfaction. And
in addition, scripture itself tells us that we do not possess the fact
of our existence. St. Paul tells
us somewhere: "you are not
your own. You have been purchased,
and at what a price!!" (1 Cor. 6:19b, 20a).
That being the case, what are
we doing when we feel good about ourselves? When we remind ourselves that we have
innate dignity and are deserving of reverence? If we are not glorying in ourselves,
what are we doing? It seems to me
as the quotation from I Cor. suggests, that we are coming to grips with an
awesome responsibility. We are
reminding ourselves that a masterpiece of God's creation has been entrusted to
our personal care. The
responsibility involves not only preserving the innate value and goodness of our
human nature considered in the abstract, but also preserving its goodness and
precious value in all its functions and operations. Being persons, the functions and
operations of our human nature are always relational. Feeling good about ourselves is the
foundation for good mental health because without it we cannot enter into
wholesome relationships. After all,
what characterizes lack of good mental health is the inability to have good and
wholesome relationships with others.
And we know, of course, that grace builds on nature. Sanctity consists of personal
relationships that reflect and participate in the relationships that exist
within the Trinity as well as the relationship between Jesus and every human
soul.
Now, in order better to
understand the teaching of this maxim, it seems to me we can state it again but
substituting another word or expression in place of the phrase: to glory
in. What that word
is, is given to us also by St. Paul.
He tells us: "God forbid
that I should boast, save in the cross of Our Lord Jesus "Christ." (Gal. 6:14). [Actually, in the Latin,
the word glory is used to translate the Greek term boast of
the original writing of this letter to the Galations.]
The way I have defined the
verb: to glory in, it is an
interior act, one devoid of verbal expression. Boasting then, is a way of verbalizing
and making known to others, that one is or has engaged in the internal act of
glorying in something. Thus an
alternate statement of this Maxim 44 becomes: "If you wish to boast (brag) about
yourself, but do not wish to appear ignorant and foolish, discard the things
that are not yours, and you may boast (brag) about what remains." In this way we understand that other
people know us better than we think, and they know very well what is of
ourselves and what is of God in us, or what is due to others (God's helpers) in
us. We would indeed then be deemed
ignorant and foolish, or in one word, stupid, to those others. Hopefully we would seem stupid to
ourselves as well, if ever we caught ourselves boasting in the goods of others,
given us by others, as if they belonged to us or were put there by
ourselves.
To continue: "But certainly if you discard all
that is not yours, nothing will be left [to boast about], since you must
not boast about anything, if you do not want [reads in order not] to fall
into vanity [uselessness]. And
to make this sentence of the Maxim clearer, allow me to make my own translation
from the Spanish: "But for sure, if
you set aside all the things that are not yours, you will have turned [your
attention] to nothing, since there is nothing there you might boast about,
unless you wish to fall into vanity."
Thus far the first two
sentences of this Maxim 44. Now we
have to consider the 3rd and 4th, or better, only the 4th sentence, since the
3rd sentence only identifies the subject matter of the
4th.
(3rd) "But let us descend now especially to
those graces, the gifts of which make men pleasing in God's sight." Can we identify them? We have to say yes, because there
is a very special gift we receive at Baptism, and which is augmented and
perfected as we receive other sacraments of Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Holy
Orders, Matrimony, and Anointing of the sick and Penance. At times, of course, the last two
restore the special gift that has been lost by mortal sin. The gift I am talking about is
Sanctifying Grace. There is a Latin
phrase used to denote sanctifying grace: Gratia gratum faciens, which
means: The grace that makes
[a person] pleasing [in the sight of
God]. To possess sanctifying grace
is to be in possession of a true, inestimable valuable good, and one may
glory in it. To show further how
pleasing Sanctifying Grace makes us, we remember that along with it, and
inseparable from it are given and augmented the Supernatural Virtues of Faith,
Hope and Charity. Of Faith alone,
we recall that scripture tells us:
"Without Faith, it is impossible to please God" (Heb. 11:6). Hope, the Theological virtue, enables us
to cling to those attributes of God which assure our eternal salvation, so its
presence in a soul makes that soul pleasing to God. Charity, the Theological Virtue, enables
us to love as God Himself loves, so again a person who loves in a divine manner
has to be pleasing to God. So,
sanctifying grace is surely one of the gifts that make a human person pleasing
in the sight of God.
We had occasion to speak of
another gift of God in the commentary on Maxim 24, which also makes one pleasing
in the sight of God. That Maxim
reads: "To be taken with love
for a soul, God does not look upon its greatness, but upon the greatness of its
humility." Clearly, God cannot
be taken with love for a soul unless it is supremely pleasing in His eyes. One may certainly, then, glory in the
gift of humility in the sense, as we said above, letting knowledge of its
possession give us a sense of satisfaction and
contentment.
And though we will not try to
identify them, all the virtues, good habits, which perfect us as human beings
and as children of God by adoption, are also gifts of God which make us pleasing
in His sight because they restore in our souls, in our being the perfect image
and likeness of God Himself, both natural and supernatural that He wants us to
recover. It was precisely for that
purpose that Jesus became Incarnate and earned those graces for all who are
willing to accept them.
So, now that we have identified
them all, how can St. John of the Cross advise us not to glory in them? Or, more accurately, how can he tell us
we do not know if we possess them?
The truth of the matter is, most of us here daily act as if we
possessed them. In what way? By approaching to receive Jesus in Holy
Communion. We wouldn't dare do so
unless we knew we had no mortal sin on our souls, especially if we receive after
having made a good confession and know we are in the state of Sanctifying
Grace!
Again, don't we know for certain that we
sincerely desire to place our wills into perfect conformity to God's
Will? Don't we know for certain
that we sincerely desire the good of all souls, all human beings, especially the
salvation of every human soul? And
don't we know for sure that we pray and make sacrifices and offer all our works
and sufferings united to the prayers, works and sufferings of Jesus for the
salvation of souls? All of this is
evidence that we do possess that grace that makes us pleasing to
God. In what way can we interpret
the final half of the 4th sentence in the Maxim: "for you do not even know if you
possess them."
It seems to me, that we can
only accept this statement of St. John of the Cross whole-heartedly by giving a
special interpretation to either the word "to know" or the word "to
possess," or to both. Let us
reflect first upon what we mean, or could mean, when we say we "know"
something.
The most elementary way of
knowing something is through our senses.
For example, I know water is hot or cold, or tepid, by just
touching it. I know a certain
beverage is sweet, or sour and to what degree, by tasting it. I know the color, size, shape, and other
characteristics of objects by looking at them. That is one way of
knowing.
Another way of knowing is
through the process of reasoning, which ultimately is based upon our personal
sense perceptions or the personal sense perceptions of others whom we know are
honest and reliable. Our intellects
are capable of processing that data and coming up with reliable
conclusions. The conclusions and
deductions derived are reliable because God programmed logic into us when
He created our soul and its faculties.
We base our daily activities upon this kind of knowledge, even without
being aware of it. This is so self
evident it is difficult for me to think of a good
illustration.
The third way we know is by
accepting as true bits of information given us in their totality without either
our senses or our personal reasoning being involved. This way of knowing is by faith. As you are aware, there is human faith
and there is Divine Faith. In each
case, we accept the information given us on the authority of the one imparting
it. By authority we mean
that attribute of the revealer that assures us that first, he is not mistaken,
and second, that he cannot want to deceive us.
But finally, there is the
philosophical understanding of what we mean when we say we know. In the first and second ways of knowing
mentioned above, the intellect forms ideas that conform to the sense
experience and the results of the reasoning process, and these ideas are stored
in the memory. In the third way,
ideas, formed by other intellects are communicated to us by speech or writing or
signs, and we accept and store them as given to us.
Applying all this to what we
said about Sanctifying Grace, Humility, and the virtues that perfect us as
children of God by adoption, we must say that, being spiritual entities, they
cannot be perceived by the senses directly. But we can say that we know them
by the second way, by reasoning about what our senses experience of how a person
acts who is in the state of grace, that is, who is practicing those virtues and
manifesting other divine attributes such as forgiveness or compassion. However, since that reasoning is guided
by Faith, because as the ways of God are above our ways, and because God is
utterly transcendent, we cannot attribute the conclusions and ideas formed to
our unaided human capabilities.
Now, since we must say that we know of these gifts in ourselves or in
others by Faith, and since we know that Faith is darkness to the human
intellect, then perhaps that is why St. John of the Cross can say we
don't know if we have them, because someone in the dark about something
doesn't know that something.
To go on now to reflect upon
the word "to possess." Actually,
we've already done this in the commentary on Maxim 29, which reads "All the
goodness we possess is lent to us, and God considers it His own work. God and His work is
God."
The only thing I can add to
what was said in that commentary is to consider the security or the permanence
with which we possess the goodness God has lent to us. Can a person really say he is in
possession of something that he might easily lose? While we are in this world we are
subject to so many forces and influences, both within ourselves and outside
ourselves that could cause us to lose the gifts and graces that make a soul
pleasing in God's sight. I hesitate
to say that a person who has a long-standing history of sincerely striving to do
God's will and to live up to one's status as a child of God by adoption, could
easily lose those pleasing qualities.
Only someone still trying to break away from serious sin could not be
sure whether he was or was not in the state of Grace. For such a one, trying to hold onto and
possess the things that make one pleasing to God would be like trying to hold
onto and possess a greased pig.
Before leaving this reflection
on what it means to possess, we can recall the commentary on Maxim 35,
particularly what was said about that part of it which reads: "Perfection does not lie in the
virtues which the soul knows it has, but in the virtues which Our Lord sees in
it. This is a closed
book..." That commentary
suggests that the gifts and graces here mentioned are intended to confer
perfection, and that it is their overall contribution to perfection that pleases
God. Since we don't know if we have
that perfection that pleases God, even though we may know we have the
individual gifts and graces, we really don't know whether we have the
perfection that alone makes us pleasing in God's eyes.
But there still remains one more
way of interpreting this last sentence of this Maxim. It is based on what St. Therese of the
Child Jesus has said of herself. She
affirmed that the greatest gift God gave her was the certain knowledge that
of herself she was totally incapable of any good or virtuous action.
Perhaps she reasoned that, without the ability to do good deeds, she
did not possess the graces and gifts that enable a person to please God by
their deeds. After all, she expected Jesus to do everything
for her. Therefore, she knew
she could not glory, either in herself or gifts and graces because either
she had none, or because they belong to Jesus and His Spirit working in her.
And so, since she was tremendously pleasing in Jesus' eyes, it must
have been because she was in effect adhering perfectly to the teaching of
this Maxim 44.
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