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Continuation of Commentaries
on the Maxims on Love of St. John of the Cross
by Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd
Maxim 58.
To
lose always and let everyone else win is a trait of valiant souls, generous
spirits, and unselfish hearts; it is their manner to give rather than receive
even to the extent of giving themselves.
They consider it a heavy burden to possess themselves and it pleases
them more to be possessed by others and withdrawn from themselves, since we
belong more to that Infinite Good than we do to ourselves.
We can be grateful to St. John of the Cross for giving
us in this maxim a practical hint as to how to practice the radical self denial
and mortification of the appetites that is necessary in order to attain to
union with God. We all can relate to
the notions of winning and losing, we know so well what it means, or rather,
what it feels like to win and to lose, because we’ve certainly won and lost
various struggles or contests in the course of our lives. We particularly know by experience how
contrary to our human nature it is to lose, and how eagerly we want to
win. This is true even when we play
innocent games like checkers, or cards or the various board games like Monopoly
or Scrabble. Hopefully, none of us have
had to experience the pain of losing when something really valuable is at
stake, like a law-suit. Hopefully, we
have all had the joy of winning something as serious as, or comparable to, a
law-suit. I say that NOT because I
don’t accept or agree whole-heartedly with this Maxim, but only to help us
appreciate how much our human nature dreads the experience of losing, and
conversely, how avidly we thirst to be winners.
Now since the desire to win out over our struggles and
trials is so strong, it cannot be totally bad,
After all, it is an instinct given us by God Himself. Just think of the instinct of
self-preservation. Is it not the root
cause of our desire to win the battle for survival in a hostile world? Besides, we are all expected as Baptized
Christians to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. But He is presented to us as a winner. We only have to think of the Sequence at Mass during Easter
Week. Part of it says: Mors et vita duello/conflixire mirando/Dux
vitae mortuus/regnat vives. This
means: Death and Life engaged in an
awesome struggle. The dead Leader of
Life reigns alive. And at the end it
says: Tu nobis Victor Rex,
miserere. Which means: Do Thou, Winner King, have mercy on us and
having recalled this great Easter hymn, we see exactly where it is St. John of
the Cross is coming from in giving us this Maxim. He was a most devoted, extraordinary lover of Jesus and succeeded
in imitating Him more closely than many saints. Jesus was engaged in a struggle with Satan, sin, evil, and
death. He alone was capable of winning
and if He didn’t come to win, none of us would ever be able to win against
those enemies of our eternal life. The
sequence we just referred to shows us that Jesus won by losing. He lost in the sense that He did not
preserve His physical, mortal life, i.e., His mortal humanity subject to
suffering and pain. But He won by
gaining a Humanity that is immortal, beyond the reach of pain and suffering,
beyond the reach of evil and sin. St.
John of the Cross, then, tells us in this Maxim we also have to lose. But we do not lose the struggle against
evil, if we carry out this Maxim. He
tells us rather to lose in contests with other fellow human beings, the people
we associate with every day. He tells
us in this Maxim where the struggle against evil is taking place. It takes place in the depths of our
souls. The fight we are engaged in is
against evil and sin in ourselves.
Implicitly, this Maxim says that we conquer evil and sin in ourselves
when we lose to everybody around us.
That this is so is indicated by St. John of the Cross saying this
ability to lose is a trait of unselfish hearts. It means then, that selfishness, the clearest evidence of Pride
has been conquered. When pride is gone,
evil cannot gain a foothold. It has
been vanquished.
We have to ask ourselves, now, what is
the nature of those conflicts or battles that we are supposed to lose? And do they occur often in our daily
lives? Perhaps we should not call them
battles or conflicts, in the sense that they are hard-fought struggles. The way St. John of the Cross speaks of the
souls who have this trait of always losing and letting everyone else win
suggests that they do not even struggle, and if so, they do not struggle very
long or very hard. It seems then that
we have to speak more of opposing wants and desires, or better, mutually
exclusive wants and desires of these souls who always lose, and of everyone
else whom they allow to win. And
because there is no sin involved in those losings or winnings, the conflicts
take place on the level of druthers in matters that are morally
neutral. They involve neither moral good or moral evil.
We have had occasion to speak of druthers
in one or more commentaries on previous Maxims. They are the spontaneous and natural preferences that we all have
concerning what we would like to see done or to see take place. Actually, we go beyond just a mere liking
for something to occur or happen, it involves really wanting it and willing
it. Some examples we gave before of druthers
were: our preference as to how
furniture should be arranged, what flowers to choose for the altar or as a
center-piece, what hymns to sing at a liturgical service, and so on. Because of how God made us, giving us
faculties to perceive and to evaluate, we all have druthers concerning every
situation that arises in our daily lives.
What this Maxim 58 brings to our attention is something we might never
have thought could happen, namely, that Pride insinuates itself into each and
every one of our druthers. Or, perhaps
better, pride insinuates itself whenever our druthers are opposed by
others who want their druthers to prevail in a given situation. In those instances it can surprise us how
tenaciously we cling to our own druthers as superior to those of others, and of
how hard we will fight so that our druthers win out over others’, and of how resentful we can be and hostile toward
the one whose druthers prevail over our own.
If we haven’t already experienced this in our own personal lives, which
I doubt, we know that this is so because St. John of the Cross says this trait
of letting the druthers of others win out over one’s own belongs to valiant
souls, and generous souls. It does
require bravery to risk being wounded or killed in warfare, and St. John
of the Cross seems to be speaking of a bravery or a being valiant comparable to
that. That is because death to our
Pride means death to our ego. Our
humanity has a natural aversion to ego-death that is almost as strong as its
natural aversion to physical death. He
also says that this trait of “losing always” belongs to generous
souls. Generous souls are wont to give
away or to place at the disposal of others a large share of the human assets
they possess. It is true that letting
the druthers of others prevail over our own is not exactly the same as giving
away or using our assets for others’ benefit, but both involve the ability to
be detached from things of value and to accept cheerfully being deprived of
things that are of value in the eyes of the world. So it seems that St. John of the Cross wants us to be convinced
that our pride is dealt a serious blow every time we lose by letting others
win. When we see to it that we always
lose, surely Pride cannot survive for long in our souls.
We go on now, to reflect on the rest of
the Maxim 58. We consider St. John of
the Cross’ assertion that always losing and letting everyone else win is the
way valiant, generous and unselfish souls give, rather than receive, and how at
times this enables them to give their very selves.
In telling this to us St. John of the
Cross provides the assurance that what we said about this trait causing the
death of pride in such souls is a fair and reliable assessment of the dynamic
involved. Proud people are quite
capable of receiving, but not very good at giving. Indeed, Pride causes one to become greedy to get more, and
hardens the heart against giving to others.
Beyond that, though, by this second part
of the first sentence, St. John is giving us an insight into the motives of
generous, valiant and unselfish souls.
Thus we know that these souls sincerely want to imitate Jesus,
who “came not to be served but to serve and to give His life
as a ransom for the many.” (Matt. 20:28, Mark 10:45). Perhaps, too, these souls were inspired by words of Jesus that we
know about only because reported by St. Paul:
“There is more happiness in giving than in receiving.” (Acts ).
We remember that the ones for whom St. John of the Cross wrote were Friars
and Nuns and Lay people who desired to attain union with God in love. Most of them did not have the opportunity to
expose themselves to martyrdom for the spread of the Faith in imitation of
Jesus. For most of them, God’s will did
not include obedience that would cost them their lives. But they certainly did want to make a
complete gift of themselves to God as did Jesus to His Heavenly Father. Since this losing always and letting others
win did fulfill that desire of theirs, it becomes clear that the way one gives
oneself to another is to sacrifice one’s will to the will of that other.
Now from the second sentence of the
Maxim, we get another confirmation that surrendering one’s will is the same as
surrendering oneself. As a result of
their conduct the souls who lose always understand that they do not possess
themselves, but they are possessed by others.
And they find this a relief.
They do derive happiness from being possessed by others. But we do have to inquire: Why do they consider possessing themselves a
burden? Before we try to answer that,
perhaps we might wonder why they want to be rid of the burden, since every
burden seems to be the equivalent of a cross, which we are supposed to pick up
and carry as we follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
It seems we have to think of burdens in
this context as things that hinder one from making progress toward a specific
goal. In the same vein we can think of
a burden as a disabling impediment that prevents one from leading a healthy,
vigorous and satisfying life. Of
course, the goals in question must pertain to our souls, i.e., to the healthy,
vigorous and satisfying life which is the divine life we share by Sanctifying
Grace. These kinds of burdens can never
be considered crosses in the strict sense, because, in the strict sense,
crosses are always salvific and redemptive.
So it is evident that possessing oneself as St. John of
the Cross uses it here is a burden on God’s life in us. It is a burden that not only hinders, but
can bring to a complete halt a person’s progress on the road to salvation and
sanctity.
So to answer the question: Why do valiant souls, generous spirits and
unselfish hearts consider it a heavy burden to possess themselves? We can only surmise that it is because to
possess oneself does not destroy all the prideful and sinful tendencies in
our souls, but rather feeds and nourishes them.
In a previous maxim we spoke of one
meaning of possession as the same as ownership. We also spoke of a meaning of possession in
terms of occupying and being in control of a parcel of real estate. In both instances, possession means doing whatever
one wants with the thing possessed, so that the possessor’s will concerning
what is possessed reigns supreme. In
earthly matters, no authority of any kind has the right to tell an owner, or to
prevent an owner from doing exactly as he pleases with the thing owned. In the case of one who has custody and
control of land, but who does not also own it, he too, can do what he wants
with it, provided he gives it back to the owner in the same condition that he
received it. It seems then that this
maxim is suggesting that anyone who possesses himself is likely to want his
will to reign supreme in regard to what he does with his human nature and all
its faculties, regardless of whether it hurts or destroys that same
humanity. As we said above, whenever a
human person’s will is in control of a situation, it is inevitable that pride
and self-seeking enter in, and a conviction that no other person has a right to
tell him what he can or cannot do with himself. As a case in point, militant
feminists, all of whom are pro-abortion, fiercely allege that NO ONE,
not even God, apparently, can tell them what they can do or not do with their
bodies.
There is also another burden associated
with possessing oneself. And that is
the burden of responsibility.
In these instances, the persons spoken of in this Maxim are well aware
that their humanity belongs to God, and that they are merely the stewards - or
Trustees - of all that they have and are.
Thus they are obliged to render an account to God for the use of their
human life and its faculties, which are to be used to sub-serve and preserve
and prosper the divine life in their souls and in the souls of others. Now that really is a burden that
intimidates, and these souls spoken of in this Maxim shun that responsibility
like the plague. We recall the
statement of Jesus, which St. John of the Cross has incorporated in the
previous Maxim: For every idle word
a man speaks, he shall render an account before God. So a person who
possesses himself is obliged to render an account to God not only for
idle words, but for all his/her deliberate thoughts, words and deeds, and all
the decisions and acts of the will from which they sprang.
It seems then, that souls who are
possessed by others, through letting the druthers of other people prevail over
their own, do not have to answer for their deeds (at least) since they are not
responsible for what happens around them.
If they do have to answer for deciding to yield to the druthers of other
people they have only to cite this maxim as their justification, and also to
cite the words of Jesus above, namely, that He came to serve (let others’
druthers prevail over His own - especially His Father’s) and not to be
served (impose His druthers upon other folks). After all, this is a great part of what it means to be a follower
of Jesus, which He expects of anyone who wishes to be His disciple.
St. John of the Cross also seems to
identify “being possessed by others” as the same as “being withdrawn from
oneself.” Then in turn, He seems to
suggest that “being withdrawn from” is the same as “belonging more to that
infinite Good” than to ourselves. Now,
since things equal to the same thing are equal to each other, being possessed
by others, then, is the same as belonging more to that infinite Good than to
one’s self.
We ask then: what does St. John of the Cross mean by “that
infinite Good?” Of course, God
alone is that infinite Good, so we have to ask: How is God identified with “being possessed by others” and “being
withdrawn from one’s self”? It seems
that the only way that is possible is by seeing the Hand of God, or better, the
Providence of God, in the druthers of all the people we live with. Or to get back to the terms of the Maxim
itself, by seeing the Provident Will of God in all those situations where we
choose to lose and to let everyone else win.
Thus, St. John of the
Cross ends the Maxim by giving us a powerful means of complying with it. If we could train ourselves to be convinced
that, every time there is an occasion and an opportunity to submit to
the wishes and preferences of those we live with, it is our Good and Gracious
God who has provided it, so that we would become His possession. That is to say, we belong to Him as persons
belong to their parents or to their family, or in the way a wife belongs to her
husband and vice versa. So, belonging
to God means being closely related to Him and forming one greater thing with
Him.
And again, we can go back to the ideas
associated with ownership. Owners have
unlimited dominion over what belongs to them.
Not even God is able to violate their ownership rights because that is
an evil thing, and God cannot do evil. Its an impossibility for God to do evil.
So, another great benefit of belonging
to God is that He has complete dominion over us, and He can do what He pleases
with us, and no one has a right to stop Him.
But we know what pleases God. It
pleases Him to give of Himself. Nothing
pleases Him more than to confer the greatest share possible of His Divine
Life upon each and every soul by entering into Spousal union with each one. When we lose always and let everyone else win,
we can be certain that in and through those situations He is busy both
giving more of Himself and removing remaining impediments to an even
greater and deeper union with Himself.
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