| <<<Home | Maxims Directory |
Continuation of Commentaries
on the Maxims on Love of St. John of the Cross
by Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd
Maxim 65.
Live as though only God and
yourself were in this world so that your heart may not be detained by anything
human.
Often, in reflecting on previous Maxims, we had
occasion to ask questions based on words and ideas in the Maxim in order to
generate thoughts and recall truths of our Faith that would be helpful to us in
living out our Christian, Carmelite vocations.
If ever there was a Maxim where such a procedure was necessary, this
certainly qualifies. That is because
what St. John is advising seems very difficult, if not impossible to carry out.
Why that seems almost impossible to me is that we are
social creatures. We need other
people. Since we are made in the image
and likeness of God, who is a trinity of Divine Persons, we cannot live a true
human life unless we lived with at least two other people. It seems we not only need to relate one on
one with each of the at least two other people, but we would have to join with
each one of the others in relating to the third person, just as the other two, jointly,
would relate to us.
But what am I saying?
God is a Trinity of Divine Persons, so living with God alone does
not present a problem as far as our social nature is concerned. We would have three other Persons to live
with. Still, a problem does exist,
because God is a pure spirit, and we are embodied spirits. Our souls relate to other souls, other
persons only through our bodies, the material component of our nature. How could we live with persons we couldn’t
see, touch, hear or otherwise perceive with our senses? Well, maybe that is not a problem because
the Second Divine Person is Incarnate, so one of those persons can be perceived
in our human way, provided, of course, He, Jesus, for our sake willed to let
His glorified Humanity assume the characteristics of His pre-risen
Humanity. Then, too, once Jesus is
perceptible to our senses, then Mary, His Mother, also would be, because we
know from scripture, which cannot lie or be false because it is God’s
Word, that where Mary is, there is the Lord, and vice versa. Scripture does tell us that the arch-angel
Gabriel said to Mary: “The Lord is
with thee.” So then the requirement
of at least three humanities present to live our human life with would be
satisfied.
Having settled that, now we go on to consider what life
with God and Mary would be like. What
does St. John of the Cross have in mind when he admonishes us to live?
Clearly, to live, as St. John of the Cross envisions it,
includes far more than simply breathing, and having blood flowing in
our veins, and perceiving the world around us through our various senses. True, if none of that is taking place in our
bodies, our bodies are dead. But the
opposite of dead is alive.
So it is clear that living here on earth has to include more than
just to be alive. For us to live
requires that we function on a spiritual level as well as on a bodily one. We have spiritual faculties of intellect,
memory and imagination, and will. So
for us to live in this world, even though it is a world of matter, these
faculties have to be engaged and occupied with their proper objects. Closely allied to these purely spiritual
faculties are speech and hearing. These part-physical and part-spiritual faculties are necessary in
order for us to do the socializing that is essential to our human living. The spiritual aspect of spoken speech and
speech that is heard is found in the ideas contained in what we say, and
the ideas contained in the speech addressed to us. Thus, for us to live as though only God and ourselves were in
this world would mean, at least, that we speak to God., i.e., Jesus and Mary,
and that Jesus and Mary speak to us.
Also, to be true to life as we know it now with other human beings, we
would be present hearing Mary speak to Jesus, and He to Mary, and each of them
would be present hearing the other speak to us, the only other person in the
world with them and the other two Divine Persons. And really, even though God the Father and God the Holy Spirit do
not have voices to speak with nor ears to hear with, They know everything about
us. They see the ideas we form with our minds, and so we can “speak” to Each of
Them, and Each of Them knows what we say to the Other. Also because of Their Omnipotence, They are
able to create ideas and place them in our intellects and so they can
and do speak to us in that way.
After all, Scripture says: “Does
not He who formed the eye see, and He who formed the ear hear?” And we can add: “Does not He who formed the tongue, lips and vocal chords
speak?” And we know too, from the
Mystics, including our Holy Parents, that Yes! Our Gracious God does, on
occasion, put His thoughts directly into the human intellect, by-passing the
faculty of hearing. So, up to this
point, for us to live alone with God in this world would not fail to satisfy
the requirements of our humanity to live its proper, characteristic, social
life.
But must we not say, too, that there is more to our
human life on earth than just having bodies that are alive and by which
we speak and hear and so share ideas and reveal to others what is in our hearts
concerning those others? It seems to me
that, Yes! there is more to life than just that. There is a need in our human nature to work. Unless we also work, we are not really
living. The truth is, God instructed
our first parents to work when He said: “...fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen.
1, 28b). And again we read in Genesis
(2:15): “The Lord God took the man
and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” But even had God NOT imposed upon our
first parents the obligation to work, it still pertains to our nature as being
made in the image and likeness of God.
I suppose God could have created us without a share, a very small one in
His attribute of Creativity, but the fact that He did give us a free
will (a heart) and thus shared with us His Fundamental Being which is LOVE,
means that He did give us a tiny share in His creative faculty, which, of and
by itself, imposes on us the necessity to work. Here we mean work in its most all-embracing aspect: doing for
others. In an earlier conference we had occasion to say that the most basic
form of love is benevolence, that is, wanting and desiring what is good
for others and in their best interests.
But for love to be complete, we must add to benevolence that personal
effort and activity that obtains for a loved one the good we desire them to
have and to enjoy.
Does this present a difficulty for us in that we would
be unable to work for God in the sense of doing for God, the only one in this
world besides our self? What does God
need? What does He lack? He is subsistent, infinite Goodness! He is eternal Goodness! Here on earth, we cannot but desire that our
loved ones remain alive, so for humans we can work to provide food, shelter,
clothing and everything else they need to sustain bodily life. But God is a pure Spirit. He is subsistent, eternal, infinite LIFE. Also, here on earth, we desire that our love
ones have all they need to find happiness in the use of their spiritual
faculties, so we could work at instructing them in the things that satisfy the
intellect, which is Truth. Or we could
work at giving them what satisfies their imagination, which is Beauty and
Orderliness. Or we could work at giving
their hearts what alone can satisfy it, which is LOVE, and love is shown by
doing favors and giving gifts. But
again, God is supreme, subsistent, eternal Truth, supreme subsistent eternal
Beauty and Orderliness, and supreme, subsistent, eternal and infinite LOVE,
which causes Him to be source and fount of all favors and all Gifts
(graces). So again, how could we live a
truly human life if we were alone on earth with only God? Besides, if we lived as though we were alone
on earth with God, doesn’t that mean not only pretending that others do not
exist here with us, but also that we must ignore them completely? Would not our ignoring completely the people
among whom we live be itself contrary to our nature as social beings, and thus
contrary to our need to work and to do things for the good of those around us?
Well, to get out of this dilemma, namely, the seeming
impossibility of being able to live as if each of us were alone with
only God in this world, we have to appeal to the second part of this Maxim
65. There, St. John of the Cross tells
us why we should do what he enjoins in the first part. He wants us to have a heart that is not
detained by anything human. So in order
to get at how the first part produces the second part of the Maxim, we have to
inquire: What does it mean for a heart
to be detained?
When we reflected upon Maxim 46, we spoke of how a
soul that is detached, dispossessed and dis-appropriated is not detained by
prosperity. We defined prosperity as everything that is flattering to our
natural humanity. Since the true,
spiritual good of our souls does not lie in the corruptible good things that
gratify the material and egotistical aspects of our humanity, we cannot rest in
them, but must go on toward the transcendent, true Good who is God. We cannot let prosperity hold us back.
In this maxim it is our heart that is on a
journey. It is our heart that tends to
rest wherever it finds a true good. It
rests in that true good. But not
all that is true good is necessarily the Supreme, true Good. Our hearts must not rest, cannot rest,
until they rest in God, as that famous saying of St. Augustine reminds us.
From all that was said above about what it means to
live, I believe that it is possible for the heart to rest in a
lesser true good, that is, not be restless, because God is always present wherever
there is a true good. When we spoke of
how love requires us to work in order to give to our loved ones what
their bodies, minds, imagination and hearts need in order to be alive and well,
we were trying to show that all this was in accord with not only the command of
God that we work, but also in accord with our being made in His image and
likeness and capable of loving. But we know that “God is love, and he who
abides (rests) in love, abides (rests) in God.” (1 John 4:16b).
No one can say, that it is wrong for someone in this
world to be unselfish. But one can be
unselfish, and is unselfish, if he devotes his entire life in this world
to working for the good of others, and finds deep joy and satisfaction in that
kind of life. Jesus, Himself, promised
eternal Blessedness to those who proved themselves to be unselfish in this
world: “Come, O blessed of my
Father,” He said, “inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world: for I was
hungry and you gave me food...etc..” (Matt 25:34-36). So since all of this is human, the
heart of one who rests in this is really not being detained. It has found God. That being the case, we have to compare the acts of charity and
the people to whom the unselfish souls minister for love of God, to the
perceptible aspects of the mystical graces that our gracious God is wont to
grant to Holy souls. St. John of the
Cross speaks of them as the shell that contains the kernel, the rind that
surrounds the fruit. About them he
says: “In these apprehensions coming from above ... it matters not if they be
visions, locutions, spiritual feelings or revelations, a person should advert
only to the love of God they interiorly cause.
He should pay no attention to the letter and rind (what they signify,
represent or make known). It seems St.
John would say to these unselfish souls:
Rest not in the sense of satisfaction and contentment that accompanies
the acts of charity, or any good work, for that matter, but, forgetting all
that, seek to rest in God Himself, by whose love and by whose help you were
able to perform those acts of charity and other virtues. So the advice to live as though alone with
God in this world is somewhat like the advice at the end of Maxim 64: Think that God utters it [a
reproof]. He wants us to see below the
surface, beneath all appearances, even of the people among whom we live, and
see God as the ground of all that is, living or non-living, and especially to
see Him alone in people and as the one Who is communicating His Life and His
Love to us and to those with whom we interact each moment of our lives. In that way we rest not in the human aspect
and humanly perceptible workings through which and by which Divine Love
permeates all things, but we rest in that Divine Love, God Himself. If we could do that, then it would seem as
though we were indeed in this world with God alone.
Maxim 66.
Consider it the mercy of God that someone occasionally speak a good
word to you, for you deserve none.
I am pretty sure that most of us here would have to
say that most of the time almost everyone we meet and spend time with each day
speaks good words, or a good word, to us.
That is to say, most of us find that the people we interact with in the
course of our lives are courteous, amiable and considerate in their dealings
with us. Thus, we wonder if there is a
special meaning St. John of the Cross gives to the expression “a good word”
because it is something he says we receive “occasionally,” which, I
think, means: not very often. By saying that, I don’t mean to imply that
it is not due to the mercy of God that the people in our daily lives are
courteous, considerate and amiable toward us.
I am convinced that everything that happens in our lives can be
attributed to the Mercy of God. So what
can St. John of the Cross mean by occasionally?
As starters, perhaps we can attribute that word to the
fact that he was speaking to Discalced Carmelite Friars and Nuns, and to lay
folk who tried to live according to the Teresian Carmelite Spirit, the spirit
of our primitive rule. Our rule does
indeed enjoin silence, telling us that “in a multitude of words, sin will
not be lacking” and “In silence and hope will your strength be.” So
if those Friars and Nuns who read this Maxim were spoken to only occasionally
by their fellow religious, then necessarily, only occasionally could a good
word be spoken to them.
But again, another reason why the “good word”
must be something altogether special is derived from the fact that the reader
of this maxim “does not deserve it.”
But the words spoken to any human being that are kind, courteous,
amiable, affable, considerate, etc. certainly are deserved by him. And that is because every human being is
made in the image and likeness of God.
Every human being born into this world therefore possesses a dignity
that deserves to be acknowledged and respected. So a good word addressed to anyone, in view of his/her
humanity, is certainly deserved.
Therefore, the good word that St. John of the Cross
has in mind in this maxim has to prescind from the common dignity shared by all
human persons. It would have to be
concerned with what is proper and specific to every human being and which
pertains to him alone. It most probably
is akin to what Jesus had in mind when responding to the rich young man who
said to Him: “Good Master what must I do to gain eternal life?”
Jesus’ first words in response were: “Why
do you call me good? No one is good but
God alone.” (Luke 18:18,19).
Now if Jesus could say to the rich man that he had no
good reason for calling Jesus good, it could only mean that this man had no way
of knowing what was on Jesus’ conscience, and therefore had no way of knowing
whether His conscience was free of sin or of any stain or fault. Of course, that would be because that man
did not know that Jesus was God, a Divine Person. So, since Jesus appeared to His interlocutor as no more than a man
among ordinary men, that statement, that Jesus was good, was unwarranted on the
part of that young man.
Thus it seems that the “good word” St. John of
the Cross had in mind is a word that attributes holiness at most, or an
unblemished conscience, at least, to another human being. One reason such a good word is undeserved is
the same reason for which Jesus could object to being called good in the
episode just mentioned. The other
reason is one each of us here can relate to personally. Namely, people who relate to us as if we
were holy make us feel very uncomfortable. “If they only knew what a sinner I
am,” we think, or “If they only knew how grievously I sinned in the past,” they
would never be able to think this well of me.”
And even if, in a Monastery of Friars or Nuns, where silence is the rule
of the day, one member would speak a “good word” based on another’s
fidelity in keeping the rule and fulfilling the duties and responsibilities of
the Carmelite vocation, the one who hears that word could still always say that
it is undeserved because such a one knows that any good work or virtue
practiced is due to the grace and favor of God, giving him/her the ability and
strength to carry it out. Such a “good
word” is deserved by God alone, the author of all good, not by the
religious who receives the “good word.”
But now let us focus a bit upon the “mercy of God”
mentioned in this Maxim 66. We ask: In what sense is God’s mercy operative in
the fact that someone speaks a good word to me?
One reason would be that, despite one’s sinfulness,
God makes use of that person to be a good example to someone else. We remember from Scripture that God chooses
the person who is least capable of doing something on his own to be His
instrument, so that it would be clear that it is God who does the work. Abraham and Sarah are examples of that
because of themselves they could not produce a son, Isaac. They did produce
him, but only through the miraculous intervention of God. The same was true of Zechariah and
Elizabeth. It was particularly true of
Mary, a perpetual Virgin, who conceived and gave birth to Jesus by the power of
the Holy Spirit. And even many mystics,
(I’m thinking particularly of Sr. Josefa Menendez) couldn’t understand how
Jesus could choose them, weak, miserable creatures, to receive the
extraordinary revelations Jesus granted them to share with others for the good
of souls. When these mystics tell Jesus
of their misery and unworthiness, He invariably replies: “If I could
find someone in the whole world more unworthy than you, I would have chosen
that person instead.” Thus it is
surely God’s mercy at work when He gives us the occasion (a good word spoken to
us) to make acts of humility. After
all, it is humility that opens the soul to receive the graces God is so anxious
to impart.
Another way that God’s mercy is operative when someone
speaks a good word, that is, a word which somehow attributes “goodness of some
kind” to us, is found in the fact that it helps us to overcome the doubts and
misgivings we have from time to time concerning the authenticity of our
conversion and our subsequent intimate friendship with Him. We also tend to doubt and have misgivings as
to whether our life of prayer and our Carmelite way of life is bearing the
fruit God expects of us. It is indeed attributable to His merciful providence
when occasionally someone does say something to help us realize we are not
deceiving ourselves in thinking that we are pleasing to God and serving Him in
spite of fears and feelings to the contrary.
And out of that would come a third way God’s mercy is
operative. He knows that a pat on
the back is necessary for us from time to time to bolster our morale and keep
us psychologically healthy and capable of confronting the challenges and difficulties
of everyday life and overcoming them. And still another would be that it keeps
us optimistic and up-beat concerning the people in society who seem well on
their way to perdition. We can and
must think: Since our Gracious God
found a way to bring me, the worst of sinners back to Himself, He can certainly
do so for those unfortunates who never knew Him and were not favored as I
was by Him. Thus we find encouragement
in praying and making sacrifices for the salvation of all souls, as we Teresian
Carmelites are obliged to do in virtue of our vocation.
| <<<Home | Maxims Directory |