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Continuation of Commentaries
on the Maxims on Love of St. John of the Cross
by Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd
Maxim 74.
Be silent concerning what God may have given you and recall that saying
of the bride: My secret for myself [Is. 14:16]
When we reflected upon Maxim 72 “Let your speech be
such etc...” we said it seemed to be a general rule that included all the
Maxims in this series that had to do with controlling the tongue. When we compare this present Maxim 74 with
Maxim 67, the roles seem to be reversed.
Maxim 67 deals with pouring out one’s heart, that is everything
that is contained in ones heart.
This Maxim seems to single out only one category of the things that are
in one’s heart, namely, the things that God has given a person. But at the same time, too, we can say that
even this Maxim is a special case included under part of Maxim 72. It advises that we never speak of things we
would regret if everyone knew we spoke of them. So once again we are obliged to comment on another Maxim that has
to do with controlling the tongue. And
both observations just made about the relationship of this Maxim with others
that preceded it raise questions that may be instructive as we try to answer
them. One such question is: “What does
St. John of the Cross have in mind when he says “what [the things] God
has given you?” Another would be:
“Where are those things stored that God has given a person?” Once we have an answer to these questions we
ought to be able to understand why it is helpful spiritually to put this Maxim
into practice. We inquire first into
“those things that God is accustomed to giving a person.
Right away we can say that certain things God has
given us would not be included in this Maxim. One of those things is the fact of our existence and our
being. These are gifts of God common to
every human being. God creates every
human soul at the time a person is conceived and begins to develop in his
mother’s womb. The body itself is God’s
gift, but one given through and with the help of a person’s parents. These are things that cannot be kept
secret. We cannot hide the fact that we
exist as human beings. But knowing this
is a help in answering the question, because now we know that this Maxim has to
do with gifts bestowed upon an individual person that would never be known
unless the person himself revealed them.
Now certain things we possess are often revealed by
the very way we conduct ourselves in the course of our daily lives. People generally reveal to whoever pays
attention, what that Religion is to which he belongs. And thus, if we know something about the religion to which a
person belongs, we know something about their beliefs and the rules of moral
conduct they follow, and we can find out more about members of different
religions by reading more about religions.
To what extent the One True God gives those things as a gift to people
of a Faith different from ours we have no way of knowing. But one thing is sure; these are not
included in this Maxim 74 because the person who possesses them cannot keep
them secret. The same can be said about
certain Christian bodies, and especially about Catholics. Once we observe some one practicing a
Christian religion we know what some of the gifts are that God has given that
person. Supernatural Faith, Hope and
Charity are among those gifts, and thus, so is sanctifying grace. And so these gifts also are not included
under the umbrella of this Maxim which advises us to be silent about them.
Similarly, I believe, we are to exclude purely natural
gifts from this maxim. They would be
things like I.Q., artistic ability, athletic skills, special aptitude in
certain fields of study or knowledge, and physical strength and agility. These become known because a person cannot
keep them from manifesting themselves in his conduct and activities.
In a previous conference (61) we mentioned that among
the things that St. John of the Cross wants us to preserve in the secrecy of
our consciences are the very special communications of Himself and felt
experience of certain of His attributes.
We might now ask whether this Maxim 74 forbids us to be silent about all
the ordinary graces that God has given us.
Some of the ordinary graces are those which help us to bear up under
crosses and trials, whether they (the crosses and trials) are of a physical,
emotional, or spiritual nature. These
consist of physical pain, sorrow, hurts inflicted by loved ones,
disappointments, failures, temptations, discouragements that we experience
personally, as well as these same things and anything else that are experienced
as crosses and trials by our loved ones.
One grace we need in a special way is the grace to endure the knowledge,
or even the suspicions, that one of our loved ones has stopped practicing our
Catholic Faith.
I think we can all agree that mentioning to them the
graces God has given us to enable us to cope with our crosses and trials, is
good and helpful to them when they, too, have to endure these same crosses and
trials. Also very helpful is telling
others of the graces God has given us to pick ourselves up again on those
occasions when our crosses and trials had caused us to fall. In addition, God’s merciful love becomes
better known and He also becomes better loved and receives an increase of honor
and glory. Hence, I think that these
ordinary graces God makes available to all are not included in this
Maxim.
While I am thinking of it, perhaps I was hasty in
deciding that the gifts and good qualities God has given us, and revealed in
our daily conduct and comportment, are not to be deemed as included under this Maxim. It seems more accurate to me now, to say
that even these are things that St. John wants us to be silent about. Our speaking about them would not be
necessary, first of all, and secondly our speaking about them, even to correct
a misunderstanding or an inaccurate comment upon them by another, could be
interpreted as boasting or self-exaltation.
And so it seems that we can look upon this Maxim 74 as
teaching exactly what Maxim 61 teaches about secrecy of conscience. The gifts this Maxim advises a person to
keep secret are the personal exchanges that take place between the human soul
and Jesus its Bridegroom, or between the human soul and God our Heavenly
Father. These are so personal and so
sacred that to disclose them and talk about them to other persons (except to a
confessor) would cheapen them and make them profane. In addition, it would indicate little respect and esteem for
Jesus, the Bridegroom of the soul and God it’s tender Father.
Nevertheless, in order to get some help in grasping
the teaching of this Maxim, I looked up the context of the quotation from
Isaiah, 24:16. The version “My
secret for myself” occurs only in the Vulgate. The Jerusalem Bible has: “Enough”, and the RSV, Catholic
version has “I pine away.”
Fortunately the Vulgate has a head note to Ch. 24, which says the
Chapter speaks about the end of time when the overthrow (destruction) of all
creations, and the universal judgment will occur. The head note says that v.v. 14-18a are about the just who will
be saved and the impious who will perish.
If what is given then to the soul, according to this Maxim, is about end
times or about knowledge of what is in store for the just and the unjust at the
end of the world, then no wonder St. John advises silence. Most of this
knowledge is so sketchy and so obscure that not even the person who receives it
can be absolutely sure about its meaning.
The book of Revelation is a good example of how interpretation of this
knowledge is open to misunderstanding and error. How easily fear and anxiety about end times and even just plain
curiosity about end times, can cause a person to be distracted and drift away
from what is really important: doing God’s will in the present moment.
Now my wondering about why speaking about things God
gives the soul is harmful to it led me to look at the Collected Works of St.
John of the Cross to see what help his major works would provide in
understanding what he means by this Maxim found among his minor works. The reason being because in the major works
he does treat of mystical phenomena, namely, experience granted by God to the
human soul seeking union with Him. It
turns out that in the Ascent, Books II & III he does identify, these
mystical experiences, tells what the soul’s proper conduct is to be in their regard,
and thus helps those who receive them avoid being harmed by them and otherwise
impeded by them in the soul’s quest for union with God.
In Chapter 10 of Book II of the Ascent St. John
talks about apprehensions and ideas comprehensible to the intellect. Some of these come naturally, through sense
experience and reflection. Others come
supernaturally. That is, God grants
them, or as St. John of the Cross says, they are “...imparted to the
intellect in a way transcending its natural ability and capacity.”
He then distinguishes between corporal and spiritual
knowledge. The corporal is further
subdivided into “two kinds: knowledge originating from the exterior bodily
senses; and that received from the interior bodily senses.” The spiritual is also of two kinds: distinct
and particular on the one hand, and vague, dark and general knowledge, on the
other. The former consists of visions,
revelations, locutions and spiritual feelings.
The latter is contemplation, imparted in faith.
Obviously the knowledge gained naturally is not said
to be given by God in the same way as the supernatural knowledge is given. So we need only identify what God gives
supernaturally. Among them are
representations and objects given through the exterior bodily senses of sight,
hearing, smell, taste and touch.
Through the sense of sight God supernaturally gives visions and images
of saints, of good and bad angels and unusual lights and splendors. Through hearing, God gives certain
extraordinary words, either from persons supernaturally seen or from unseen
persons. Through the sense of smell,
God gives sweetest fragrances of unknown origin. Through taste, exquisite savors (flavors); and through touch,
feelings of “extreme delight, at times so intense that all the bones and marrow
rejoice, flourish and bathe in” them.
St. John says this latter experience is termed spiritual unction.
In the rest of Chapter 11, Book II, Ascent, St.
John explains why one who receives them should flee them completely. One reason is that the devil can counterfeit
them. So it stands to reason that these
would certainly be among the things God gives that a person should keep secret
and be silent about them.
In Chapter 16 of Book II of the Ascent, after a
digression of four chapters, St. John identifies the intellectual knowledge
given to the interior bodily senses, the imagination and the phantasy. There he says that all the things
communicated supernaturally to the exterior bodily senses can be communicated directly
to the interior bodily senses without the intervention of the exterior
senses. And so what he said above about
fleeing completely from the gifts given supernaturally through sight, hearing,
smell, taste and touch apply here also.
So let me state more of the reasons why St. John says the persons
receiving them are to try to ignore them completely. Among them are: (a) they are a breeding ground for error,
presumption and vanity. (b) a person
receiving them often develops secretly a rather fine opinion of himself,
contrary to humility. (c) if the origin
of the gift really is God, it produces its effect upon the spirit at the moment
of the perception, automatically, even when a person dismisses them. The final reason given by St. John of the
Cross is that if these gifts are esteemed, sought for, accepted and relied
upon, six kinds of harm result: (1)
Faith gradually diminishes, (2) They are an impediment to the spirit, detaining
it and keeping it from soaring to the invisible (cf Maxim 20), (3) the soul
develops a possessive attitude toward these communications and fails to make
progress toward nakedness of spirit, (4) the effects produced automatically are
gradually lost by the spirit, (5) a person gradually loses God’s favor (cf.
Maxim 59, and (6) one opens the door to the devil. Again, it is easy to understand why St. John wants a soul who
receives these kinds of gifts from God to be silent about them. But I think that, to some degree, the
reasons why one should be silent about supernatural knowledge and mystical
experiences are valid for all kinds of gifts of God to the human person,
natural and supernatural. To natural
gifts, certainly reason (b) above applies: the person receiving them often
develops secretly a fine opinion of himself contrary to humility. Then once humility is gone #6 of the harms
just mentioned applies, namely, the door of the soul is opened to the
devil. If St. John had some of this
same teaching of his in mind when he wrote this Maxim, no wonder he advises to
remember the saying of the Bride: “My secret for myself.”
Maxim 75.
Strive to preserve your heart in peace and let no event of this world
disturb it. Reflect that all must come to an end.
Already we have had an opportunity to reflect on the
notion of peace that occupies the heart when we did our commentary on the
second maxim in this series. There,
after telling us to feed our spirits only on God, St. John says: “Cast off
concern about things and bear peace...in your hearts. In those reflections we spoke about
worry and concern as things that were also the opposite of peace, along
with violence and disorder as things that are opposed to peace. But, also, in those reflections we spend
more time speaking of what it means “to feed the spirit” on God alone,
and we did not spend time reflecting on the concept of peace. There we spoke of peace not as the presence
of something, but an absence of something from the human heart, namely,
the absence of worry, concern and fear; and the absence of violence and
disorder. In the reflections on this
Maxim, we now have the opportunity to talk about peace in a positive way, as
the presence of something.
The classic definition of peace is given us in
the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, who is the best representative and teacher
of the scholastic philosophy that undergirds our Catholic Theology. He defines peace as the tranquility of
order. This definition tells us
two things, namely, that peace is a fringe effect, or better, the result of
something else. It tells us, too, that
the “something else” is an objective state of affairs. I think it is worth pointing out that, as a
fringe effect, peace has something in common with happiness. Happiness, too, is always the accompaniment
of something else. Happiness results
when one is in possession of a GOOD.
From this we can see that peace cannot be achieved directly just as
happiness cannot be achieved directly.
Both are the subjective experience of the two objective
states of affairs: tranquility of order and possession of a GOOD,
respectively. And so we see that the
admonitions given us by St. John of the Cross in both Maxim 2 and 75 really
contain a more fundamental admonition, namely: “bear tranquility of order in
your heart” and “strive to preserve your heart in tranquility of order.”
In comparing the admonition of Maxim 2 with that of
this Maxim 75, I think it is possible to say that two different “tranquilities
of order” are to be distinguished.
Maxim 2 seems to say there is an external order, the awareness of
which is to be borne in the heart, so that the heart would experience
the peace and the tranquility. On the
other hand, Maxim 75 seems to say that there is an internal order that is to be
established within the heart itself that is distinct from the order that may or
may not exist around us in society. As
I say, that is suggested by the words themselves. This is strange because Maxim 2 deals with interior things -
feeding the spirit on God, and the subjective states of concern and
recollection. On the other hand, Maxim
75 specifically mentions exterior things, namely: the events of this
world. It seems we have to try to show
how events of this world are able to cause a lack of order, or disorder in the
heart itself, in order to get at the full import and teaching of this
particular Maxim 75.
The human heart, being the faculty by means of which
we love, would only be at peace when there is order and harmony among the
“beloved objects” held in the heart. I
guess that is the same as saying that when the heart loves in a disorderly
manner, it does not experience peace.
One form of disorderly love would be to cherish and serve and give
oneself to a lesser good more than one does to an objectively greater good. As we know from Sacred Scripture, God and
Jesus are the Supreme Good whom we are to cherish, serve and to whom surrender
our entire selves. In fact, all our
other loves not only are to be subordinated to our love for God the
Father and Jesus, but also are to be integrated into and made a part of our
love for Them Who are supremely worthy of all love. So when we do love in that manner there is order in our hearts
and we experience the peace that is the tranquility of order.
Another form of disorder in the heart would be that
which results when, though God is one’s Supreme love, there is a confusion of
values and an inversion of priorities in the lesser goods and lesser loves
which a soul does try to make part and parcel of its love and service of
God. There is an expression: “charity
begins at home.” It can happen that
one may fall into doing acts of charity and into helping and serving needy
people outside the home or the extended family and completely neglecting those
needy relatives within the home or extended family. This perhaps can be related to the supreme disorder,
selfishness. Selfishness is the total
absence of love, and it could easily happen that one seems to be helping
the needy outside the family circle, but is really serving him/herself. I know of situations where exactly that was
happening, and the people involved were not at peace with one another, and
hence did not have peace of heart.
And I think that is where we can locate the loss of
peace of heart that comes from being disturbed by events of this world. What disturbs a human being is seeing or
otherwise experiencing things happening or situations existing that he does not
want to see happen or to exist.
Likewise, with things that he wants to see take place but do not take
place, else they happen in a manner different than what he wants. All those things, a person wants either to
happen or not happen are indicative of his loves. Above all, such a person loves his idea, his view of what is good
or not good, and that is how self enters in and how selfishness betrays its
presence.
Once a person has overcome his desire to see his will
prevail in all things, and sees all the events in the world as evidence of
God’s druthers, as part of God’s merciful, providential plan for His human
family, then he is no longer disturbed, and ought to find it easier to perceive
the best means to bring his relationships and interactions into perfect harmony
with the supreme love and surrender of self he owes to God. For as Dante said: “In His Will is our
peace!”
Well, I thought that last line was the end of the
reflection on Maxim 75. Then I saw that
there is still another sentence upon which to comment. It reads: “Reflect that all must come to
an end.” All of
course refers to events of this world.
So we ask, what bearing does this have on our reflections thus far?
It seems to me that this means that those folks who have trained themselves to see all that happens as evidence of God’s “druthers”, and thus have the tranquility of order in their own hearts and in their personal relationships, may justifiably feel upset and disturbed by events taking place in the world. The events in question would be those which bring harm to souls and otherwise are so many hindrances and obstacles to the spread of the Gospel and the rooting out of evil from society. Since these feelings of upset and disturbance are only possible in those who love, or are trying to love God with all their being, we can say any events of this world that cause true lovers to have a heavy heart would be included in the last sentence of this Maxim. It is therefore St. John of the Cross’ way of consoling such lovers of God, of souls, and of goodness. Being of a temporal nature they will cease to exist and with them the harm they cause to souls and to God’s Honor will also come to an end. Here, though, we are talking about disturbance not as a disordered state of priorities in the objects of one’s loves, but as a painful experience in one’s soul. The pain is then a proof that one does love God and neighbor in an orderly fashion according to God’s Will, as made known by the 10 commandments and the new commandment of Jesus in the Gospel. So that, really, it is consoling both to know those harmful events will some day end, and also to know that they are a valuable means of knowing that our own hearts (druthers) are one with the heart (druthers) of God.
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of this material is forbidden without permission of the Father Provincial
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Texts for the Maxims on Love were taken from The Collected Works of St. John
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