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Continuation of Commentaries
on the Maxims on Love of St. John of the Cross
by Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd
Maxim 77 (Part D)
Twelve
stars for reaching the highest perfection:
love of God, love of neighbor (Part A), obedience, chastity, poverty,
attendance at choir (Part B), penance, humility, mortification (Part C), prayer,
silence, peace.
With
the help of God we’ll be able to finish this Maxim with this conference and
have enough worthwhile to say to make a complete conference. We continue with the same objective in mind,
namely, to show that prayer, silence and peace are indispensable aspects of
highest perfection, in that each of them helps us to center all the faculties
upon their proper objects in full and perfect accord with God’s will for each
and every one of us.
The
first of the three remaining stars in the constellation of highest perfection
is prayer. That prayer and
perfection are intimately related is clear from the fact that St. Teresa of
Jesus calls prayer the “royal road” to union with God. As we have been saying all along in these
reflections, union with God consists essentially in having our wills conformed
with and united to the Will of God.
Hence, perfection, as we Carmelites understand it, is synonymous with
union with God. In fact, we have spoken
of “continual communion” with God in our reflections on Maxim 39. There we saw that “communion” means mutually
sharing in all of God’s attributes. But
God is consummate perfection, as are all His attributes and virtues. So it stands to reason that prayer is also
the “royal road” to highest perfection.
Saying that reminds me of the truth that Jesus is both the way to
reach our supernatural goal, and the goal itself. The dignity and value of prayer is thus placed
in relief when we note that prayer is not only the way to reach highest
perfection, but also remains a component of highest perfection, once that goal
is reached.
At
this point I have sufficient reason to stop talking about prayer because St.
Teresa has already spoken so admirably and accurately about it. She is not just any teacher on the
subject of prayer, she is a Doctor of the Church, of all Christians, on the
subject of prayer. All I would have to
do is refer you to her writings, especially the Way of Perfection. Nevertheless, I will try to speak of prayer
from the special perspective of St. John of the Cross in this Maxim, not as way
to perfection, but as a component of highest perfection. The difference then consists in seeing
prayer as an activity of the human person who is not yet united to God by union
of wills when we think of it as way or royal road. When we think of prayer as an activity of
the soul (the human person) who is perfectly united to God through perfect
union of wills, then we are seeing prayer as a component of highest perfection.
What then is the activity of the soul when it is united to God? Because God is LOVE, part of the answer is that the soul is actively loving. It is actively loving God in all three Divine Persons, and at the same time loving everything and everyone who is an object of God’s love. We saw earlier in the reflections on this Maxim 77 that it is through the virtue of Religion that the faculties of our humanity, including our senses and bodily powers are occupied with God, expressing the truths of our relationship with God in word and deed and symbol. We saw, too, that through the exercise of the moral virtues we apply all the faculties of our humanity, including our senses and bodily powers, to loving all those whom God loves, namely all those who are neighbor to us. So it appears that when, in prayer, God is the object of our loving, along with everyone God loves, we do this chiefly and solely as an act of the will, which is benevolence, or “wanting GOOD” for God and for our neighbor.
Then,
at the same time, we must in some way experience that we are being loved by
God, or at least we must in some way surrender our being to the love which
God has for us as individuals. For each of those reasons, the activity of
the soul in prayer must involve the exercise of the intellect, memory and
imagination. That is because we said
that benevolence is vain if the person wanting GOOD for the beloved does not
do what is in his power at the moment to confer GOOD upon the individual or
individuals who are the objects of one’s benevolence. With regard to God Himself our intellect must therefore try to discover
what it is that is GOOD for God at each occasion that a person enters into
prayer. This necessarily has to do
with God in relationship with His creation, and in particular with His human
creation. It is the function of the
intellect, then, with the help of memory and imagination, to discern what
the best interests of God are in those relationships. We don’t try to desire what is GOOD for God in His Divine Essence
and in regard to the intra-trinitarian relation because they already consist
in supreme, subsistent GOOD, and they are the source of all possible created
GOOD. Here we are just supremely happy
that God IS, and that He enjoys supreme happiness as a Trinity of Persons.
What
then, does the intellect come up with in seeking that God’s interests vis-a-vis
His human children are promoted? What
GOOD can we desire for God?
Considering God as the One Supreme Being in His Divine Nature and Divinity, we desire for God that He be recognized as existing, and as the beginning and end of all His creation. During our lifetime and surely during the lifetime of the entire human race, as long as their are people on earth, there are always going to be humans who do not see God in creation, and therefore don’t attribute to Him as source of all that is Good and Beautiful in creation. He is lacking, then, the praise, honor and reverence due to Him, and we can certainly, and should desire that He receive that acknowledgement and praise from all human beings. St. Paul writes: “For what can be known about God is plain to [all people], because God has shown it to them.
Ever
since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, his eternal
power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made”
(Romans 1:19,20). St. Paul also speaks
of those who close their eyes to that truth, and who refuse to honor Him and
give thanks, as being punished by God in allowing them to fall into darkness
and all sorts of abominable practices. So
even as we desire God to be known, honored and thanked, we also have to desire
that those who have blinded themselves to God’s existence and presence will
repent and be converted to Him. One’s
memory and imagination can also help the intellect come up with specific instances
within a person’s own experience where it can exercise this benevolence toward
God and contemporary people, e.g. where God’s rights are denied or trampled
upon by whole segments of human society.
Examples would be those who are promoting abortion or who are trying
to get the whole world to accept homosexual activity as normal and good.
And
in addition, in prayer, a perfect soul can also exercise benevolence toward
each of the Three Divine Persons in Their individual roles vis-a-vis the human
race, toward God as Father, toward Jesus the Son as Saviour and Redeemer,
toward the Holy Spirit as Sanctifier.
We
already have a way of expressing our benevolence toward God the Father most
perfectly, thanks to the prayer which Jesus has composed and given us, namely,
the Our Father. As one of us in His
Sacred humanity, Jesus certainly loved His Father most perfectly, with His human
will, and He must certainly have said this prayer not only for Himself as God’s
Incarnation, but also for each of us, who are members of His Mystical Body, in
His capacity as our Head. The “Our
Father” expresses the GOOD we can all desire and should desire for God-Father
both for Himself as a unique Person and for Him in His relationship with us,
His human children. For Himself we
earnestly desire that he be recognized and embraced as Father of us all, and
that His name of “Father” be held in highest esteem and reverence. We also desire that His Will prevail and
become operant on earth in the same way as it prevails and is operative in
Heaven. In other words, by doing that,
we also sincerely wish and desire for God Father that His Kingdom extend to all
the human race and include within it all free, rational creatures, angelic as
well as human. When we do that by
saying, and really meaning what we say, the Our Father, we are truly wishing
the Highest accidental happiness for God the Father.
In
saying that, it sounds like I am saying that the prayer that is a component of
highest perfection is a vocal prayer.
And yet we know that St. Teresa is very clear when she says that a vocal
prayer said with a full realization of (1) who is being addressed (2) who is
doing the praying and (3) what is being said, is already mental prayer and at
the same time disposes one to receive the gift (grace) of perfect
contemplation. But in addition to this,
we know from St. John of the Cross that our reflecting and meditating upon
divine truths over a long period of time enables a soul to get all the possible
nourishment for his soul out of those truths, and then one can rest in the
general loving awareness of those truths which then cause the soul to be
occupied in loving God in a very simple, yet very high, form of prayer. Applying that teaching to the Our Father,
then it seems reasonable to conclude that one can so internalize the sentiments
expressed in the Our Father that one can enter into a state of soul, a form of prayers,
that be-speaks the Our Father without the need of words, in a general, loving
way. It would certainly be a form of
acquired contemplation.
Now
how do we go about wishing GOOD and highest happiness for Jesus, God the Son,
in the prayer that is a component of highest contemplation? We do that in much the same way that we wish
highest happiness for God the Father.
We earnestly desire that Jesus be recognized and embraced for Who He is
in all His relationships with His free, intelligent creatures. We want Him to be known and loved as Saviour,
as Redeemer, as Our Brother, as Our Head in the Mystical Body, as Incarnate
Truth, our Light, as operative Truth, Our Wisdom, as Bridegroom of the human
soul, as Son of God the Father and Son of Mary, as most loyal and perfect
friend, and as our spiritual food and drink in the Eucharist!! And if there is anything else Jesus can be
for us, we desire most earnestly that He is all that for everyone. All of that comprises His GOOD, which, when
realized in all His relationships constitutes His highest happiness. Because in truth, when anyone, including the
Divine Persons is in possession of his highest GOOD, then that person
experiences highest happiness. As we
pointed out, the Three Divine Persons enjoy highest, supreme happiness in their
essential Being as a Trinity of Persons, one God. But having created free, intelligent creatures for whom the
Persons are the Supreme GOOD and source of happiness, they do not Themselves
enjoy complete accidental happiness in Being the Supreme happiness of all of
us, their human creatures, until we are in actual, eternal possession of Them
in that way.
Now what about God the Holy Spirit? How do we exercise benevolence toward Him, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity? Admittedly, the Holy Spirit is the most mysterious of all Three Divine Persons. He is best represented by fire, by water and by a dove. Fire indicates His role as Love within the Trinity, being the mutual, self-giving embrace of the Father and Son and Their Unity in Love. As water, the Holy Spirit is also the source of all the authentic love of which the good angels and human creatures are capable. It is the Holy Spirit who pours forth charity in our hearts at Baptism together with Faith and Hope when He confers sanctifying grace upon us, and makes us new creatures, children of God by adoption. As water, He quenches our thirst for goodness in relating to one another. We just finished listing what it is Jesus is for us in the previous paragraph. The list of things the Holy Spirit is for us is even longer. From what has just been said, He is clearly our Peace, our source and principle of Unity as Christians and as humans. He is the Sanctifier because He is the source and principle of our holiness, that is, of every good, supernatural act that we Christians perform.
Even
though we enumerate only seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, by means of which
His holiness is shared with us to the extent possible for our human nature,
the sum total of those gifts does exceed seven in number, especially when
we figure in the charismatic gifts that are given not so much to benefit the
individual who receives them, but to benefit the whole Church. As you know, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are Knowledge, Understanding,
Counsel, Wisdom, Fortitude, Piety and Fear of the Lord. Actually, it would be better to call the last
gift as Reverence of the Lord, because it leads to a most wholesome fear,
fear of offending our so GOOD and Loving God.
As a source of action, the gift of Fear of the Lord is what inclines
the possessor always to do those things which please God, or better, to remain
pleasing to God at all times, When a Christian possesses that gift in its
entirety, the Father can say of that person what He said more than once of
Jesus (at His Baptism and His transfiguration): “This is my beloved Son [or
daughter] in whom I am well pleased.”
In
addition to being a source of acting, the Holy Spirit is also, for each
Christian, a source of supernatural “feeling” or experiencing. We can say that in virtue of our Catholic
teaching concerning the “Fruits of the Holy Spirit.” When we look at the list of those fruits in the letter of St.
Paul to the ...., we see that they are virtues and dispositions of soul. Of course, any good work performed by
Christians can be called a “fruit” of divine grace, just as grain and
vegetables and various fruits are the “fruits” of plants and trees, soil, rain
and sunshine. But the “Fruit of the
Holy Spirit” is defined or described as a very subtle spiritual “flavor” that
the spiritual palate experiences whenever it performs an act of the various
virtues in St. Paul’s list, or when the soul is in possession of the various
dispositions named in that list.
There
are other indications that the Holy Spirit is a source of spiritual feelings or
perceptions or experiences, besides the “Fruits” just mentioned. We find them in the Hymn “Come Holy Spirit”
that is the Sequence of the Mass at Pentecost.
Here are a few expressions contained in that hymn: “light of hearts,”
“best consoler”, sweet refreshment,” “rest in labor,” “relief from heat”,
“solace in sadness.” The Holy Spirit is
also “warmth” for what is chilled, “moisture” for what is dry, and “suppleness”
for what is rigid, and “health” for what is wounded.
I am
sure that all these things just mentioned that the Holy Spirit does
for us or is for us comprises only a partial enumeration of all the
roles and functions of the Third Person of the Trinity in the lives of good
Christians and good people. And what
we said about Father and Son finding accidental happiness in being and acting
as Father in our lives, and being savior, Redeemer, Brother, Friend, Spouse
of our souls, this carries over when speaking of the Holy Spirit. His accidental happiness also consists in realizing,
being and doing all He is capable of doing or being for us. So we love the Holy Spirit with the love of
benevolence when we sincerely desire that He experience the maximum happiness
possible in the souls of us humans as Sanctifier, as Soul and Life of the
Church, as the Life of the human soul, as the holiness, peace and joy and
spiritual delight of good Christians. As
we said, the “prayer” that is a star in the constellation called “highest
perfection” is this “communion with God” in which we love God with pure benevolence
and welcome and desire God in all three Persons to be for us and to do for
us and every human being what
Now
how can we show that “silence” is an indispensable star in the constellation
that is highest perfection? What do we
mean by this “silence”? Does it fit in
with what we said at the beginning of these reflections concerning what
“highest perfection” enables us to do?
We said that it enables all the powers and faculties of our human nature
to be occupied with their proper objects and functioning in perfect accord with
the will of God. And so it seems that
we would have to exclude silence, because it consists in “not hearing”. The proper object of the ear, the sense of
hearing is sound, whereas silence is the absence of sound. Then again, when we spoke of silence in
previous reflections on these Maxims on Love, we also identified it with
putting an end to the “clamor” of the senses and appetites for
gratification. In that respect, too,
certain of our powers are not being occupied with material things. However, we did also say that we preserve
silence (Maxim 39) every time we speak or act in full accord with God’s Will
for us according to our state.
I
think it will help us to get at what St. John of the Cross means by silence
in this Maxim by recalling that just because we experience silence as the
absence of sound does not mean that we have lost our sense of hearing. In fact, we find that the experience of
prolonged silence actually sharpens and makes more sensitive our sense of
hearing. So by combining that truth
with the fact that we have to impose silence upon ourselves, that is, we have
to abstain from speaking in order to listen to another person speaking, I think
we arrive at what silence means here in Maxim 77.
Silence
here means “not hearing” the invitations of created good things which have
caught the attention of our perceptive powers of body and soul. In that sense, silence can be considered the
equivalent of the “darkness” St. John of the Cross said results from denying
and stripping oneself of all the “appetites” of body and soul. It occurs to me that this concept of silence
is more helpful to us because it serves to sharpen the spiritual “hearing” of
the soul so that more easily and clearly it can listen for the voice of God and
perceive His invitations and His instructions to the soul of one who loves Him
above all things.
St.
John of the Cross teaches that the soul must enter into the darkness which is
the stripping of the soul of its appetites because appetites hinder entering
into union with God in love. Since God
is love he is eternally ready to communicate Himself, His Life, wherever He
finds no opposition, no barriers. He
wants to communicate himself to the soul as the object with which the higher
powers of the soul are occupied. When
the appetites are “silent” God is able to communicate Himself as GOODNESS to
the Heart (or Will). When the soul is
silent and listening for God He is able to communicate Himself to the intellect
as TRUTH. In a word, it is only then
that He can grant the gift of perfect contemplation, which is the human counterpart
of what St. John of the Cross teaches in Maxim 21: “The Father spoke one Word,
which was His Son, and this Word He always speaks in eternal silence, and in
silence it must be heard by the soul.”
And that Maxim is therefore the reason why silence is a star in the
constellation of “highest perfection>‘ The Father pours ALL of
Himself into the Word which is His Son.
The soul that is in silence is then hearing the maximum possible,
according to its inherent limitation as a creature, of what God says and gives
of Himself in His Word, the Son.
Therefore, that soul’s holiness, or perfection attains its maximum and highest
degree of participation in God’s life it can possibly attain. The proper object of the spiritual
perceptive faculties are then perfectly centered on God.
It seems
we can now conclude our reflections on the Maxim 77. We have already reflected on Maxim 75, where
it says, in part: “strive to preserve your heart in peace...” We spoke at
length there of peace or the “tranquility” of order. God being supreme Order, He is also supreme, perfect eternal peace.
And so when the soul is at peace, it participates in God.
And so peace has to be a star in the constellation of highest perfection
because peace is the unmistakable evidence of the presence of God within the
soul.
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