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Continuation of Commentaries
on the Maxims on Love of St. John of the Cross
by Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd
Maxim 78.
Never
take a man for your example in the tasks you have to perform, however holy
he may be, for the devil will set his imperfection before you.
But imitate Christ, who is supremely perfect and supremely holy, and
you will never err.
With
this maxim, St. John of the Cross seems to be opposing the entire custom and
tradition of the Church’s practice of venerating the saints and trying to take
advantage of their good example as we struggle to make progress on the road to
union with God in love. It seems to be
in direct conflict with what St. Paul the Apostle has said to us in one of his
letters: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”
But on second thought, we would have to say that this Maxim does not forbid us to imitate the saints and that for two reasons, at least. One is that St. John does not say “never take a saint for your example..”, he said “man.” Man, of course in this context means “any human being,” and therefore includes not only saints, but “any human being” still living here on earth. The second reason is closely related to this. St. John is speaking about people we can observe. I say that because he says the devil sets before us the imperfection of the ones we might wish to imitate. Clearly the devil can do that only if that person is still living on earth and we are able to observe that person. And I guess there is a third reason. Namely, St. John is telling us even to exclude as possible models those who have a reputation for holiness. So there is nothing to stop us from imitating the canonized Saints and officially declared Blesseds.
Since
the Church sets before us the perfections of the Saints and Blesseds, under
the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they are really showing us how Jesus would
have acted if He were in their shoes, so that we could justifiably say that
the holy example of the Canonized Saints is really a revelation of some virtue
or good act that Jesus would have performed, and they are, the Saints, really
embodiments of the Christ-life in the particular time and place in human history
they occupied with their lives. Actually,
the Saints help us to embody the Christ life, and comply with the second (and
last) sentence of the Maxim in the time and place we occupy in the
history of the church and human history by showing us how they did that in
their own personal circumstances. We
learn from them, or rather, get helpful hints from them on, how best to imitate
Jesus in all the events of our daily lives.
But
maybe, by that last sentence, I am expanding, or stretching the reach of this
maxim beyond the intention of St. John of the Cross. He mentions specifically the tasks we have to
perform. The exact meaning of the words
apply to our being the ones who act and do.
They do not cover situations where we have to react to things that are
done by others to us and around us.
They cover only those “tasks” we have to perform. The implication is that we are under obligation
to perform some tasks. Hence, they
would be tasks pertaining to our state in life and our vocation in the
church. And so it appears that even the
living people who are excluded as role models to imitate would also be
restricted to those who have the same vocation in the Church we have and are of
the same state in life.
Well
maybe now I am unduly restricting the reach of this maxim because we can find
ourselves under an obligation imposed by something else than the state of life
we are in. Certainly promises we have
made place us under obligations, aside from the promise that established us in
our state of life and vocation in the Church.
Charity also is a source of obligation.
Another way of saying that is that the fact we are Christians places us
under obligations to act as Christ did.
And even the ten commandments place us under an obligation to act, or to
do something, to avoid breaking or violating a commandment. In fact, it is easier to imitate Jesus when
the task to be done is enjoined by Charity or by a promise, or by a commandment
of God, because not everyone can claim Jesus as sharing his state of life or
his vocation. It appears then that we
can include all the sources of obligations to act that we can fall under by
stating: all the tasks we are obliged to perform by the very situations in
which we find ourselves. Then we know
that both in acting or re-acting, wherever and whenever, Jesus, and not some
living person, is the one we must imitate.
Before
considering how we go about identifying the precise action or reaction of Jesus
to some situation that befalls us, there is something in this maxim that
requires some comment. That is the part
of the maxim which reads: “...for the devil will set his (someone we
might want to imitate) imperfection before you.“ How if the devil able to do that?
Perhaps
we just ought to take St. John of the Cross’s word for it, and not try to
figure out how the devil is able to do it.
What we do know, though, is that angelic natures, both good and bad ones
(angels and devils) do have power to influence our senses and feelings, as well
as to make suggestions to our minds. As
you know, our minds, that is, our power to reason and draw conclusions works
automatically. We don’t have to flick a
switch to get our reason to function.
So, whenever data in the form of sense impressions and perceptions are
fed into our reasoning faculty, the mind processes the data very quickly and
comes up with a conclusion. So, by altering
the perceptions and sense impressions fed into our minds, the angels and devils
can set before us perfections in one case, and imperfections in the other. In that way we are tempted to both good and
evil. It seems, though; that it is
easier for the devils to tempt us to sin and imperfection because of the wounds
inflicted upon our human nature by original sin and our own personal sins. We cannot be sure to what extent what I have
just said is part of the way the devil sets imperfection before us because St.
John of the Cross speaks only of the influence of the devil. It could be that whenever someone takes a
human being as a model to imitate the power of our angel over our feelings and
perceptions decreases to negligible, and the power of the devil increases. But on the other hand, it could easily be
that as soon as someone decides to imitate Jesus, that the power of the devil
becomes negligible while the power of our angel to set perfection before us is
maximized.
Now,
how do we go about deciding how Jesus would act in all the situations that
befall us?
In
chapter 13, Book I of the Ascent of Mt. Carmel, St. John has suggestions and
counsels designed to help anyone enter into the night of sense, one of the
nights that lead to union with God. In
paragraph 3 of that Chapter he says: “First have an habitual desire to
imitate Christ in all your deeds by bringing your life into conformity with
His. You must then study His life in
order to know how to imitate Him and behave in all events as He would.” And how do we study His life? Clearly, we have to read and re-read and
meditate on everything the Gospels tell us about Jesus, especially how He spoke
and acted, the content of His teaching, and the account of His suffering and
death. I am convinced that every
baptized person is capable of knowing what the Gospels tell us about Jesus down
to the minutest details. That is one
very good and practical way of knowing how to imitate Jesus.
But
there is another way that can and should be used to supplement the study of
Jesus in the Gospels. And that is to
pray daily for an increase of divine love in our souls. As we saw in a previous conference, Maxim
30, love causes to spring up in a lover a set of instincts by means of
which he automatically knows what is in the best interest of the beloved. When we ask for an increase of divine love,
and it is conferred, the instincts that spring up in us become more and more
like the instincts of Jesus, the tremendous, most unselfish Lover this world
has ever seen and ever will see. When
one has the instincts of Jesus to go along with detailed knowledge of His life,
one becomes quite capable of imitating Him perfectly in each and every
circumstance of His life.
Another
way of showing why that is so is by remembering that the Holy Spirit is “the
LOVE’ within the Trinity, the bond of union between Father and Son. So as divine love increases in a soul, the
more powerful and active the Holy Spirit becomes in that soul. Also, all the gifts of the Holy Spirit
become active and operative in that very soul.
Again, without having to stop and think and figure out things such a
soul would easily and sweetly bring his life into perfect conformity with
Jesus. Surely that is why St. Paul
dared to say what we quoted at the beginning: “Be imitators of me as I am of
Christ.”
Maxim - 79.
Seek in reading and you will find in meditation; knock in prayer, and it will
be opened to you in contemplation.
In
this Maxim it is obvious that St. John is speaking of inner dynamics of the
human soul as it does its best to enter into and persevere in communion with
God Our Father, Jesus Our Saviour, and the Holy Spirit Our Sanctifier. It is obvious also that this Maxim is
related to what Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount: “Ask and it shall
be given you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you.”
(Matt. 7:7) (Douay Rheims Version). So
we are not surprised that St. John of the Cross does not indicate what it is we
should ask for, what it is we should seek, or at which door we are to
knock. It seems reasonable to suppose
that the things Jesus would include among what we ought to ask for and seek,
and the doors we should be knocking upon are pretty much the same things that
St. John has in mind. However, in the
verses that follow the words of Jesus, quoted above, Jesus explains His meaning
by the example of an earthly father giving good things to his children, namely
the bread or the fish they ask for, and not a stone or a serpent. So I think it is better to assume that while
Jesus seems to be speaking primarily of material good things, necessary for the
life of the body, St. John of the Cross seems to be speaking primarily of good
things necessary for the life of the soul.
And so we will inquire both as to dynamics and to content with regard to
each half of the Maxim.
First,
then, how are reading and meditation inter-related? Well, since meditation is a form of reasoning, and reasoning
presupposes knowledge, reading is what supplies knowledge, or information,
without which it is impossible to meditate.
Reasoning and meditation usually proceed by comparing bits of
information and items of knowledge for the purpose of finding some meaning or
truth hidden beneath them. It is
certainly possible to reason and meditate upon all kinds of knowledge, but
certainly also St. John of the Cross is referring to reasoning and meditation
upon knowledge pertaining to God and to the relationship between God and
ourselves, His human family.
In
the Little Catechism of Prayer of Fr. Gabriel of Mary Magdalen, OCD, we learn
that the purpose of meditation in Teresian Carmelite Spirituality is to
discover, understand, and be convinced of: how much God loves us, and to what
extent He has gone to prove the magnitude of His love. Once that understanding and conviction is
engraved indelibly upon our souls - that is, in our minds and in our hearts,
then the essence of Teresian Carmelite prayer can be realized, namely, a loving
conversation with God, whom we know loves us.
At
this point, I can’t help thinking that a time comes, according to St. John of
the Cross, when a person of prayer is supposed to stop meditating when it is in
God’s presence, and is supposed to enter into a simplified form of prayer,
devoid of reasoning, that is, discursive thinking. Is it proper to assume that this Maxim applies only to those who
have not reached the stage of simplified prayer? I am inclined to say NO!
There is no stage of the spiritual life when a person is exempt from
doing spiritual reading. There is
always more that we can learn about God and His marvelous deeds, and therefore
it is always possible to penetrate beneath that knowledge to find deeper and
more awesome truths about God, ourselves, and His attributes, the attributes
that clothe His Divine Providence in our regard. I am guessing that the only difference in the meditation of one
who has not reached the point of entering into simplified prayer and one who
has, is the effort involved in meditating.
In the first instance the individual is conscious of his efforts to
compare data of knowledge and fully aware of the conclusions at which he
arrives. In the second instance, the
reasoning process if probably so quick and so effortless that the individual is
not really aware that a mediation has taken place. The deeper truth the person has uncovered may seem to him as a
sudden intuition or insight whose origin he can’t identify.
At
this point we can go on to the second half of the Maxim and inquire into the
relationship between “knocking in prayer” and “having the door opened in
contemplation.” From what has been said
above, the knocking can only be done by someone who has already reached the
simplified form of prayer, the beginning stage of contemplative prayer.
Knocking
in prayer seems to include addressing fervent petitions to God Our Heavenly
Father in prayer. Notice that this
Maxim does not reflect or follow the first part of Jesus’ advice quoted above,
namely, “ask and you shall receive.” On
the other hand, since contemplation is “darkness” to the human intellect, since
it is a “communication” God grants of Himself to the soul disposed to receive
it, it would be impossible for someone to ask for something specific in
prayer. So then the “knocking” that is
done in prayer is probably achieved by fervent longings and yearnings. This notion finds confirmation in the first
stanza of the Poem beginning “One dark night” because the second stanza says
“Fired with love’s urgent longings.”
This is something which certainly takes place in the prayer of someone
who has reached a simplified form of prayer because such a soul is so
thoroughly convinced of God’s love for it that meditation and discursive
reasoning cannot increase that conviction.
It is then natural for someone who knows how much it is loved to long for union with the beloved and for
opportunities to return that love and to give evidence of its own love for the
beloved.
Now
when the door is opened in contemplation what is it that the soul finds beyond
that door? If we take a hint from the
poem just quoted, the soul finds itself in the embrace of the beloved. Stanzas 6, 7, and 8 of that poem speak of
the exchange that takes place between them and of other experiences
figuratively described as a breeze from the fanning cedars, a breeze from the
turret, and leaving cares forgotten among the lilies. So that satisfies the longing for union with the beloved felt by
everyone who knows she herself is ardently loved by the beloved. And now that I think of it, the experience
of union is even better symbolized by the entire poem, “The Living Flame of
Love.”
There
remains, then, only the other kind of longing urgently experienced by one who
knows she herself is ardently loved by her beloved. She desires to prove that love by deeds and by suffering. She wants to promote the interests of her
beloved. She, the soul, wants to do
whatever pleases and brings joy to her beloved.
Very
likely, through contemplation, the soul realizes that the Beloved is so
infinitely worthy of love that she understands that of and by herself she can
never adequately require that love or promote adequately the interests of the
beloved, which is to communicate Himself and His Divine Life and Attributes to
all souls, to the entire human race.
When
the one loved is a contemplative, the only way her urgent longings can be
satisfied is by praying, suffering and pleading for the salvation of all souls,
and particular praying for the growth in numbers and in holiness of the
Church. That is because she wants
everyone in the whole wide world, everyone in the entire human race to join her
in loving the Beloved as He deserves.
But as a contemplative living in community, the one “fired with love’s
urgent longings” wants to prove her love for the Beloved by loving those with
whom Jesus her Beloved identifies. She
must love her sisters in community; she must put fervent love into all her
activities in the house. I say this
because I am thinking of how St. Therese of the Child Jesus satisfied her
longing to “make love loved.” In her
contemplation she had opened to her the doorway leading out upon her little
Way. She could die happy in the
realization that vast numbers of little souls would learn of the Little Way and
joyfully embark upon it, thus insuring that St. Therese’s desire that Jesus
receive the love He deserved from His human children, those saved by Him, would
be satisfied.
And
that reminds me of St. Teresa of Jesus, Our Holy Mother. Her ardent longing, her “knocking in prayer”
most clearly obtained that the door to sublime mystical graces, the summit
of which is mystical marriage, were opened to her. But also there was opened to her the door to promoting the dearest
interests of her Beloved and getting innumerable others to join her in rendering
Jesus, her Beloved, a love approaching the full measure He is worthy of from
His children. She entered that door
by the Reform of the Nuns and the Friars, and of becoming the Holy Mother
of the entire Discalced Carmelite Order.
She became, in truth, a true daughter of the Church.
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