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Continuation of Commentaries
on the Maxims on Love of St. John of the Cross
by Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd
Maxim 67.
Never allow yourself to pour out your heart, even though it be but for
the space of a creed.
The first thing we have to do in reflecting on this
Maxim, is to determine what St. John of the Cross means by the expression “pour
out your heart.” Next, because he
says never do it, we must try to figure out why this is bad,
because, obviously, St. John of the Cross does not want us to do anything that
would harm our souls. Third, we might
inquire as to why even a little bit of pouring out our heart is not good. Then we can reflect on things not stated in
the Maxim, as for example, to whom if anyone, do we pour out our hearts?
To get an idea of what it means “to pour out one’s
heart” we can look first to Sacred Scripture. One example that comes to mind immediately is that of Anna, the
wife of Elcana, who became the mother of Samuel, the prophet, who was a
contemporary of King Saul and King David.
As you know, Anna was one of Elcana’s two wives, and
she was barren. Elcana’s other wife had
borne him several children and she used to mock and ridicule Anna, spitefully
reminding her often that she was barren.
One year, while the whole family was in Jerusalem for one of the Annual
Feasts, Anna went before the Lord present in the Tabernacle Tent and began to
pray; being so deeply distressed that she wept bitterly: The text does not tell
us all she said, but it does record the vow she made, namely, that if God gave
her a son, she would give him back to the Lord for all the days of his
life. Eli the priest thought she was
drunk and reproached her but she replied:
“No my Lord, I am a woman sorely troubled; I have drunk neither wine
or strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord.” From this we can deduce that to “pour out
one’s heart” means the same thing that Anna was doing, at least in
part. It would include telling somebody
all the things that are troubling a person and all the pain and anguish that
afflicts the person so troubled.
After God answered her prayer, and gave her a son,
Samuel, Anna brought him to the Lord as soon as the baby was weaned, and gave
him to Eli so Samuel could serve the Lord all the days of his life. On that occasion she again prayed, and her
words are recorded as the Canticle of Anna. She begins it by saying: “My
heart exults in the Lord.” It seems
that again she is pouring out her heart, but it is an over-flowing joy she
pours out and she states the cause of it.
It is her understanding of the greatness of God. Especially, she recounts His goodness to the
lowly and afflicted, and of how He applies His mighty power to protect, bless
and exalt them, and how He defeats all their adversaries. The Canticle of Anna (1 Samuel 2:1-10) is
reminiscent of Mary’s Magnificat. The
Magnificat was a pouring out of the
sentiments of Mary’s heart when she realized that God (the Holy Spirit) had
revealed to Elizabeth that she, Mary, was pregnant with God Incarnate.
There is another example in Holy Scripture that can
help us to understand the phrase: “to
pour out one’s heart.” It is found in
Mt. 7:6: There Jesus says: “Do not give dogs what is holy; and do
not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and turn
to attack you.” I think this can
help us because Our Lord also said: “Where
your treasure is, there is your heart also”; and again “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
With all that in mind we can now attempt to define, or
describe, what it means “to pour out one’s heart.” Most simply, it means: “to disclose to others the sentiments of
one’s heart” or perhaps “to disclose to others the thoughts that preoccupy the
mind along with the feelings and emotions that these thoughts, ideas, or
memories evoke and are being experienced at that moment.” I think an important element to be
considered is that what is disclosed is something actually experienced at the
moment of disclosure. Hence, the pouring
out of one’s heart would differ from the “manifesting secrecy of
conscience” we reflected upon in Maxim 61, since then we spoke of conscience as
the awareness of what God has accomplished in or has communicated to one’s
soul.
In the course of looking for help from Scripture we
have also touched upon the question, Who are the one’s St. John of the Cross
has in mind as observers or as recipients of what is poured out of one’s
heart? From the example of Anna,
clearly we can and should pour out our hearts to God the Father, to Jesus and
to Our Lady, whom we know love us with an immeasurable love. And now that I have said that I see that I
left out something very important from the definition I gave a moment ago. That is, the desires occupying the
heart at the moment of disclosure. These
desires would accompany the feelings and emotions evoked by the thoughts and
memories preoccupying the mind. Desires
certainly reside in the heart, because “desire” is a function of love.
And now that we see that one can and should pour out
one’s heart to God, Our Lady or to one of our patron saints, we can get an
answer to why it is good when we address those outpourings to them, and why it
is bad that we pour out our hearts to certain other persons. It is good to pour out our hearts to God
because, first of all, our hearts belong to Him, and secondly because merely to
do so expresses an implicit desire that He do what is best for us at that
moment. If it is our sins and
shortcomings that we are pouring out to Him, or to Our Lady or our Patron Saints,
we can be sure that He will respond to our sorrow and repentance with
forgiveness, to our doubts and misgivings with enlightenment and confidence,
and to our sentiments of humility with an increase of grace and the virtues of
trust and abandonment. If we are
pouring out in the presence of God the sadness and worries we have concerning
difficulties or concerning the state of soul of our loved ones, that is a way
of putting all our loved ones into His hands and an implicit expression of our
prayer that He bring about in their lives whatever is best for their immortal
souls and will lead them safely into eternal happiness.
I said above that it must be bad to pour out these
things to certain other persons. Those
others would be everybody except a confessor, or a trusted spiritual
advisor. I am tempted to include a
spouse, but hesitate to do so because a spouse might not be holy enough and
loving enough to be able to respond to the other spouse’s disclosure in a way that
is for the greater good of the discloser’s soul. The reason it is good to pour out one’s heart to a confessor and
his equivalent, a trusted spiritual advisor, is because these are the ones
through whom God acts to enlighten and strengthen and encourage one on the
difficult and narrow road to greater love of God and eventual union with
Himself in Love.
Why it is bad to pour out one’s heart to all other
human beings is suggested by what precedes Jesus’ admonition in Mt. 7:6 that we
just cited. Mt. 7:1-5 begins. “Judge
not and you will not be judged.”
Then Jesus goes on to say that we cannot say to another, let me take
the speck out of your eyes, while there is still a plank in my own eye. So even if the outpourings of one’s heart
are received with great reverence and great charity, one would certainly not be
properly understood, and the response to the disclosure would certainly not be
the best thing for the discloser’s soul.
But most often to do so to others in general is bad because it
becomes the equivalent of Matt. 7:6, namely, giving what is holy to dogs,
casting pearls before swine. What
is so intimately associated with our relationship with God then easily becomes
the subject of gossip, if not also evoking ridicule or contempt on the part of
folks who do not share our Faith and our religious ideals. It seems then, that the only time we could pour
out our hearts to others or in the presence of others is when the thoughts
and sentiments that occupies our minds and hearts resemble those of Anna, wife
of Elcana, and Our Blessed ever-virgin Mother Mary when they proclaimed, or
sang their respective canticles.
Before we go on to the final question of the first
paragraph of this conference, we would do well to consider other kinds of
disclosures that resemble somewhat the “pouring out of one’s heart.” One such disclosure we could call “to let
off steam.” The expression “to let off
steam” is suggestive of a boiler in which the pressure has risen to dangerous
levels, such that a failure to let off steam to reduce the pressure could
easily result in an explosion that destroys not only the boiler, but which
could kill people in its vicinity, and certainly do severe damage to the
building wherein it is located.
We certainly cannot equate “letting off steam” with “pouring
out one’s heart” because the former is the equivalent of defusing a
potentially dangerous situation and thus would not be bad. It would seem, then, that the “steam” does
not reside in one’s heart. It would
have to reside in what is called the “irascible appetite.” And as such, it is related to the passion of
anger. Anger is the natural response of
the human soul to the perception that it is in imminent danger of being
afflicted with an evil, or better, the awareness that an evil is currently
afflicting one’s being. The steam is
the powerful tendency of anger to destroy the evil or to destroy the agent that
is about to inflict an evil upon one’s soul or other aspect of his
humanity. “Letting off steam”, then,
would be a safe way of defusing anger so that one avoids responding to
evil with evil, and instead diverts the violent energy into harmless
activity. An example might be taking a
throw rug out on a clothesline and then beating the rug with all one’s might. Another might be beating up on a pillow or a
mattress. Still another might be going
where no one can hear and screaming at the top of one’s lungs.
Another kind of disclosure that resembles somewhat the
“pouring out of one’s heart” would be “getting rid of poison” or,
“getting things off one’s chest.” These
would differ from “letting off steam” in the sense that the powerful urge to
strike out at an evil or its imminent cause is not present. Rather, the evils that are compared to
poison or to some crippling burden are the remembrance of experiences or facts
that eat away at one’s psychic or spiritual well being. These might be things one has seen or heard
or have been done to him that tend to destroy his self-esteem or
self-image. Along with the remembrance
of those things there could be the feelings of hatred and resentment toward the
individuals who have said or done things to diminish or humiliate him. It certainly is a good thing for one to get
rid of these poisons and burdens, because these things are incompatible with
charity, and if allowed to remain could easily drive God out of one’s
soul. So again, these cannot be
identified with “pouring out one’s heart.” But still, how does one “get rid of venom (poison)” or get
“burdens off one’s chest”? Implied in
those expressions is that one has revealed to another what is going on in the
depths of one’s soul. Perhaps this can
only be done by confiding in a dear friend whose love and affection counter-act
the demeaning experiences that tend to evoke resentful, vengeful and hateful
thoughts and desires. One could certainly
do this in prayer, and so one might not have to turn to a dear friend. To get poison out of one’s system, though,
could be damaging to the reputation of those who are responsible for the
poisonous thoughts and desires, when directed to just anybody, and perhaps the
listener might even make the disclosures the subject of gossip. It seems, then, that St. John of the Cross
might also include “getting rid of poison” and “getting things off one’s chest”
within the reach of this Maxim 67.
Finally, we ask, what length of time is meant by the
expression “for the space of a Creed”?
It seems to me that an awful lot can be said in the length of time it
takes to recite the Apostles Creed, and even more in the time to recite the
Nicene Creed, as we do on Sundays at Mass.
So I looked at the Spanish original, and it says there, literally, ... “even
though it is for a credo.” So I am
inclined to think that his Maxim should read:
“never allow yourself to pour out your heart, even though it be for [the
space of] an “I believe.”
Well, now it turns out that there is more to say about
Maxim 67. That is because in the
evening of the same day I wrote the preceding reflections, I came across a
reference to the letters of St. John of the Cross that have been preserved and published
with his Collected Works. I think that
we have to consider what the author of the article on St. John’s letters says
about them, in order fully to understand what St. John had in mind when he
wrote this Maxim 67. I quote the
relevant parts of that article here:
“...these
are the personal letters in which John expresses himself with greater
spontaneity concerning his sentiments, worries and feelings. They contain elements of spiritual teaching,
news, words of friendship, reproach and affection...occupying first place in
this category are the ones to Catalina de Jesus [a Carmelite nun]..., Juana de
Pedraza [a lay-woman]..., Ana de Jesus [a Carmelite nun]...and Dona Ana de
Penalosa...[another lay-woman].
“The
personal letters are most substantial and revealing of his soul. They have a basic, threefold structure: a warm beginning in which he shows interest
or friendship, or may complain; a doctrinal body giving counsel or comfort;
an affectionate conclusion with words
of trust, petition or complaint.”
“Their
beginning and ending in an affectionate tone gives them the taste of a
spontaneous and deeply felt personal communication. This basic sentiment prevails in the midst of the disguised
doctrinal message he usually mixes in.
They are letters, living communication, not treatises” (p. 344, God Speaks in the Night, first three
full paragraphs. Author, Fr. Federico
Ruiz, OCD, translator, Fr. Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD).
From what we have said already in our own personal
reflections, I think we have to say that St. John of the Cross, in some of his
letters, really did pour out his heart.
And at the same time we want to say that St. John practiced what he
preached. How can we show that what
seems to us to be a “pouring out of his heart” did not violate this Maxim 67?
I think the answer has to be found in how the author
of the article, Fr. Ruiz, characterizes the letters: they were, “living communications.” He saw in those letters of
St. John to those women “...the taste [flavor] of a spontaneous and deeply felt
communication.“ What that means for us is that St. John took something out of
his very own heart and soul and transferred it directly to the hearts and souls
of those four very dear friends of his.
Or, better, since those worries, sentiments and feelings, which revealed
the substance of his soul and heart did not leave him, they were “sharings,”
they were means of giving himself to them along with his love. This notion casts a whole new light upon all
that has been said thus far. It seems to
me that we must interpret the words of the Maxim “pour out your heart”
to mean something like pouring a valuable liquid onto the ground or into a
stream. It is the equivalent of wasting
something. So when we decided earlier
on that one should only pour out one’s heart to God or to one’s
confessor, we left out a very important category of persons. That category is comprised of dearly beloved
friends in Christ. That certainly would
include a dearly beloved spouse, but also anyone else with whom mutual, pure
love makes the person “pouring out” and the person “receiving the
communication” a single entity. That is
because, as we know, love causes the Lover to be transformed into the Beloved,
and vice versa.
This is important because when we spoke about things
similar to “pouring out one’s heart”, such as “letting off steam” and
“getting rid of poison”, we said that these were not bad in themselves because
they helped an individual get rid of something harmful to his soul as well as
to his mental health. Certainly it is
never wrong to “vent steam” and “vomit poison” upon God, Our Lord, Our Lady and
our Patron Saints, but it seems we also need to have someone in our lives whose
human love and friendship toward us is so pure and so deep and so noble that we
can expose all our ugliness to them and be confident that the loved one will
not love us any less in the future. In
fact, such revelations and such sharings of one’s intimate self are almost
demanded by a very pure and high degree of love, otherwise the role of love to
transform the Lover into the Beloved and vice versa would be frustrated.
Maxim 68.
Never
listen to talk about the faults of others, and if someone complains of another, you can tell him humbly to say nothing of it
to you.
Again, one gets the impression that St. John wrote
this Maxim because Maxim 67, which precedes it, was fresh in his mind. That could be because in both instances he
was identifying with the persons for whom he wrote the Maxims. In other words, after telling his directees
and counselees not to “pour out their hearts,” he sees that it is
important that they know what to do when and if someone were to “pour out his
heart” to them. But at the same time,
we note that St. John of the Cross does not use the same terminology in the two
Maxims. So we have to conclude that he
has something different in mind, even though there might be a little bit of
“pouring out of one’s heart”, “letting off steam”, and “getting rid of poison”
in both the first and second phrases of this Maxim 68.
In the first phrase there is no indication that the
talk about the faults of others is taking place one on one. St. John might have been thinking of the
times of recreation in which all of the Friars or Nuns are gathered together
for the purpose of enjoying fraternal companionship and conversation. For lay people, the counterpart would be any
kind of socializing - a coffee klatch or a cocktail party, or a gathering of
friends or co-workers. Certainly in
such gatherings the names of people come up, and along with that, personal
information concerning those people.
In such a situation there has to be a special meaning
to the phrase: “Do not listen to...”
because we can’t keep our ears from hearing what is said. So it must mean something we can do, such as
not taking the talk about others’ faults seriously. Regardless of what is said about another, we always have good
reason to reject the talk as false.
First of all, only God knows the truth about us in all accuracy, and He
does not see fit to share that knowledge with us. Second, such talk always involved hearsay, and even if the source
of the information bases his assessment of the faults of others on personal
sense experience, we know that each and every one of us is biased in one way or
another, so that our observations are always more subjective than
objective. Thus, not to listen
to talk means to exclude the talk from admission into our minds and memories as
a basis for conduct in dealing with others in the course of our daily lives.
Before we go on to the next part, we can ask, does St.
John of the Cross permit us, by this maxim, to listen to something other than
talk about the “faults of others?”
Is it OK to listen to talk about the foibles and idiosyncrasies (which
are not faults) of others? Is it not
OK to listen to talk about the virtues and good qualities of others? We do have to admit that it is possible to
speak very affectionately about the quirks of others whom we love, and maybe it
is because of those same quirks that we began to conceive a special love for
them. I guess the best way to help us
decide what we will listen to concerning others or not listen to is to
consider, or try to discover, whence the talk proceeds. Is it evident that the person speaking about
another has love and esteem for the one spoken about? If so, we can listen because seldom would a speaker say anything
to diminish or harm the reputation of someone he loves. If we cannot be sure that the speaker has
love for the one spoken of, it is always best not to listen, as we have
explained that above.
Going on to the second phrase of this Maxim 68, it
seems that St. John does have in mind a conversation of one on one. In this phrase St. John does not speak of
faults of another, but only of complaints leveled against another. In doing that, St. John prescinds from
speaking about faults, surely because he knew that complaints can also be based
upon conduct or attributes that are neither faulty nor reprehensible. Perhaps that is why St. John can advise that
one tell a complainer to say nothing of it to him, the listener.
But when we look more carefully at the second and
third phrases of this Maxim, we see that it implies a dependency upon carrying
out the first phrase, “not listening to others’ faults.” St. John seems to be saying that it is the “not
listening” that gives one the power to tell a complainer not to say
anything to him. Perhaps that is
because, if we have taken seriously the talk about the faults of others, we
would be obliged to concur in the complaints made against that person.
Also of interest is the fact that St. John says: you
can tell the complainer “humbly” to say nothing of it to you. This suggests that “not listening” to
the talk about the faults of others has helped one to grow in humility. How can this be?
At first sight it seems one would have to say that one
would already have to be humble in order to be able to reject talk about
the faults of others. Surely a truly
humble person knows that he has every reason to believe that he is the world’s
worst sinner. Namely, each of us can
honestly believe that if anyone else had been given all the graces and gifts
God has given us personally, anyone else would have done a better job than we
have. And conversely, if we were placed
in the shoes of anyone else, and received the graces and gifts God gave him, we
would not have done as well as that other person. Certainly someone that humble would never listen to talk about
others’ faults. Still there seems to be
a connection that St. John has in mind.
Perhaps it is this: If I determine to base all my conduct upon truth, then I know I cannot rely upon talk of the faults of others as true, and so I must not listen, that is, I must reject that talk. Well according to St. Teresa, Our Holy Mother, humility is walking in truth. So if, in truth, and therefore humbly we reject talk about others’ faults, then in truth, or humbly we can tell complainers not to complain about others to us.
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MISSION STATEMENT: This web site was created for the purpose of completing the work of Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, O.C.D These conferences may be reproduced for private use only. Publication of this material is forbidden without permission of the Father Provincial for the Discalced Carmelites, Holy Hill, 1525 Carmel Rd., Hubertus, WI 53033-9770. Texts for the Maxims on Love were taken from The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, by Fr. Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. and Fr. Otilo Rodriguez, O.C.D. 1979 Edition. Copies of the book are available at ICS Publications, 2131 Lincoln Rd., N.E., Washington, D.C. 2002-1199, Phone: 1-800-832-8489.