One
(13) God desires the least degree of obedience and submissiveness more than all those services you think of rendering him.
In the Scriptures we read, “God desires mercy, not
sacrifice” (Hos 6:6). Jesus repeats this teaching when he is rebuking the
Pharisees (Mt 9:10-13). The Pharisees notice Jesus is eating and drinking with
tax collectors. Scandalised at Jesus’ association with these sinners they
question Him. The Pharisees placed greater value on fulfilling the letter of
the law, with all its outward acts of piety and prayer—all good things in
themselves—than the spirit of the law: love and mercy. In their quest to be good
religious Jews, they forgot about the Spirit behind the laws—the entire purpose
to everything God ordains.
Catholics can fall into the same trap as the Pharisees. We
all have our ‘laundry list’ of personal services and acts of piety we set for
ourselves, or follow because of our state of life, however many or few. Moral
obligations, the duties of our vocation, as family people, clergy or religious;
our prayer and sacramental life. These things are objectively good.
But we can sometimes confuse the obligations we set for
ourselves or should generally carry out in accord with the objective Will of
God, with the Will of God for us subjectively and in a given concrete moment. It
is good that we go to Mass. But should we be on our way to Mass and come across
someone in dire need of our assistance (e.g. a traffic accident), obedience is required
here, in this act of charity. Or else perhaps there is a father who stays back
after daily Mass to join in the Holy Hour and Benediction. This is objectively good.
But what if he has to take extra time off at work, taking a longer lunch break
than usual to do so, against the boss’s preference. This would not be good—obedience
would require the father to submit to the just demands of his employer. Thus
instead he could stay back after Mass for a shorter period in order to be
faithful to the duties of work, and to secure a livelihood for his family.
Other times we confuse our personal acts of service to God
and neighbour as the very means by which we please God. This is not so. The
acts we do are mere “empty gongs” in
themselves (1 Cor 13). Anything we do pleases God only insofar as it is animated
by love, the fruit of which is obedience and submissiveness to whatever God so
wills, whether the voice of God’s Will is coming from Church teaching, a spiritual
director, a religious superior, Bishop, or if an underage child, a parent. It
could simply be the silent voice of charity or the voice of our vocation which
demands certain things of us often contrary to our own personal natural and
spiritual preferences.
Notice St. John says, “God desires the least degree of
obedience and submissiveness more than all those services you think of
rendering him”. You think—that is the key here. We can think many things
about what we should or should not be doing, and may think the key to spiritual
success lies in obeying what we think is God’s will. But what does God
think? What does the Church think? If it had a mind that could be read, what
would our state of life think?
The ultimate act of “obedience and submissiveness” is of
course, faith in Jesus Christ and in God’s love for us. This pleases God above
all. Out of this primal obedience to God in faith flows everything else. We can
be bed ridden, dying and incapable of carrying out any duty—but should we lay prostrate
before God, clinging to Jesus in faith, with the intensity of love, God will be
well pleased, more than if we were healthy and able to move mountains.
Two
(14) God values in you the inclination to dryness and suffering for love of him more than all the consolations, spiritual visions, and meditations you could possibly have.
God loves to give us gifts in the spiritual life. The
substance of these gifts is always imperceptible—such is grace. Yet such gifts
often come wrapped in perceptible knowledge, sensible consolations and
experiences, or mystical phenomena.
Sometimes even the devil can fabricate spiritual
experiences and visions to lead the soul astray. Sometimes the devil can simply
encourage attachment to genuine spiritual experiences: the ‘good feelings’ and ‘wow
moments.’ The devil wants to elicit a covetousness in us for spiritual gifts,
so that we seek gifts as an end in themselves.
Contrarily, God gives spiritual gifts in order to draw us
nearer to Him, to make us love Him more. From the gift of tears, to speaking in
tongues, to prophetic dreams, locutions and intellectual visions. Even to
flashes of insight or extensive knowledge in spiritual matters, or a prowess in
being able to meditate and pray. All good things. But God loves a heart that can
either receive such things, or not receive such things, that “can take it or
leave it” as it were. A heart that is open to receiving God’s gifts, and thankful,
and even which asks much from God for what is fitting, but a heart which is truly
detached from all such things and rejoices solely in Him. To see a heart that
is detached from all the good “fluff” of the spiritual life—and these things
are indeed good—is exciting to God. Since here He finds a true friend and lover
that wants Him for Him, God for God.
We will not be judged on what gifts we received or did
not receive. We will be judged on how much we loved Him for all the gifts we
have received: natural and spiritual. The greatest gift of all, and the only
gift we ought to be attached to: His Son, Jesus Christ.
Three
(20) God is more pleased by one work, however small, done secretly, without desire that it be known, than a thousand done with the desire that people know of them. Those who work for God with purest love not only care nothing about whether others see their works, but do not even seek that God himself know of them. Such persons would not cease to render God the same services, with the same joy and purity of love, even if God were never to know of these.
Four
(32) If you lose an opportunity you will be like one who lets the bird fly away; you will never get it back.
The greatest opportunity we have been given is life
itself. Even though the gift of life is not the greatest thing per say, it is
the platform, the base or original opportunity (to appropriate JP II lingo) by which we are able to attain the beatific
vision of heaven, to savour a relationship with the God of Love. One who lets
life slip out of their hands will not get another opportunity. Time is a precious
gift, each moment an opportunity to love God with the desire of our will—once time
has passed, we cannot get it back.
One can lament over opportunities wasted or one can
embrace those opportunities that remain. Even the very moment we occupy is an
opportunity to offer a prayer of thanks and love to God. An opportunity to
expand our soul to His grace, to seek the salvation of souls, the relief of the
hurting. An opportunity to store up eternal treasure in heaven (Mt 6:19-20)—for
ourselves? True enough, it will be, but more importantly, and the only reason
that matters: for the glory of God. To honour He who made Us, to bring a smile
to His Face.
Five
(27) Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth. Mine are the nations, the just are mine, and mine the sinners. The angels are mine, and the Mother of God, and all things are mine; and God himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me. What do you ask, then, and seek, my soul? Yours is all of this, and all is for you. Do not engage yourself in something less or pay heed to the crumbs that fall from your Father’s table. Go forth and exult in your Glory! Hide yourself in it and rejoice, and you will obtain the supplications of your heart.
St. John of the Cross is reminding us of our spiritual inheritance
which we possess in Jesus Christ (Eph 1:11-14). This is what matters, this is what our focus
should be on. Sure, we must handle the crumbs that fall from the Father’s
table, the literal and figurative currency of life, handled in the activities
we do. But interiorly our heart must orbit God.
We may lack “the crumbs” of personal strength, health,
finances, perfect relationships, a stable job, stable emotions, and so many
other things. But we possess the whole Bread, the Bread of Life: everything we
truly need is in Christ, and through simple repentance and faith, with the aid of the Sacraments, the Communion of Saints, we are enabled to
take possession of our “true selves” in Christ and can begin to grow in this God-given
identity.
We may be redundant in so many ways, but God is perfect
and complete, and we can share in this perfection and completion through our
prayer. Not through the words we recite, nor the meditations we offer per say, but
through our faith. Faith that we live in Him, and He lives in us.
“Hide yourself in it,” in this truth of God’s love for
us, all He has done for us in Christ, “and rejoice”. St. John of the Cross is often painted as a sour-saint, a kill-joy. But "rejoice" he says after the pattern of St. Paul: "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, 'Rejoice!'" (Phil 4:4).
[Read more on John of the Cross here]
[Read more on John of the Cross here]
