Doctrine of John of the Cross
ONE
The greatest guide to the National Park of the soul, this interior landscape is John of the Cross. But almost no one knows or reads him because someone who has never read John told them he’s too hard to understand or because they begin with the wrong book The Ascent of Mt Carmel which emphasizes the sacrifices necessary to reach the summit. Reading or hearing this most are discouraged and quit. But sacrifice is not the goal. Transforming union with God which results in an infinite amount of happiness and peace - that is the goal. One should begin with John’s book The Spiritual Canticle which lays before us the object of our deepest desires, an experience of union with God, a taste of heaven on earth, and to be so filled by God that we become one with him, what Catholicism has always called – divinization – to share in the very being and activity of God.
Once we are enamored with the goal of union with God, one thinks only of union with the Beloved, not the sacrifice – for the sacrifice is only the means, only temporary and is nothing in comparison with the Divine Beauty. And that is what draws me to strike out for the summit – the Divine Beauty – that is what makes the arduous trek and the sacrifice worth it.
And we will not only see the Beauty – we become it, for the goal is transforming union with God. We are transformed, divinized and become like God. That is what 1 John 3:2 tells us. And isn’t it the nature of true love to make the beloved like itself.
two
We are setting out for the greatest adventure possible, to union with the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity. A union that makes us one with them, sharing in their life. In the first stanza of the Spiritual Canticle, John of the Cross cries out to God “Ah, where have you hidden yourself.” John provides the answer:
O soul most beautiful among all creatures, who dost long so ardently to know where thy Beloved is so that you may meet Him and be united with Him, at last you have been told that you yourself are the place where He dwells, and the hiding place where He is concealed. Well may you rejoice, knowing that your whole good, the object of your love, is so close to you, that He dwells in you, or to express it better, you cannot be without Him! (Spiritual Canticle I)
God Our Beloved – the supreme Beauty is not on top of a mountain – God dwells within your soul – That is where we must seek him. It is not a journey up a mountain, it is journey to the interior castle of the soul.
In this decade, Fix your gaze on the Beloved who dwells within you.
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Yes, it is true: God is within us, but He is hidden, concealed under the accumulation of our preoccupation with the things of this world, all the obstacles to the fulfillment of personal plans for our profit and gain, plans that we want to carry out without taking sufficient account of the divine will and of the rights of others. In our interior, there is too often a whole world of misplaced desires that thrust us toward the things of this world and make us give them our hearts. They make us place our hope in them and seek our comfort in them alone. So, we live in this superficial world, which occupies us to such a point that it makes us forget that more profound life that we could live but do not live, that truly interior life, in which the soul could be in deep friendship with God.
The Lord waits for us, so to speak, in the depth of our souls, but we do not enter this depth, taken up as we are by “our affairs,” to which we give all our concern. Now you see why we do not find Him! To find Him, we will have to go where He is and escape from our immersion in the world. Yes, we must “hide ourselves as He is hidden” and flee our superficial existence to enter a deep interior life, abandoning the more exterior sphere of our human interests, where everything moves around our little ego, to descend into the deeper center of the soul, where it learns to live together with God.
four
Listen to the instructions John gives us: Since therefore your beloved Spouse (God) is the treasure hidden in the vineyard of your soul, it is necessary that you, too, forgetting everything and withdrawing from all creatures, hide yourself, until you find Him in the intimate seclusion of your spirit. Here, with the door shut behind you, namely, the will closed to everything, pray in secret to your Father, and then . . . in secret you will hear Him and love Him and enjoy Him . . . above all that tongue and sense can understand.” (Spiritual Canticle I, 9)
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God created you for union with Him. The things of the world are good, very good, but nothing is perfect, they are not lasting and they will never be enough. When will we abandon the way that leads to nothing and set out for perfect joy - if not today – when?
I know, I know – you have too much to do, you must be responsible, and can’t give more time to seek Him within you by prayer. You have forgotten that God - who holds the entire universe in existence at every moment - has invited you to spend time with Him. Don’t you think he can also manage your affairs, along with the whole universe, for the brief time you spend with him in silence and solitude with all your attention given to him. So – what prevents you? Either you are still trying to find all your happiness on the road to nowhere or you think you can manage things better than God. Call a spade a spade and then sit with him in silence - 5 minutes, 10, 30...