Dialogue 3: The Ascent of Mount Carmel

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

You're listening to a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation. To learn more, visit cac.org.

James Finley (0:08)

Greetings, I'm Jim Finley.

Kirsten Oates (0:11)

And I'm Kirsten Oates.

James Finley (0:12)

Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.

Kirsten Oates (0:22)

Welcome, everyone, to our dialogue about session four with Jim Finley. Thanks for being here, Jim.

James Finley (0:31)

Thank you, good.

Kirsten Oates (0:33)

I have listened to that session a few times. It goes deep.

James Finley (0:38)

Mm-mm.

Kirsten Oates (0:39)

Yeah, good to hear. I was struck by, at one point, where you talk about John of the Cross is trying to explain the unexplainable.

And so today, I'll be asking for further explanation from you.

James Finley (0:55)

Of the unexplainable, okay.

Kirsten Oates (0:59)

You ready?

James Finley (0:59)

Yeah, I'm all ready.

Kirsten Oates (1:07)

So Jim, we're still focusing on the active night. John of the Cross talks about an active night and a passive night, and we're still talking about the active night.

But you go back and forward in the talk because they always operate together. Is that, yeah.

James Finley (1:27)

That's right, that's right, that's right. We're always talking about, it's essentially passive and that it happens to us, like we're touched, we're quickened, or we're accessed by the presence of God we don't understand. So in that sense, it's passive. But then since love is never imposed but always offered, we freely cooperate with it, which is the active night. So in the center of Mount Carmel, Book One, how does that occur in the senses, being gratified through the senses? And now we're moving into Book Two, on what's the active night of the intellect. So how do we pass into a knowledge of God beyond concepts, beyond conceptual understanding, beyond words, the naked darkness of faith, and how do we cooperate with that process? Let's say, you know, he starts the center of Mount Carmel on the prologue, saying that what he wants to share with us is how we find our way to divine union with God, insofar as possible on this earth through love.

So it's an obscure realization of heaven, that is, it's not the fullness of glory, but in some obscure way, although still on this earth, we can have this intimate realization of God beyond thought, an infinite union with the infinite and so on.

And so he says, in order for this to occur, we undergo this dark night. And the dark night is that we're first given a taste of divine union, like a moment of awe or a moment of oneness. And really, we're kind of, it's dark because we're blinded by the infinity of the light. It overwhelms our finite eyes. But once we get a taste of it, once we get a taste of oneness, we long for it. But then we realize that what's holding us back is we're attached to our finite ways of experiencing God's infinite oneness with us. That is, God in my beliefs, God in my constellations, God in my aspirations, and so on. And that's important. And efficacious unto holiness, it's our life.

But because it's finite, we have to move beyond that. But then we discover that we're attached to it. It's familiar territory. And so God helps us out by weaning us off dependency on that ability to be nurtured and consoled in those ways by simply taking away the ability to be consoled.

And in that poverty, if we don't panic, we just wait for God, there can slowly start to emerge then these intimations of this infinite union with God. And so once we got in a taste and we realized God's tugging at our heart in this way, the active night are the ways we cooperate with that. So in the Ascent of Mount Carmel Book 1, he talks about being gratified through the senses, through pleasure and touch. And we realize that the gratifications don't gratify because they're finite. You know, the pleasure washes over us, it touches us, we see it.

And therefore we have to go beyond that. So how do we cooperate, moving beyond these finite to enter into it? And those ways of actively choosing that is the act of night of the senses.

And so now he's talking about the act of night of the intellect, through faith. It's still the act of night. But it's the act of night in this sense. We realize that this is the image of the ladder, person born blind and so on. We realize that we know God through faith that God is eternal, that God is love, that God is infinite, God is revealed in Christ. And it's true, faith comes through hearing.