St. John of the Cross: Session 3

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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James Finley (0:08)

Greetings, I'm Jim Finley. Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to our time here together, turning for guidance to the Christian Mystic, St. John of the Cross.

And we're in the midst of exploring his teachings of our journey to perfect union with God in a passage through a dark night. And we left off last time introducing the Ascent of Mount Carmel on how this, what attitudes we can foster to cooperate with this dark night that brings us to this deep union with God. And we're, in this session, we're going to be reflecting on Chapter 13 of the Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book 1 And in this session, I've asked Kirsten to join me. And so as I go through the chapter, I'll pause at each section so that she can ask any questions that comes to her as kind of representative of the kind of questions that might come to you. And I'm doing this because this chapter is kind of very poetic and kind of intuitively dense. And therefore, it can be discouraging. Like, how do I get at this? But once we get inside what he's saying, it's the kind of thing you can return to over and over again as a kind of a grounding place. So that's the nature of this session. And Kirsten and I will hopefully be helping you to gain access to the graces that are in this chapter. So I'll begin with Chapter 13, Article 1, Chapter 13

It says, Some consoles are in order that the individual may both know the way of entering the night and be able to do so.

And he goes on to say that this night, which is this purifying process in which we're brought into the light of God, has an active aspect and a passive aspect. The passive aspect is what makes it essentially mystical, in that it comes from God. And we started to look at that when we started with the three signs of entering the dark night and meditation, of the loss of consolation, the loss of clarity, and to see that God's weaning us off our capacity to experience finite ways of experiencing God, to prepare us to experience an infinite way of experiencing the infinite presence of God.

In this chapter, he's looking at the active aspects on how we cooperate with that. How do we cooperate with that? Article 3, he says, is a place to begin. He said, first have an habitual desire to imitate Christ and 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 to behave in all events as he would. So this is the kind of talk that we're used to, I think. As a follower of Christ, we prayerfully read the Gospels. So we want to live as Christ lived. How would Christ, any situation, how would Christ understand the situation? What would Christ's attitude be towards it? How would Christ act in the situation? And so I'm called to be, like Christ, I'm called to be loving and compassionate and patient and humble and so on. And we're used to that.

Next he says, and this is the surprising thing, and here's where we'll be turning to Kirsten. We'll be dialoguing together. So far that makes sense. Then he says this, which is kind of surprising.

Second, in order to be successful in this imitation, renounce and remain empty of any sensory satisfaction that is not purely for the honor and glory of God. Do this out of love for Jesus Christ. In his life, he had no other gratification nor desired any other than the fulfillment of his father's will, which he called his meat and food. For example, if you are offered the satisfaction of hearing things that have no relation to the service and glory of God, do not desire this pleasure or the hearing of these things. When you have an opportunity for the gratification of looking upon objects that will not help you come closer to God, do not desire this gratification or sight and so on. So this is kind of a surprising turn on how to kind of practically apply this to my life. And so, Kirsten, before I venture into this, any initial impression about the direction he's heading in here?

Kirsten Oates (5:19)

Well, I do appreciate some practical guidance, even if it is a little confusing. I find it challenging to live in balance of knowing that grace comes from God, but that there is a role for me to be open and cooperative and to hold the right tension around that.