December 14th - St. John of the Cross, Mystic
Waldtraud
St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) was a confessor and doctor of the Church.
He
was co-reformer of the Carmelite Order with St. Teresa of Avila. He was a
great
mystic and left many famous maxims about the spiritual life. Some of them
are
the following:
* I did not know Thee, my Lord, because I still desired to know and relish
trifling things. My spirit became dry because it forgot to rest in Thee.
* If you wish to attain holy recollection, you will do so not by approving
but
by denying.
* The devil fears a soul united to God as he does God Himself.
* The purest suffering produces the purest understanding.
* Through small things, one reaches the great. The evil that at the
beginning
appears insignificant, later becomes enormous and without remedy.
Comments of the late Prof. Plinio Corr�a de Oliveira: (died 1995)
Let me comment one sentence at a time.
* I did not know Thee, my Lord, because I still desired to know and
relish
trifling things. My spirit became dry because it forgot to rest in Thee.
The love for trifles is one of the most deeply-rooted things that exist in
the
human soul. When one of us goes to a public square or a restaurant or when
we
take a bus where people are chatting, if we observe well, we will see that
most
of the time they are talking about trifling things. Also, when they are
quiet
they are usually thinking about trifling matters.
St. John of the Cross said: I didn't know Thee, My Lord, because I wanted to
relish trifles. What he means is that one who likes to taste trifles cannot
taste the things of God. What is the reason for this? It is because the two
are
contrary things and no one is able to love opposite things at the same time.
God
is infinite, transcendent, and magnificent. A trifle is a very insignificant
thing. The person who loves insignificant things cannot love the grandeur of
God. So, we should ask Our Lady to free us from our attachments to trifles
and
prepare us to have true love for God.
The second part of the sentence - My spirit became dry because it forgot to
rest
in Thee - confirms the first. What kind of souls rest in God? They are
persons
who like to think about the situation of the Catholic Church, Catholic
doctrine,
the history of the Church and the supreme interests of God. These person can
say
that they rest in God. Such men are sheep who graze and feed themselves on
divine grass.
* If you wish to attain holy recollection, you will do so not by
approving
but by denying.
This is a magnificent sentence! It is based on a very anti-liberal
principle.
Optimistic and liberal souls who only want to see the positive side of
everything do not have holy recollection, according to St. John of the
Cross. On
the contrary, those souls who vigilantly see the evil around them, discern
it,
and then deny it - these are the ones who attain true recollection.
Therefore,
the discernment of evil is the door that opens the way for holy
recollection.
The devil fears a soul united to God as he does God Himself.
It is beautiful! One sees in every day life the hatred of the Devil for the
true
Catholic, the true counter-revolutionary. It is a hatred that comes from
fear.
He trembles before a good Catholic as he trembles before God Himself,
because he
sees God in that person.
* The purest suffering produces the purest understanding.
It is a twofold affirmation. First, it says that each one of us should
suffer
purely, which is to accept our cross to the end, to honestly and gladly
suffer
what is asked of us without tricks and frauds.
Second, it states that whoever does this receives a greater capacity to
understand the things of God, that is, to reach the highest and noblest part
of
reality. This understanding is not only the understanding of the
intelligence
but also of the sensibility of the soul. Therefore, accepting suffering
makes
the entire soul - the will, intelligence, and sensibility - more perfect and
closer to God.
Through small things, one reaches the great. The evil that at the beginning
appears insignificant, later becomes enormous and without remedy.
This is an eminently counter-revolutionary principle, eminently
anti-liberal.
One of the characteristics of the liberal mind is to imagine that everything
will end well. Therefore, based on this principle, we should live life
without
concerns, optimistically. There would be no reason to intervene in affairs,
because normally they go in the right direction and rarely finish badly.
This
liberal facet is also naturalistic. It does not take into account the
supernatural and the preternatural, original sin and the chastisement God
gave
us for that sin. At depth, the man is optimistic because he does not believe
in
the consequences of original sin.
For this reason, the liberal becomes astonished when something goes wrong.
How
could it happen? he asks. How could it be that this or that person did such
a
bad thing?
The man who is anti-liberal thinks the opposite. He knows that without the
help
of supernatural grace, man has a strong tendency to evil, and that if he
does
not take special care, the evil will take root and grow in his soul. He
realizes
that if he makes a concession to some small vice, it can shortly reach the
extreme of evil. Therefore, a bad glance, a bad thought, a first revolt, an
initial laziness may lead to extreme consequences.
Let me exemplify this with laziness. Someone takes a lapse position in face
of
an important matter regarding the Catholic cause that is being reported to
him.
Because he is lazy, he does not want to make an effort to think and react on
the
high plane the topic demands. He does this many times, and he acquires the
habit
of not responding to serious matters in the Catholic cause.
After a while, this habit of omission is transformed into indifference
toward
the great Catholic panoramas. He loses the appetite for the good, which is,
according to St. Thomas, related to the death of the love of God. That is to
say, something that began as a small concession, in a short time ended in
the
death of the love of God. For this reason, St. John of the Cross warns us to
be
vigilant and snuff out evil in its first spark; otherwise we will be facing
a
wide-ranging fire.
This principle also applies to History. Louis XVI did not take effective
action
to stop the beginning sparks of the French Revolution, and it ending by
cutting
off his head. Pope Leo X did not stop Protestantism in the beginning and it
went
on to sever one-third of Europe from the Church. We could make a sad and
long
list of catastrophes that should have been stopped in the beginning but were
not, and became irreversible calamities.
See pictures at:
http://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j159sd_StJohnOfCross_12-14.shtml
Saint Quote:
Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and
in
suffering for the Beloved.
-St. John of the Cross
Bible Quote:
Let us live decently as people do in the daytime: no drunken orgies, no
promiscuity or licentiousness, and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour
be
the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 13:13-14)
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Prayer to St. Dymphna - Charity
You are celebrated St. Dymphna, for your goodness to
others. Both in your lifetime, and even more in the ages
since, you have again and again demonstrated your concern
for those who are mentally disturbed or emotionally troubled.
Kindly secure for me, then, some measure of your own
serene love, and ask our Lord to give us a share in His life
and boundless charity. Amen.