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Showing posts with label sacrifice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sacrifice. Show all posts
Friday, February 13, 2015
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on True Worship and Human Life
True worship is the living human being, who has become a total answer to God, shaped by God's healing and transforming word. And true priesthood is therefore the ministry of word and sacrament that transforms people into an offering to God and makes the cosmos into praise and thanksgiving to the Creator and Redeemer. Therefore Christ, who makes an offering of himself on the Cross, is the true high priest [....]
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Source: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, trans. by Philip J. Whitmore (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2011), 238.
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Thursday, April 10, 2014
Sacrifice: Appeasing Zeus vs. a Loving, Merciful God
Someone I know emailed me about a poetry professor who gave a presentation in class and mentioned that he has an "issue with sacrifice." From the email: "particularly Christ's death on the cross. [The professor] seemed to equate Jesus' sacrifice to the Father with sacrificing an animal to Zeus, trying to appease an angry and jealous god instead of one who can [sic] loving and merciful." My friend wanted to know what I had to say about that, how I'd respond and explain the difference, etc. I thought I might as well include my response here.
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The professor's "issue" with sacrifice is probably less theological-philosophical than it is psychological, i.e. there is an "issue" from the past that makes the idea of sacrifice difficult for him. Did he have an "angry and jealous" parent who acted like a Zeus, demanding sacrifice of some kind? Perhaps it was the "Father"? Without further information, who knows? So that's the first thing.
The second matter is the difference between God and Zeus. Zeus is a fiction of the mind, and even if Zeus existed (hard to prove since there aren't many people getting zapped or raped by huge swans, etc.), he would be only a creature, albeit a powerful one. And actually the Greeks believed that their "gods" were physical, so he wouldn't even been that far up in the hierarchy of beings because angels (and hence demons) are above physical beings and far more powerful. God, on the other hand, is the pure, self-sustaining act of existence itself. Big difference, in fact, an infinite difference.
A sacrifice to Zeus is meaningless because Zeus can't do squat, even if he existed. All he could do would be to threaten us, in which case, sacrifice means appeasing him like an abusive parent who has power over a helpless child.
God on the other hand is pure mercy and pure justice. The idea of mercy is meaningless without the idea of justice after all. Just try to define what exactly mercy is without referring in some way to justice. Mercy, after all, is pardoning someone who doesn't DESERVE to be pardoned; that is, it overrides justice.
Here's where it gets interesting. Sin is an offense against God and hence an offense not only against pure justice but also against pure mercy. The degree of evil is determined by the act, the person committing the evil, and the victim of the evil. In this case, God is the "victim" (although God doesn't actually suffer in any way, God deserves honor and respect instead of rejection by the nature of his being). Sin is a rejection of love. So a sin, no matter how small it seems to us, is an infinite offense because it attempts to violate infinite mercy and justice. Hence Cardinal Newman said quite strikingly,
And who would deny that pure justice and mercy should be respected, even if those are merely ideals in our heads?
But remember this key: mercy is impossible to conceive without some notion of justice. Hence, without justice, there is no such thing as mercy. Mercy becomes valuable only insofar as the degree of justice to be administered increases. The more that justice demands, the more merciful the pardon.
Now a sin is an infinite offense. Therefore, any pardon of an infinite offense is an infinite act of mercy. And that is the sacrifice that Christ made. An animal couldn't make it because an animal would just be a victim, literally a scapegoat, where we get the idea of scapegoat today. A sin is a personal act, an act of free will. Hence a human has to make reparation who can freely choose God again. But the one offended is God, so that act of reparation must be infinite. But only God can make an act that is infinite. So the human making reparation to God has to in some way be infinite. Hence in Christ the humanity and divinity were united in one person so that justice could be satisfied. And here's the twist: the same act of satisfying the justice of God was the way that God showed us infinite mercy in pardoning us for every past, present, and future sin. In the Crucifixion is infinite justice and mercy at the same time. It satisfies justice, and in so doing, it bestows mercy.
Because, after all, if we commit sin, we're in the pickle of being unable to do anything to satisfy justice. And we certainly don't deserve forgiveness.
But, could God have simply forgiven us without going through the Crucifixion? Yes. But it was more fitting that God become like us, suffer like us, die like us, to show us an example. In our fallen state, when we are so prone to selfishness and revenge rather than justice, hardness of heart rather than mercy, we need a model of what true humanity looks like, how tall it can stand when it is virtuous and noble.
Because—here's the second interesting thing—St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out that to call sin an offense against God is true but incomplete. Sin is wrong not only because it offends God but because it hurts us, it destroys us, it is contrary to what it means to be fully human. A plant needs water, nutrition, air, and sunlight to grow well. A human has specific physical and spiritual needs. On the spiritual level, the human needs virtue. Virtue alone will make us truly human.
Hence God's act of satisfying justice and bestowing mercy was a double act of mercy. If God simply said, "I forgive you," we would still be left in our same darkness, with no guide as to how to live our lives. But God Himself showed us how we are to find our proper fulfillment, and it is through sacrifice.
Victimization, which is suffering without desiring it, is not sacrifice. Sacrifice is accepting all suffering that comes necessarily from doing the right thing, the thing that will make the individual and those around him more human. Hence, sacrifice is the core of love, and sacrificial love is the core of the family. The family is the core of society. Without sacrifice, love is simply attraction rather than mutual consideration. Without love, the family is simply a game of manipulation. Without family, the society is bored, aimless, and selfish. Without society, there can be no civilization, no leisure, and hence no freedom. Christ freely embraced the suffering that would come.
The Gospel is the most powerful story because it is the story of what happens when infinite Love enters our world. We crucify and reject it because in fact we don't want love. We like Frank Sinatra's song "I Did It My Way." That's why the Gospel is the most poignant story and why every good story is good insofar as it resembles the Gospel. Even B-movie entertainment is good because it resembles the Gospel—we like to see people kicking butt and taking names. Christ did that to Satan. We see huge power, tremendous struggles, high stakes. All of that is in the Gospel. At the heart of it is the notion of sacrifice, which is simply—I'm not a rock. I'm not an island. The only way for me to be happy as a human is to be selfless, to help others, to give consideration to others, to "do unto others what I would have them do unto me." That's love.
In fact, mercy is a sacrifice. I sacrifice the demands of justice and my personal satisfaction at seeing justice administered in order to show mercy. A poetry professor who doesn't understand that must be pretty bad at poetry...
The professor's "issue" with sacrifice is probably less theological-philosophical than it is psychological, i.e. there is an "issue" from the past that makes the idea of sacrifice difficult for him. Did he have an "angry and jealous" parent who acted like a Zeus, demanding sacrifice of some kind? Perhaps it was the "Father"? Without further information, who knows? So that's the first thing.
The second matter is the difference between God and Zeus. Zeus is a fiction of the mind, and even if Zeus existed (hard to prove since there aren't many people getting zapped or raped by huge swans, etc.), he would be only a creature, albeit a powerful one. And actually the Greeks believed that their "gods" were physical, so he wouldn't even been that far up in the hierarchy of beings because angels (and hence demons) are above physical beings and far more powerful. God, on the other hand, is the pure, self-sustaining act of existence itself. Big difference, in fact, an infinite difference.
A sacrifice to Zeus is meaningless because Zeus can't do squat, even if he existed. All he could do would be to threaten us, in which case, sacrifice means appeasing him like an abusive parent who has power over a helpless child.
God on the other hand is pure mercy and pure justice. The idea of mercy is meaningless without the idea of justice after all. Just try to define what exactly mercy is without referring in some way to justice. Mercy, after all, is pardoning someone who doesn't DESERVE to be pardoned; that is, it overrides justice.
Here's where it gets interesting. Sin is an offense against God and hence an offense not only against pure justice but also against pure mercy. The degree of evil is determined by the act, the person committing the evil, and the victim of the evil. In this case, God is the "victim" (although God doesn't actually suffer in any way, God deserves honor and respect instead of rejection by the nature of his being). Sin is a rejection of love. So a sin, no matter how small it seems to us, is an infinite offense because it attempts to violate infinite mercy and justice. Hence Cardinal Newman said quite strikingly,
"The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse."A farthing was one of the smallest units of currency, by the way, like our penny.
And who would deny that pure justice and mercy should be respected, even if those are merely ideals in our heads?
But remember this key: mercy is impossible to conceive without some notion of justice. Hence, without justice, there is no such thing as mercy. Mercy becomes valuable only insofar as the degree of justice to be administered increases. The more that justice demands, the more merciful the pardon.
Now a sin is an infinite offense. Therefore, any pardon of an infinite offense is an infinite act of mercy. And that is the sacrifice that Christ made. An animal couldn't make it because an animal would just be a victim, literally a scapegoat, where we get the idea of scapegoat today. A sin is a personal act, an act of free will. Hence a human has to make reparation who can freely choose God again. But the one offended is God, so that act of reparation must be infinite. But only God can make an act that is infinite. So the human making reparation to God has to in some way be infinite. Hence in Christ the humanity and divinity were united in one person so that justice could be satisfied. And here's the twist: the same act of satisfying the justice of God was the way that God showed us infinite mercy in pardoning us for every past, present, and future sin. In the Crucifixion is infinite justice and mercy at the same time. It satisfies justice, and in so doing, it bestows mercy.
Because, after all, if we commit sin, we're in the pickle of being unable to do anything to satisfy justice. And we certainly don't deserve forgiveness.
But, could God have simply forgiven us without going through the Crucifixion? Yes. But it was more fitting that God become like us, suffer like us, die like us, to show us an example. In our fallen state, when we are so prone to selfishness and revenge rather than justice, hardness of heart rather than mercy, we need a model of what true humanity looks like, how tall it can stand when it is virtuous and noble.
Because—here's the second interesting thing—St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out that to call sin an offense against God is true but incomplete. Sin is wrong not only because it offends God but because it hurts us, it destroys us, it is contrary to what it means to be fully human. A plant needs water, nutrition, air, and sunlight to grow well. A human has specific physical and spiritual needs. On the spiritual level, the human needs virtue. Virtue alone will make us truly human.
Hence God's act of satisfying justice and bestowing mercy was a double act of mercy. If God simply said, "I forgive you," we would still be left in our same darkness, with no guide as to how to live our lives. But God Himself showed us how we are to find our proper fulfillment, and it is through sacrifice.
Victimization, which is suffering without desiring it, is not sacrifice. Sacrifice is accepting all suffering that comes necessarily from doing the right thing, the thing that will make the individual and those around him more human. Hence, sacrifice is the core of love, and sacrificial love is the core of the family. The family is the core of society. Without sacrifice, love is simply attraction rather than mutual consideration. Without love, the family is simply a game of manipulation. Without family, the society is bored, aimless, and selfish. Without society, there can be no civilization, no leisure, and hence no freedom. Christ freely embraced the suffering that would come.
The Gospel is the most powerful story because it is the story of what happens when infinite Love enters our world. We crucify and reject it because in fact we don't want love. We like Frank Sinatra's song "I Did It My Way." That's why the Gospel is the most poignant story and why every good story is good insofar as it resembles the Gospel. Even B-movie entertainment is good because it resembles the Gospel—we like to see people kicking butt and taking names. Christ did that to Satan. We see huge power, tremendous struggles, high stakes. All of that is in the Gospel. At the heart of it is the notion of sacrifice, which is simply—I'm not a rock. I'm not an island. The only way for me to be happy as a human is to be selfless, to help others, to give consideration to others, to "do unto others what I would have them do unto me." That's love.
In fact, mercy is a sacrifice. I sacrifice the demands of justice and my personal satisfaction at seeing justice administered in order to show mercy. A poetry professor who doesn't understand that must be pretty bad at poetry...
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Fr. David Greenstock on the Sanctification of the Family
We must never forget that marriage is a sacrament, something holy, and not a mere permission to accept a state less perfect than virginity because one could not quite make the grade. It is every bit as difficult to live a holy married life as it is to live a life of celibacy in the priesthood or the religious state; and it is just as important for the well-being of the Church.
Writing of Christian marriage, Pope Pius XI says that husbands and wives, by means of the sacrament and the charity which informs it, must have 'a persevering endeavour [sic] to bring each other to the state of perfection'. There is a great truth enshrined in those simple words. When two people become 'one flesh' by means of this sacrament they dedicate themselves to a common life together which embraces both the natural and the supernatural order. They are bound, not merely to seek perfection as individuals, but also as a family unit with in the Mystical Body. This applies not only to husband and wife but also to the children. Salvation and perfection are no longer individual goals, so to speak; on the contrary, the spiritual perfection of a husband will depend very much on his efforts to help his wife and children to attain that same end. The same is true of a wife and mother—she must attain her perfection in and through her marriage obligations. [...]
A good Catholic marriage lived in full accordance with the laws of God can have a stunning effect on a world which is lost in a maze of false principles concerning divorce, birth control, and sex. Such a marriage can prove to be the best of all demonstrations that the true sanctity of this human contract is at a much deeper level than mere obedience to a spiritual authority. It is essentially an expression of love—of a love which is no mere sentiment, but a sacramental love which mirrors the love which prompted God to become man and to found a Church, uniting Himself with it.
The apostolate of the Catholic family is simply to be a loving, united whole, working for a full life of the Spirit within and through the obligations of that state. The sacrament must be allowed to permeate and sanctify every element in that union if its full purpose is to be achieved. It must orientate the theological and moral virtues, for example. There will be a special need in marriage for prudence, fortitude, patience, purity, confidence in God, and temperance in all its varied forms.
The practice of religion must now be an act of virtue in which two people act as one. Family prayers provide an example of this. The family must be at Mass, at confession, and Communion. The virtue of piety now comes into its own in a special way, prompting obedience on the part of the children and loving service on that of the parents. It should never be forgotten in this connection that the foundation of true Christian education is the family. If the family education is missing or is defective, then all other education is liable to fail in its aims and become an elaborate superstructure on a defective foundation.
This has practical applications in every department of life. Parents must not rely entirely on the school to educate their children in religion. Morning and evening prayers must become a family affair, not something merely individual. There must be a family effort to overcome the materialistic attitude of the world around us, a spontaneous family attitude of living faith which is seriously put into practice. There must be authority and obedience in a Catholic family, because love is based on the keeping of the law. This is the very basis of sanctity inside the family unit and should never be forgotten. However, both authority and obedience must be based on love if they are to avoid becoming arbitrary dictatorship and servility.
Prayer is, of course, the foundation of this Catholic family atmosphere. Prayer in common, the Mass, the family Rosary, etc., will do more than the mere formal teaching of religion to bring about an effective family sanctity. The great feasts of the Church, birthdays, anniversaries, and patron-saint days will be important landmarks which will bring the whole family into intimate contact with the world of spiritual realities.
Once this truly religious atmosphere has been attained, it will be a simple matter to include such things as spiritual reading in common, a simple but careful study of the doctrines of the Church and, when the children are still young, instruction in the truths of faith. As they grow older, there will be the need for guidance through conversation and discussion of various topics in order to maintain their Catholic standards of values. The work of both husband and wife must be sanctified, not merely as individual daily tasks, but as a family concern. Here mutual help and understanding play a very great part in the family sanctification.
In such an atmosphere the gulf which sometimes appears between religion and secular life will vanish, because the sense of being given to God as a family unity will sanctify even the most frivolous entertainments as well as the more serious side of life. Family joys and the pleasures of married life together will acquire a new, richer, and deeper meaning for all. Nothing can break the power for good of a Catholic marriage as the central unit both of the Church and of the State, provided it is lived for and in God.
In this way the family becomes first of all a great source of personal and communal sanctity in which the members all work for themselves and for others. It also becomes a power-house of personal example of what the love of God means when translated into effective action. It becomes the breeding ground for solid vocations on which the Church depends to provide priests and religious. Above all, it is the most effective spearhead for our attack on the indifference and malice of a world which has lost the sense of sin and true spiritual peace. In the sanctification of the family unit lies the hope for the sanctification of the world.
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Source: Fr. David L. Greenstock, "Christian Perfection and the States of Life," in The Meaning of Christian Perfection (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1956), 145-147.
Writing of Christian marriage, Pope Pius XI says that husbands and wives, by means of the sacrament and the charity which informs it, must have 'a persevering endeavour [sic] to bring each other to the state of perfection'. There is a great truth enshrined in those simple words. When two people become 'one flesh' by means of this sacrament they dedicate themselves to a common life together which embraces both the natural and the supernatural order. They are bound, not merely to seek perfection as individuals, but also as a family unit with in the Mystical Body. This applies not only to husband and wife but also to the children. Salvation and perfection are no longer individual goals, so to speak; on the contrary, the spiritual perfection of a husband will depend very much on his efforts to help his wife and children to attain that same end. The same is true of a wife and mother—she must attain her perfection in and through her marriage obligations. [...]
A good Catholic marriage lived in full accordance with the laws of God can have a stunning effect on a world which is lost in a maze of false principles concerning divorce, birth control, and sex. Such a marriage can prove to be the best of all demonstrations that the true sanctity of this human contract is at a much deeper level than mere obedience to a spiritual authority. It is essentially an expression of love—of a love which is no mere sentiment, but a sacramental love which mirrors the love which prompted God to become man and to found a Church, uniting Himself with it.
The apostolate of the Catholic family is simply to be a loving, united whole, working for a full life of the Spirit within and through the obligations of that state. The sacrament must be allowed to permeate and sanctify every element in that union if its full purpose is to be achieved. It must orientate the theological and moral virtues, for example. There will be a special need in marriage for prudence, fortitude, patience, purity, confidence in God, and temperance in all its varied forms.
The practice of religion must now be an act of virtue in which two people act as one. Family prayers provide an example of this. The family must be at Mass, at confession, and Communion. The virtue of piety now comes into its own in a special way, prompting obedience on the part of the children and loving service on that of the parents. It should never be forgotten in this connection that the foundation of true Christian education is the family. If the family education is missing or is defective, then all other education is liable to fail in its aims and become an elaborate superstructure on a defective foundation.
This has practical applications in every department of life. Parents must not rely entirely on the school to educate their children in religion. Morning and evening prayers must become a family affair, not something merely individual. There must be a family effort to overcome the materialistic attitude of the world around us, a spontaneous family attitude of living faith which is seriously put into practice. There must be authority and obedience in a Catholic family, because love is based on the keeping of the law. This is the very basis of sanctity inside the family unit and should never be forgotten. However, both authority and obedience must be based on love if they are to avoid becoming arbitrary dictatorship and servility.
Prayer is, of course, the foundation of this Catholic family atmosphere. Prayer in common, the Mass, the family Rosary, etc., will do more than the mere formal teaching of religion to bring about an effective family sanctity. The great feasts of the Church, birthdays, anniversaries, and patron-saint days will be important landmarks which will bring the whole family into intimate contact with the world of spiritual realities.
Once this truly religious atmosphere has been attained, it will be a simple matter to include such things as spiritual reading in common, a simple but careful study of the doctrines of the Church and, when the children are still young, instruction in the truths of faith. As they grow older, there will be the need for guidance through conversation and discussion of various topics in order to maintain their Catholic standards of values. The work of both husband and wife must be sanctified, not merely as individual daily tasks, but as a family concern. Here mutual help and understanding play a very great part in the family sanctification.
In such an atmosphere the gulf which sometimes appears between religion and secular life will vanish, because the sense of being given to God as a family unity will sanctify even the most frivolous entertainments as well as the more serious side of life. Family joys and the pleasures of married life together will acquire a new, richer, and deeper meaning for all. Nothing can break the power for good of a Catholic marriage as the central unit both of the Church and of the State, provided it is lived for and in God.
In this way the family becomes first of all a great source of personal and communal sanctity in which the members all work for themselves and for others. It also becomes a power-house of personal example of what the love of God means when translated into effective action. It becomes the breeding ground for solid vocations on which the Church depends to provide priests and religious. Above all, it is the most effective spearhead for our attack on the indifference and malice of a world which has lost the sense of sin and true spiritual peace. In the sanctification of the family unit lies the hope for the sanctification of the world.
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Source: Fr. David L. Greenstock, "Christian Perfection and the States of Life," in The Meaning of Christian Perfection (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1956), 145-147.
Friday, January 17, 2014
St. John of the Cross on Why So Few Attain Perfection
And here it ought to be pointed out why so few reach this high state of perfect union with God. It should be known that the reason is not that God wishes only a few of these spirits to be so elevated; he would rather want all to be perfect, but he finds few vessels that will endure so lofty and sublime a work. Since he tries them in little things and finds them so weak that they immediately flee from work, unwilling to be subject to the least discomfort and mortification, it follows that not finding them strong and faithful in that little [Mt. 25:21, 23], in which he favored them by beginning to hew and polish them, he realizes that they will be much less strong in these greater trials. As a result he proceeds no further in purifying them and raising them from the dust of the earth through the toil of mortification. They are in need of greater constancy and fortitude than they showed.
There are many who desire to advance and persistently beseech God to bring them to this state of perfection. Yet when God wills to conduct them through the initial trials and mortifications, as is necessary, they are unwilling to suffer them and they shun them, flee from the narrow road of life [Mt. 7:14] and seek the broad road of their own consolation, which is that of their own perdition [Mt. 7:13]; thus they do not allow God to begin to grant their petition. They are like useless containers, for although they desire to reach the state of the perfect they do not want to be guided by the path of trials that leads to it. They hardly even begin to walk along this road by submitting to what is least, that is, to ordinary sufferings.
We can answer them with Jeremiah's words: If you have grown weary running with footmen, how will you contend with horses? And if you have had quiet in the land of peace, what will you do in the swelling of the Jordan? [Jer. 12:5]. This is like saying: If by the common trials (on foot) that form part of human life, it seemed to you that you were running because there were so many, and you took such short steps, how will you keep up with the horse's stride, which signifies more than ordinary trials for which human strength and speed is not enough? And if you have not wanted to forego the peace and pleasure of your earth, which is your sensuality, or contradict it in anything or stir up a war, I do not know how you will desire to enter the impetuous waters of spiritual tribulations and trials that are deeper.
O souls who in spiritual matters desire to walk in security and consolation! If you but knew how much it behooves you to suffer in order to reach this security and consolation, and how without suffering you cannot attain to your desire but rather turn back, in no way would you look for comfort either from God or from creatures. You would instead carry the cross and, placed on it, desire to drink the pure gall and vinegar. You would consider it good fortune that, dying to this world and to yourselves, you would live to God in the delights of the spirit, and patiently and faithfully suffering exterior trials, which are small, you would merit that God fix his eyes on you and purge you more profoundly through deeper spiritual trials in order to give you more interior blessings. [...]
For he tries them in this way so as to make them advance in gifts and merits, as he did with holy Tobit to whom St. Raphael said: Since you were acceptable to God, he favored you by sending you temptation that he might try you more in order to exalt you more [Tb. 12:13]. After that temptation, all the rest of his life was in joy, as Sacred Scripture says [Tb. 14:4]. We also see in the life of holy Job that once God accepted his works in the sight of the good and evil spirits, he immediately favored him by sending those great trials so that subsequently he could extol him much more. And this he did, multiplying his goods, both spiritual and temporal [Jb. 1-2; 42:10, 12]. [...]
People, then, should live with great patience and constancy in all the tribulations and trials God places on them, whether they be exterior or interior, spiritual or bodily, great or small, and they should accept them all as from God's hand as a good remedy and not flee from them, for they bring health. [...] People should hold in esteem the interior and exterior trials God sends them, realizing that there are few who merit to be brought to perfection through suffering and to undergo trials for the sake of so high a state.
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Source: St. John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love, trans. by K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1991), 2.27-30, 667-669.
There are many who desire to advance and persistently beseech God to bring them to this state of perfection. Yet when God wills to conduct them through the initial trials and mortifications, as is necessary, they are unwilling to suffer them and they shun them, flee from the narrow road of life [Mt. 7:14] and seek the broad road of their own consolation, which is that of their own perdition [Mt. 7:13]; thus they do not allow God to begin to grant their petition. They are like useless containers, for although they desire to reach the state of the perfect they do not want to be guided by the path of trials that leads to it. They hardly even begin to walk along this road by submitting to what is least, that is, to ordinary sufferings.
We can answer them with Jeremiah's words: If you have grown weary running with footmen, how will you contend with horses? And if you have had quiet in the land of peace, what will you do in the swelling of the Jordan? [Jer. 12:5]. This is like saying: If by the common trials (on foot) that form part of human life, it seemed to you that you were running because there were so many, and you took such short steps, how will you keep up with the horse's stride, which signifies more than ordinary trials for which human strength and speed is not enough? And if you have not wanted to forego the peace and pleasure of your earth, which is your sensuality, or contradict it in anything or stir up a war, I do not know how you will desire to enter the impetuous waters of spiritual tribulations and trials that are deeper.
O souls who in spiritual matters desire to walk in security and consolation! If you but knew how much it behooves you to suffer in order to reach this security and consolation, and how without suffering you cannot attain to your desire but rather turn back, in no way would you look for comfort either from God or from creatures. You would instead carry the cross and, placed on it, desire to drink the pure gall and vinegar. You would consider it good fortune that, dying to this world and to yourselves, you would live to God in the delights of the spirit, and patiently and faithfully suffering exterior trials, which are small, you would merit that God fix his eyes on you and purge you more profoundly through deeper spiritual trials in order to give you more interior blessings. [...]
For he tries them in this way so as to make them advance in gifts and merits, as he did with holy Tobit to whom St. Raphael said: Since you were acceptable to God, he favored you by sending you temptation that he might try you more in order to exalt you more [Tb. 12:13]. After that temptation, all the rest of his life was in joy, as Sacred Scripture says [Tb. 14:4]. We also see in the life of holy Job that once God accepted his works in the sight of the good and evil spirits, he immediately favored him by sending those great trials so that subsequently he could extol him much more. And this he did, multiplying his goods, both spiritual and temporal [Jb. 1-2; 42:10, 12]. [...]
People, then, should live with great patience and constancy in all the tribulations and trials God places on them, whether they be exterior or interior, spiritual or bodily, great or small, and they should accept them all as from God's hand as a good remedy and not flee from them, for they bring health. [...] People should hold in esteem the interior and exterior trials God sends them, realizing that there are few who merit to be brought to perfection through suffering and to undergo trials for the sake of so high a state.
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Source: St. John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love, trans. by K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1991), 2.27-30, 667-669.
Monday, January 6, 2014
St. John of the Cross on Repugnance Towards the Cross
We ought to note carefully our Savior’s words in St. Matthew’s Gospel, chapter seven, about this road: Quam angusta porta et arcta via est quae ducit ad vitam! Et pauci sunt qui inveniunt eam (How narrow is the gate and constricting the way that leads to life! And few there are who find it) [Mt. 7:14]. We should note particularly in this passage the exaggeration and hyperbole conveyed by the word quam. This is like saying: Indeed the gate is very narrow, more so than you think. [...] Since he proclaims that few find it, we ought to note the cause: Few there are with the knowledge and desire to enter into this supreme nakedness and emptiness of spirit. As this path on the high mount of perfection is narrow and steep, it demands travelers who are neither weighed down by the lower part of their nature nor burdened in the higher part. This is a venture in which God alone is sought and gained; thus only God ought to be sought and gained.
4. […] I think it is possible to affirm that the more necessary the doctrine the less it is practiced by spiritual persons. […]
5. Oh, who can make this counsel of our Savior on self-denial understandable, and practicable, and attractive, that spiritual persons might become aware of the difference between the method many of them think is good and the one that ought to be used in traveling this road! They are of the opinion that any kind of withdrawal from the world, or reformation of life, suffices. Some are content with a certain degree of virtue, perseverance in prayer, and mortification, but never achieve the nakedness, poverty, selflessness, or spiritual purity (which are all the same) about which the Lord counsels us here [Mk. 8:34-35: If anyone wishes to follow my way, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his soul will lose it, but whoever loses it for me will gain it]. For they still feed and clothe their natural selves with spiritual feelings and consolations instead of divesting and denying themselves of these for God’s sake. They think denial of self in worldly matters is sufficient without annihilation and purification in the spiritual domain. It happens that, when some of this solid, perfect food (the annihilation of all sweetness in God—the pure spiritual cross and nakedness of Christ’s poverty of spirit) is offered them in dryness, distaste, and trial, they run from it as from death and wander about in search only of sweetness and delightful communications from God. Such an attitude is not the hallmark of self-denial and nakedness of spirit but the indication of a spiritual sweet tooth. Through this kind of conduct they become, spiritually speaking, enemies of the cross of Christ [Phil. 3:18: For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears].
A genuine spirit seeks rather the distasteful in God than the delectable, leans more toward suffering than toward consolation, more toward going without everything for God than toward possession, and toward dryness and affliction than toward sweet consolation. It knows that this is the significance of following Christ and denying self, that the other method is perhaps a seeking of self in God—something entirely contrary to love. Seeking oneself in God is the same as looking for the caresses and consolations of God. Seeking God in oneself entails not only the desire to do without these consolations for God’s sake, but also the inclination to choose for love of Christ all that is most distasteful whether in God or in the world; and this is what loving God means.
6. Oh, who can explain the extent of the denial our Lord wishes of us! […] It is in the will that all negation takes place. Our Savior referred to this when he declared: Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it (Those who want to possess something, or seek it for self, will lose it). […]
His Majesty taught this to those two disciples who came to ask him for places at his right and left. Without responding to their request for glory, he offered them the chalice he was about to drink as something safer and more precious on earth than enjoyment [Mt. 20:22].
7. This chalice means death to one’s natural self through denudation and annihilation. […] For on this road there is room only for self-denial (as our Savior asserts) and the cross. The cross is a supporting staff and greatly lightens and eases the journey.
Our Lord proclaimed through St. Matthew: My yoke is sweet and my burden light [Mt. 11:30], the burden being the cross. If individuals resolutely submit to the carrying of the cross, if they decidedly want to find and endure trial in all things for God, they will discover in all of them great relief and sweetness. […]
8. I should like to persuade spiritual persons that the road leading to God does not entail a multiplicity of considerations [meditations], methods, manners, and experiences—though in their own way these may be a requirement for beginners—but demands only the one thing necessary: true self-denial, exterior and interior, through surrender of self both to suffering for Christ and to annihilation in all things. In the exercise of this self-denial everything else, and even more, is discovered and accomplished. If one fails in this exercise, the root and sum total of all the virtues, the other methods would amount to no more than going around in circles without getting anywhere, even were one to enjoy considerations and communications as lofty as those of the angels.
A person makes progress only by imitating Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. […] I would not consider any spirituality worthwhile that wants to walk in sweetness and ease and run from the imitation of Christ. […]
That they might realize that their union with God and the greatness of the work they accomplish will be measured by their annihilation of themselves for God in the sensory and spiritual parts of their souls. When they are reduced to nothing, the highest degree of humility, the spiritual union between their souls and God will be an accomplished fact. This union is the most noble and sublime state attainable in this life. The journey, then, does not consist in consolations, delights, and spiritual feelings, but in the living death of the cross, sensory and spiritual, exterior and interior.
4. […] I think it is possible to affirm that the more necessary the doctrine the less it is practiced by spiritual persons. […]
5. Oh, who can make this counsel of our Savior on self-denial understandable, and practicable, and attractive, that spiritual persons might become aware of the difference between the method many of them think is good and the one that ought to be used in traveling this road! They are of the opinion that any kind of withdrawal from the world, or reformation of life, suffices. Some are content with a certain degree of virtue, perseverance in prayer, and mortification, but never achieve the nakedness, poverty, selflessness, or spiritual purity (which are all the same) about which the Lord counsels us here [Mk. 8:34-35: If anyone wishes to follow my way, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his soul will lose it, but whoever loses it for me will gain it]. For they still feed and clothe their natural selves with spiritual feelings and consolations instead of divesting and denying themselves of these for God’s sake. They think denial of self in worldly matters is sufficient without annihilation and purification in the spiritual domain. It happens that, when some of this solid, perfect food (the annihilation of all sweetness in God—the pure spiritual cross and nakedness of Christ’s poverty of spirit) is offered them in dryness, distaste, and trial, they run from it as from death and wander about in search only of sweetness and delightful communications from God. Such an attitude is not the hallmark of self-denial and nakedness of spirit but the indication of a spiritual sweet tooth. Through this kind of conduct they become, spiritually speaking, enemies of the cross of Christ [Phil. 3:18: For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears].
A genuine spirit seeks rather the distasteful in God than the delectable, leans more toward suffering than toward consolation, more toward going without everything for God than toward possession, and toward dryness and affliction than toward sweet consolation. It knows that this is the significance of following Christ and denying self, that the other method is perhaps a seeking of self in God—something entirely contrary to love. Seeking oneself in God is the same as looking for the caresses and consolations of God. Seeking God in oneself entails not only the desire to do without these consolations for God’s sake, but also the inclination to choose for love of Christ all that is most distasteful whether in God or in the world; and this is what loving God means.
6. Oh, who can explain the extent of the denial our Lord wishes of us! […] It is in the will that all negation takes place. Our Savior referred to this when he declared: Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it (Those who want to possess something, or seek it for self, will lose it). […]
His Majesty taught this to those two disciples who came to ask him for places at his right and left. Without responding to their request for glory, he offered them the chalice he was about to drink as something safer and more precious on earth than enjoyment [Mt. 20:22].
7. This chalice means death to one’s natural self through denudation and annihilation. […] For on this road there is room only for self-denial (as our Savior asserts) and the cross. The cross is a supporting staff and greatly lightens and eases the journey.
Our Lord proclaimed through St. Matthew: My yoke is sweet and my burden light [Mt. 11:30], the burden being the cross. If individuals resolutely submit to the carrying of the cross, if they decidedly want to find and endure trial in all things for God, they will discover in all of them great relief and sweetness. […]
8. I should like to persuade spiritual persons that the road leading to God does not entail a multiplicity of considerations [meditations], methods, manners, and experiences—though in their own way these may be a requirement for beginners—but demands only the one thing necessary: true self-denial, exterior and interior, through surrender of self both to suffering for Christ and to annihilation in all things. In the exercise of this self-denial everything else, and even more, is discovered and accomplished. If one fails in this exercise, the root and sum total of all the virtues, the other methods would amount to no more than going around in circles without getting anywhere, even were one to enjoy considerations and communications as lofty as those of the angels.
A person makes progress only by imitating Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. […] I would not consider any spirituality worthwhile that wants to walk in sweetness and ease and run from the imitation of Christ. […]
That they might realize that their union with God and the greatness of the work they accomplish will be measured by their annihilation of themselves for God in the sensory and spiritual parts of their souls. When they are reduced to nothing, the highest degree of humility, the spiritual union between their souls and God will be an accomplished fact. This union is the most noble and sublime state attainable in this life. The journey, then, does not consist in consolations, delights, and spiritual feelings, but in the living death of the cross, sensory and spiritual, exterior and interior.
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Source: St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, trans. K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez, 2.7.2-11.
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