Giving yourself to God
and to others-Part IV
On the subject of
St. John of the Cross, with guidance from the book "John of the Cross for Today:
The Ascent" by Dr. Susan Muto. Ave Maria Press
(1991), we continue by examining the words of Mark, in the
New Testament:
"If any man would come
after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and
whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will
save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole
world and forfeit his life?" (Mk. 8:34-5)
Dr. Muto writes: "St. John knew from personal experience
what it was like to be betrayed, humiliated scorned and
forgotten as was Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the
Mount of Calvary. Yet St. John's faith, like Christ's, never
faltered. He knew there was much to be gained in apparent
loss."
"To Lose is to Gain"
(the title of Dr. Muto's third chapter). And she, rightly,
quotes St. Francis's teaching to Brother Leo on "Perfect
Joy." Have you ever experienced rejection? Sure you have
- all of us have. Not "having it our way" but the way of
one's boss at work - that's often a humbling experience.
That's rejection unless we learn to accept change, and
direction, easily. The nice part is that even in the
workplace this "obedience" to one's boss, can be a source of
Divine Grace.
In accepting pain and
illness, we are accepting His Cross. By not complaining and
by not directing attention to ourselves, we are fully
embracing His Cross. And when we offer this hardship for
others, we are conforming our souls to Christ, because Jesus
made it clear that we are to love our brothers and sisters,
repeatedly, in his teaching. This "embracing His Cross" is
often not without hardship, particularly in daily dealings
with other people. What your soul, with God's help is
striving to accomplish, is, well, countercultural! Our very
secular culture doesn't take up with the things of God,
rather, it seems to be about materialism and lack of all
self-control. Too much in material things and creature
comforts lead to great unrest in the soul, and to less and
less love for God. People who abide by this secular emphasis
are in grave spiritual danger and most of the time they have
no idea about God, and have forgotten the need to sin no
more.
Then there are also people
who just coast along. They go to Holy Mass on Sundays, while
dreaming of the beach of the picnic or some pleasurable
activity on Sunday afternoon, and the mystery that unfolds
on the altar completely passes us by. And, sadly, there are
also people who state equivocally that they are disgusted by
organized religion, usually with consequences that this
sense of order and silence in their soul is rarely
attainable, unless God singles them out. Untold damage has
been done by the sad events in the Catholic Church in the
United States, that came to light in the last couple of
years, the pedophilia in the clergy, which seems to have
become a reason for those not strong in faith, to abandon
Catholicism entirely. A person of strong faith will overcome
these horrors, by re-focusing on Jesus Christ, on the Cross,
and on inner silence and prayer.
These abuses, in the broad
sense, have become the Church's "dark night." Experiencing
the dark night is making choices. It's choosing the good,
the love of Jesus, over fear and darkness. Pray for priests,
keep your spiritual life going. Do not dwell on the
negative. Pray about it, yes, but then forget it. It is not
your problem. The problem lies solely with those who were
involved and those who allowed it to happen. But, whatever
you do, do not use this disaster as a reason for leaving
your religion.
In Book II, Chapter III, St.
John of the Cross writes, "FAITH, say the theologians, is a
habit of the soul, certain and obscure. And the reason for
its being an obscure habit is that it makes us believe
truths revealed by God Himself, which transcend all natural
light, and exceed all human understanding, beyond all
proportion. Hence it follows that, for the soul, this
excessive light of faith which is given to it is thick
darkness, for it overwhelms greater things and does away
with small things, even as the light of the sun overwhelms
all other lights whatsoever, so that when it shines and
disables our visual faculty they appear not to be lights at
all. So that it blinds it and deprives it of the sight that
has been given to it, inasmuch as its light is great beyond
all proportion and transcends the faculty of vision. Even so
the light of faith, by its excessive greatness, oppresses
and disables that of the understanding; for the latter, of
its own power, extends only to natural knowledge, although
it has a faculty for the supernatural, whenever Our Lord is
pleased to give it supernatural activity."
May God
continue to bless you and give you His peace!
Fred Schaeffer, SFO
3-18-2006
Giving yourself to God and to others-Part III
-Part V
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