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- Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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THE LIVING FLAME OF LOVE
St. John of the Cross
CHIOS CLASSICS
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Copyright © 2015 by St. John of the Cross
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
AN ESSAY ON ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS
INTRODUCTION
THE PROLOGUE
STANZAS
STANZA II
STANZA III
STANZA IV
INSTRUCTIONS AND PRECAUTIONS TO BE CONTINUALLY OBSERVED BY HIM WHO SEEKS TO BE A TRUE RELIGIOUS AND TO ARRIVE QUICKLY AT GREAT PERFECTION
FIRST PRECAUTION
SECOND PRECAUTION
THIRD PRECAUTION
THREE PRECAUTIONS NECESSARY TO BE OBSERVED IN ORDER TO BE DELIVERED FROM THE DEVIL IN RELIGION
FIRST PRECAUTION
SECOND PRECAUTION
THIRD PRECAUTION
THREE PRECAUTIONS TO BE OBSERVED BY THOSE WHO WOULD CONQUER THEMSELVES, AND MASTER THE CUNNING OF THE FLESH
FIRST PRECAUTION
SECOND PRECAUTION
THIRD PRECAUTION
LETTERS
LETTER I TO MOTHER CATHERINE OF JESUS, BAREFOOTED CARMELITE AND COMPANION OF ST. TERESA OF JESUS
JESUS
LETTER II TO THE RELIGIOUS IN VEAS
LETTER III: TO THE RELIGIOUS OF VEAS
HE GIVES THEM SOME SPIRITUAL ADVICE, FULL OF HEAVENLY INSTRUCTION, AND WORTHY OF PERPETUAL REMEMBRANCE
Jesus, MAry
LETTER IV: TO MOTHER ELEANORA BAPTIST, PRIORESS OF THE CONVENT OF VEAS
THE BLESSED FATHER CONSOLES HER UNDER AN AFFLICTION
JESUS
LETTER V: TO MOTHER ANNE OF ST. ALBERT, PRIORESS OF THE BAREFOOTED CARMELITES OF CARAVACA
HE MAKES KNOWN TO HER BY A PROPHETICAL INSPIRATION THE STATE OF HER SOUL, AND DELIVERS HER FROM SCRUPLES
JESUS
LETTER VI: TO THE SAME RELIGIOUS ON THE SAME SUBJECT
JESUS
LETTER VII: TO THE SAME RELIGIOUS
THE HOLY FATHER INFORMS HER OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE MONASTERY AT CORDOVA, AND OF THE REMOVAL OF THE NUNS IN SEVILLE
JESUS
LETTER VIII: TO F. AMBROSE MARIANO OF ST. BENEDICT, PRIOR OF
MADRID
CONTAINING WHOLESOME INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE TRAINING OF NOVICES
JESUS
LETTER IX : TO A YOUNG LADY AT MADRID, WHO DESIRED TO BECOME A
BAREFOOTED CARMELITE, AND WHO WAS AFTERWARDS PROFESSED IN A CONVENT AT ARENAS, IN NEW CASTILE AFTERWARDS TRANSFERRED TO GUADALAJARA
JESUS
LETTER X: TO A SPIRITUAL SON IN RELIGION, TEACHING HIM HOW TO EMPLOY HIS WHOLE WILL IN GOD, WITHDRAWING IT FROM PLEASURE AND JOY IN CREATED THINGS
LETTER XI: TO MOTHER ELEONOR OF ST. GABRIEL, A BAREFOOTED CARMELITE OF SEVILLE
THE HOLY FATHER AND THE COUNCIL COMMAND HER TO ACCEPT THE OFFICE OF SUB-PRIORESS IN THE NEWLY FOUNDED CONVENT AT CORDOVA
JESUS
LETTER XII: TO MOTHER MARY OF JESUS, PRIORESS OF THE BAREFOOTED CARMELITES OF CORDOVA
CONTAINING USEFUL LESSONS FOR RELIGIOUS ENGAGED IN THE FOUNDATION OF A NEW CONVENT, OF WHICH THEY ARE TO BE THE FIRST STONES
JESUS
LETTER XIII: TO MOTHER MAGDALEN OF THE HOLY GHOST, A RELIGIOUS OF THE SAME CONVENT OF CORDOVA
JESUS
LETTER XIV: TO DOÑA JUANA DE PEDRAÇA, A PENITENT OF THE HOLY FATHER IN GRANADA
JESUS
LETTER XV: TO MOTHER MARY OF JESUS, PRIORESS OF CORDOVA
CONTAINING MUCH PROFITABLE ADVICE TO THOSE WHOSE OFFICE IS TO GOVERN AND PROVIDE FOR A COMMUNITY
JESUS
LETTER XVI: TO MOTHER ANNE OF JESUS, A BAREFOOTED CARMELITE OF THE CONVENT OF SEGOVIA
HE CONSOLES HER ON HIS NOT HAVING BEEN CHOSEN SUPERIOR
JESUS
LETTER XVII: TO MOTHER MARY OF THE INCARNATION, PRIORESS OF THE SAME CONVENT
ON THE SAME SUBJECT AS THE PRECEDING
JESUS
LETTER XVIII: TO DOÑA ANA DE PEÑALOSA
HE INFORMS HER OF HIS RECENT ILLNESS
JESUS
CENSURE AND JUDGMENT OF THE BLESSED FATHER ON THE SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PRAYER OF ONE OF THE NUNS OF HIS ORDER
SPIRITUAL MAXIMS SELECTED FROM THE WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS
PROLOGUE
IMITATION OF CHRIST
THE THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES
FAITH
HOPE
FEAR OF GOD
CHARITY
PEACE
LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOUR
DISORDERLY APPETITES
PRUDENCE
THE ANGELS
A SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR
RELIGION, PRAYER
NECESSITY OF PRAYER
FRUITS OF PRAYER
THE PROPERTIES OF PRAYER
MOTIVES FOR PRAYER
PLACE FOR PRAYER
HINDRANCES TO PRAYER
OBEDIENCE
FORTITUDE, PATIENCE
MODESTY
SILENCE
HUMILITY
VANITY
VOLUNTARY POVERTY
AVARICE
POVERTY OF SPIRIT
PRAYER OF THE ENAMOURED SOUL
POEMS
THE DARK NIGHT
SONG OF THE SOUL AND ITS BRIDEGROOM
THE LIVING FLAME OF LOVE
SOUL LONGING FOR THE VISION OF GOD
ECSTASY OF CONTEMPLATION
THE SAME SUBJECT
GOD THE SUPREME GOOD
THE SAME SUBJECT
SONG OF THE SOUL REJOICING IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD BY FAITH
SONG OF CHRIST AND THE SOUL
THE MOST HOLY TRINITY
THE COMMUNICATION OF THE THREE PERSONS
THE CREATION
THE SAME SUBJECT
THE DESIRES OF THE HOLY FATHERS
THE SAME SUBJECT
THE INCARNATION
THE SAME SUBJECT
THE NATIVITY
SUPER FLUMINA BABYLONIS
SI DE MI BAJA SUERTE
The Soul’s CrAving
MI DIOS Y MI SENOR, TENED MEMORIA
The Exiled Soul
DECID CEILOS Y TERRA, DECID MARES
Desolation
THE DARK NIGHT
Aquella niebla escura
OH SWEET DARK NIGHT
‘ Oh dulce noche escurA !’
THE SOUL’S DESIRE TO BE WITH CHRIST
Del Agua de la vida
ENTRO EL ALMA EN OLVIDO
Ecstasy
AN ESSAY ON ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS
WRITTEN BY HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL WISEMAN AS A PREFACE TO THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION
It is now many years ago, long before the episcopal burthen pressed upon his shoulders, that the author enjoyed the pleasure of knowing, and frequently conversing with, the estimable Görres at Munich. One day the conversation turned on a remark in that deep writer’s Philosophy ofMysticism, to the effect that saints most remarkable for their mystical learning and piety were far from exhibiting, in their features and expression, the characteristics usually attributed to them. They are popularly considered, and by artists represented, as soft, fainting, and perhaps hysterical persons; whereas their portraits present to us countenances of men, or women, of a practical, business-like, working character. The author asked Görres if he had ever seen an original likeness of St. Teresa, in whom he had thought these remarks were particularly exemplified. He replied that he never had; and the writer, on returning to Rome, fulfilled the promise which he had made the philosopher, by procuring a sketch of an authentic portrait of that saint, preserved with great care in the Monastery of St. Sylvester, near Tusculum. It was painted for Philip II. by a concealed artist, while he was conversing with her.
This portrait confirms most strongly the theory of Görres, as the author wrote to him with the drawing; for while no mystical saint has ever been more idealised by artists, or represented as living in a continual swoon, than St. Teresa, her true portraits all represent her with strong, firmly set, and almost masculine features, with forms and lines that denoted vigour, resolution, and strong sense. Her handwriting perfectly suggests the same conclusion.
Still more does the successful activity of her life, in her many painful struggles, under every possible disadvantage, and her final and complete triumph, strengthen this idea of her. And then, her almost superhuman prudence, by which she guided so many minds, and prosperously conducted so many complicated interests and affairs, and her wonderful influence over men of high education and position, and of great powers, are further evidences of her strong, commanding nature; such as, in the world, might have claimed an almost unexampled pre-eminence.
It is not improbable that some who take up these volumes, or dip into them here and there, may conceive that they were written by a dreamy ascetic, who passed his life in hazy contemplation of things unreal and unpractical. Yet it was quite the contrary. Twin-saint, it may be said, to St. Teresa—sharer in her labours and in her sufferings, St. John of the Cross, actively and unflinchingly pursued their joint object, that of reforming and restoring to its primitive purity and observance the religious Order of Carmelites, and founding, throughout Spain, a severer branch, known as discalced, or barefooted Carmelites; or more briefly, as Teresians.
We do not possess any autobiography of St. John, as we do of St. Teresa, or the more active portion and character of his life would be at once apparent. Moreover, only very few of his letters have been preserved—not twenty, in fact—or we should undoubtedly have had sufficient evidence of his busy and active life. But, even as it is, proofs glance out from his epistles of this important element in his composition.
In his [third] letter he thus writes to the religious of Veas, a highly favoured foundation: ‘ What is wanting in you, if, indeed, anything be wanting, is . . . silence and work. For, whereas speaking distracts, silence and action collect the thoughts and strengthen the spirit.’ And again: ‘ To arrest this evil, and to preserve our spirit, as I have said, there is no surer remedy than to suffer, to work, to be silent.’
It was not, therefore, a life of visionary or speculative meditation that St. John taught even the nuns to pursue, but one of activity and operative occupation. But we may judge of his own practice by a passage in another of his letters. Thus he writes:
‘ I have been waiting to finish these visitations and foundations which our Lord has hastened forward in such wise that there has been no time to spare. The friars have been received at Cordova with the greatest joy and solemnity on the part of the whole city. ... I am now busied at Seville with the removal of the nuns, who have bought .one of the principal houses at a cost of about 14,000 ducats, being worth more than 20,000. They are now established there. Before my departure I intend to establish another house of friars here, so that there will be two of our Order in Seville. Before the feast of St. John, I shall set forth to Ecija, where, with the Divine blessing, we shall found another; thence to Malaga. ... I wish I had authority to make this foundation, as I had for the other. I do not expect much difficulty’ (Letter VII).
This is only a few months’ work, or rather some weeks’; for the interval described in the letter is from the Ascension to the 24th of June. We must allow some portion of this time for the slow travelling of those days and those regions, over sierras, on muleback. And then, St. John’s travels were not triumphal progresses, but often were painful pilgrimages, crossed by arrests, and even long imprisonments, embittered by personal unkindness.
Yet with calm firmness he persevered and travelled and worked at the establishment of his new houses in many parts of Spain, till the Order was fully and permanently planted. In fact, if we look only at his life, we should naturally conclude that he was a man of an operative mind, always at work, ever in movement, who could not afford much time for inward concentration on abstract subjects.
But when we read his writings, another high quality, for which we are not prepared, must strike us forcibly as entering into the composition of his character. He must have given much time to reading and study. He is learned in all those pursuits which we desire and expect to find in an ecclesiastical scholar of his age. Every page in his book gives proof of thorough acquaintance with that mental discipline which trained and formed the mind in the schools, and gave a mould into which thought ran and settled itself in. fixed principles; or, where this possessed extraordinary power, opened a channel through which it passed to further spheres of activity. Even the mind of a Bacon was conducted through the dialects of those schools to all the developments of his intellectual vigour.
In St. John we discover, at every turn, a mind so educated by reading and by study. His writings are far from being a string of loose, disjointed thoughts, scattered apophthegms, or aimless rhapsodies. Quite on the contrary, there is ever a sequence and strict logical continuity in every division of his discourse, and all the several parts are coherent and consistent. However detailed his treatment of his subject, he never becomes entangled or confused; he never drops a thread of what may appear a fine-spun web of expansion in a difficult topic, and loses it; but he returns to what he has interrupted or intercalated with undisturbed fidelity, and repursues his reasoning with a distinctness and discrimination which shows that, in truth, there had been no interruption, but that unity of thought had pervaded all the design, and nothing had been left to chance or the idea of the moment.
Indeed, one feels in reading him that he has to deal with the master of a science. There is no wandering from the first purpose, no straying aside from the pre-determined road, after even flowers that grow on its sides. Every division and subdivision of the way has been chartered from the beginning by one who saw it all before him. And the secret lies in this, and nothing more; St. John invents nothing, borrows nothing from others, but gives us clearly the results of his own experience in himself and in others. He presents you with a portrait, not with a fancy picture. He represents the ideal of one who has passed, as he had done, through the career of the spiritual life, through its struggles and its victories.
Not only does he at all times exhibit proof of his mental cultivation by those processes which formed every great mind in those days, and the gradual decline of which, in later times, has led proportionably to looseness of reasoning and diminution of thinking power, but St. John throughout exhibits tokens of a personal culture of his own mental powers and many graceful gifts.
His mind is eminently poetical, imaginative, tender, and gentle. Whatever mystical theology may appear to the mind of the uninitiated, to St. John it was clearly a bright and well-loved pursuit; it was a work of the heart more than of the head; its place was rather in the affections than among the intellectual powers. Hence, with every rigour of logical precision and an unbending exactness in his reasonings, there is blended a buoyancy of feeling, a richness of varied illustration, and often a sweet and elegant fancy playing with grave subjects, so as to render them attractive, which show a mind unfettered by mere formal methods, but easy in its movements and free in its flights. Indeed, often a point which is obscure and abstruse, when barely treated, receives, from a lively illustration, a clearness and almost brilliancy, quite unexpected.
But the prominent learning of the saint, and the source of his most numerous and happiest elucidations, are to be found in the inspired Word of God. That is his treasure-house, that the inspirer of his wisdom and subject of his meditation. The sacred volume must have been in his hands all day, and can hardly have dropped out of them at night. Even by merely glancing at the index of texts quoted by him, placed at the end of [each] volume, any one may convince himself of his rare familiarity with the inspired writings, and one very different from what we may find among readers of Scripture in our days.
For, first, it is an impartial familiarity, not confined to some favourite portions as is often the case, where the reader thinks he finds passages or subjects that confirm his own views or encourage his tastes. But in St. John we discover nothing of this sort. Of course, such a book as the Canticle, the special food of mystics, is familiar to his pen as it was to the mouths of Jewish maidens, made sweeter and sweeter by frequent reiterations. But every other book is almost equally ready to his hand, to prove more formally, occasionally illustrate, every one of his propositions. For the first purpose he must have deeply studied the sacred text; for the second, its expressions must have been his very household words.
Then, secondly, the beauty and elegance of his applications prove not mere familiarity, but a refined study and a loving meditation on what he considers most holy and divine. Some of his quotations are richly set in his graceful explanations and commentaries; and though the adaptations which he makes sometimes appear startling and original to an ordinary peruser of Scripture, they seem so apt and so profound in their spiritual wisdom that they often win approbation and even admiration.
So far it may appear that this Preface has dealt with St. John of the Cross outside of the sphere in which the volume to which it is prefixed represents him as moving. It has not treated him as a mystical theologian. Why is this ? it may be justly asked.
The answer must be honest and straightforward. It is too common for overlooking or disguising, to pronounce a contemplative life to be only a cloak for idleness, a pretext for abandoning or neglecting the active duties of domestic or social existence, and shrinking from their responsibilities. Those who profess to lead it are considered as the drones of the human hive, who leave its work to others and yet exact a share of its sweets. And if, from time to time, one emerges from the passive, or, as it is deemed, indolent condition of mere dreamers and gives form and precision to the rules and laws which guide them, he is probably held merely to have more method and skill in his disordered ideas, and to be only more pernicious than his companions or followers.
This prejudice, firmly rooted in many English minds, it has been thought well to remove, as a preliminary to presenting St. John to his readers in his highest and distinctive character. He has been shown to possess other eminent qualities. He was a man of active life and practical abilities, industrious, conversant with business, where prudence, shrewdness, and calculation, as well as boldness, were required. He was a man of well-trained mind, cultivated by the exercise of intellectual faculties, and matured by solid, especially religious knowledge.
He has now to come before us as a diver into the very depths of thought, as a contemplative of the highest order.
A man with such a character as we have claimed for him cannot have dozed away his years of life in unpractical dreams or in crude speculations. These would be incompatible with the rest of his character. His contemplativeness, and his mode of explaining it, may be anticipated to be methodical and practical, and at the same time feeling and attractive. And such both are his own practice and his communication of it to us.
But now, perhaps, many readers may ask for some introductory information on the very nature of the subjects treated in the volumes before him, and it cannot be reasonably refused. This may be conveyed in various ways; perhaps the most simple and appreciable will be found in an analogy, though imperfect, with other spheres of thought.
It is well known that a mind naturally adapted to a pursuit, and thus led ardently to follow it, after having become thoroughly conversant and familiar with all its resources, becomes almost, or altogether, independent of its methods, and attains conclusions by compendious processes, or by intuitive foresight, which require in others long and often complicated deductions. Familiar illustrations may be found in our habitual speaking without thinking of our grammar, which a foreigner has constantly to do while learning our language; or the almost inexplicable accuracy of calculation in even children gifted with the power of instantaneous arithmetical solutions.
A mathematician acquires by study this faculty; and it is said that Laplace, in the decline of life, could not any longer fill up the gaps in the processes by which, at the age of greater mental vigour, he had reached, without effort, the most wonderful yet accurate conclusions.
What is to be found in these abstruser pursuits exists no less in those of a lighter character. The literary mind, whether in thinking, writing, or speaking, when well-disposed by abilities and well tutored by application, takes in without effort the entire theme presented to it, even with its parts and its details. Sometimes it is like a landscape revealed, in a dark night, by one flash of lightning; oftener it resembles the calmer contemplation of it, in bright day, by an artist’s eye, which is so filled with its various beauties that it enables him to transfer it, at home, to the enduring canvas on which many may enjoy it.
The historian may see, in one glance, the exact plan of a work, with its specific aims and views; its sources, too, and its auxiliary elucidations. The finished orator, no less, when suddenly called upon, will hold from end .to end the drift and purpose of his entire discourse, and deliver, without effort, what to others appears an elaborate composition. But still more, the poet indulges in noblest nights up to the regions of sublime, or over the surface of beautiful, thoughts, while he appears to be engaged in ordinary occupation or momentarily musing in vague abstraction.
Indeed, even where manual action is required to give utterance to thought, the result is the same. The consummate musician sits down to a complicated instrument, silent and dumb till his fingers communicate to it his improvised imaginings; bearing to its innermost organisation, by a sort of reflex action of the nerves of sensation on those of motion, the ready and inexhaustible workings of his brain, sweet melodies and rich harmonies, with tangled knots and delicious resolutions; effortless, as if the soul were in the hand or the mechanical action in the head.
In the few examples which are here given, and which might easily be multiplied, the point illustrated is this: that where, with previous natural dispositions and persevering cultivation, perfection in any intellectual pursuit has been attained or approached, the faculty exercised in it becomes, in a manner, passive, dispenses with intermediate processes, and receives their ultimate conclusions stamped upon it. Labour almost ceases, and spontaneity of thought becomes its substitute.
In this condition of mind, familiar to anyone possessing genius in any form, perceptions, ideas, reasonings, imagery, have not to be sought; they either dart at once complete into the thought, inborn and perfect to their very arms, as Pallas was symbolically fabled to express this process; or they grow up, expanding from a small seed to a noble plant, but as if by an innate sap and vigour. There is a flow into the mind of unsought images, or reflections, or truths; whence they come, one hardly knows. They were not there before; they have not been forged, or cast, or distilled within.
And when this spontaneous productiveness has been gained, the occupation of mind is not interrupted. St. Thomas is said to have concluded an argument against the Manichees alone at the royal table; Bishop Walmesley renounced his, mathematical studies on finding them painfully distract him at the altar. Neither recreation, nor serious employment, nor noise, nor any condition of time or place, will suffice to dissipate or even to disturb the continuous, unlaborious, and unfatiguing absorption of thought in the mental region which has become its natural dwelling.
Let us now ask, Why may not a soul—that is, the mind accompanied by the best feelings—be placed in a similar position with relation to the noblest and sublimest object which it can pursue—God?
He and his attributes present more perfect claims, motives, and allurements, and more full gratification, repletion, and reward to earnest and affectionate contemplation, than any other object or subject. How much soever the mathematician may strain his intellect in pursuit of the true, however the poet may luxuriate in the enjoyment of the beautiful, to whatsoever extent the moralist may delight in the apprehension, of the good in its recondite quintessence, none of these can reach, in his special aim and longing, that elevation and consummation which can be attained in those of all the three, by one whose contemplation is directed to the Infinite in Truth, in Beauty, and in Goodness.
Why then, should not this, so comprehensive and so grand a source of every mental enjoyment, become a supreme, all-exhausting, and sole object of contemplative fruition ? Why should not some, or rather many, minds be found which have selected this as their occupation, their solace, their delight; and found it to be what none other can of its nature be, inexhaustible? Everything else is measurable and fathomable; this alone unlimited.
Then, if there be no repugnance to such a choice being made in the aim of contemplation, it is natural for us to expect conditions and laws in its attainments analogous to what we find where the mental powers have selected for their exercise some inferior and more restricted object. There will be the same gradual and often slow course of assiduous training, the same difficulty of fixing and concentrating the thoughts; till, by degrees, forms and intermediate steps are dispensed with; when the mind becomes passive, and its trains of thought seem spontaneous and incoming, rather than worked out by elaborating processes.
This state, when God is the sole occupier of thought, represents the highest condition of contemplation, the reaching of which Mystical Theology professes to direct.
There are, however, two essential differences between the natural and the spiritual exercises of the contemplative faculties. In treating of the first, a natural aptitude was named throughout as a condition for attaining that highest sphere of spontaneous suggestion in the mind. In the second, this condition is not included. Its place is taken by the supernatural power of Grace.
Every believer in Christianity acknowledges the existence of an inward gift, which belongs of right to all; though many may not choose to claim it. It takes the place of mere natural advantages so completely, that its name has become a rooted word in our language, even apart from religion. We say that a man ‘ has had, or has not had, the grace’ to do a good thing; ‘ a graceless act’ is, in some way, evil; ‘ a graceless youth ‘ is one walking, somehow, on the path leading to perdition. And we feel, and say, that it is grace which makes a poor man often more virtuous, and virtuously wise, though ignorant, and in other ways not wise-minded, than clever, better educated, and more intellectual rich ones.
Whoever thus believes in a superhuman gift, which supplies, in the higher life of man, the ordinary powers of nature, or elevates these to the attainment of what requires more than ordinary qualities, will hardly be able to deny that this supernatural aid will be copiously granted, where the whole energy of a soul is directed exclusively to the most holy and sublime of purposes, the knowledge and contemplation of God. If it be easily accepted that any one reading, with pure and simple docility, His written records is helped by this grace to understand them, it surely is not much to ask, that one may expect no less assistance when, instead of the eye running over a written page, the entire soul is centred in Him, and every power, and every affection, is absorbed in deep and silent meditation on His own Divine essence.
A further distinction between the application of man’s noblest faculties, combined to their simplest but sublimest possible object, and their separate exercise on any inferior speculation, consists in this. God, towards Whom the mystical contemplative directs himself, is a living, active Power, at once without and within the soul. Every Christian believes that He deals as such with the individual man; that in his natural life each one has received his destiny, his time and place, and measure of both, by a special allotment; that in his outward being, whatever befalls him, he is the ward of a personal Providence; while in his inward and unseen existence he receives visitations of ‘light, of remorse, of strength, and of guidance, which can apply and belong to him alone.
If so, how can he doubt that one of his own kind and class, who, more than tens of thousands, singles out that Giver of every good gift as supereminent, or rather sole claimant of his soul’s best tributes; the throne on which all his ideal conceptions of the great and the good are concentrated in a single unclouded vision of majesty and glory; the altar on which are laid, in willing oblation, all his tenderest affections, and, in ready immolation, every inferior appetite and desire—who can doubt that such a one establishes a right to a larger share than others of the active interposition of Divine kindness, and of personal favour in seconding his disinterested love?
These two differences, great and essential, show that we have been only illustrating, rather than vindicating, the spiritual science of St. John, by comparing it with other classes of knowledge. We have endeavoured to prove that, even prescinding from the spiritual quality, which is its characteristic, there is nothing singular, unnatural, or reprehensible in what would only add one more, and a most worthy, mental pursuit to those which generally receive not mere approbation but praise.
And hence the religious and ascetic contemplative may be allowed not only to deserve equal admiration with the poet or philosopher, but to be as fit as either for the ordinary duties of life, and in as full possession of practical and social virtues.
Having thus, by this analogy, disposed the uninitiated reader to judge unprejudicedly of this spiritual occupation of so many persons of singularly virtuous life in the Catholic Church, we may invite him to consider if it have not strong presumptions in its favour.
But, first, it may be well to give a brief explanation of this religious mysticism of which the works of St. John are considered to treat so admirably. What we have already said will greatly assist us.
In the Catholic Church, besides public or private vocal prayer, everyone is directed and urged to the practice of mental prayer, or meditation. For this duty the Church furnishes simple rules and methods, varying somewhat, but all with one practical end. She has at hand almost countless models, forms, and even fully developed drafts, scarcely requiring to be filled in.
In carrying out this familiar practice, it will be obvious that very different degrees of success will be attained. To some it continues, almost to the end, irksome and trying, full of distraction and imperfection. This may easily arise from natural deficiencies in the mind, or from habitual negligence. But to a willing and persevering mind these difficulties will diminish, and the power of concentrating the thoughts and affections upon a given subject will increase and strengthen.
Thus far any one may aspire, with every chance of success. Then comes a higher stage : when this power of fixing the mind is not only easy but most pleasing; when, without formal guidance, the soul rests, like the bird poised upon its wings, motionless above the earth, plunged, as it were, in the calm atmosphere which surrounds and sustains it on every side. This is the state of contemplation, when the placid action of a deeply inward thoughtfulness, undisturbed by other objects, is intent on gazing upon images and scenes fixed or passing as on a mirror before it, without exertion or fatigue, almost without note of time.
This condition, with its requisite power, is also attainable by those who regularly and seriously apply to meditation. Yet, when we have reached it, we are still standing on the ground, and have not set foot on the first step of the ‘ mystical ladder ‘ which St. John teaches how to mount.
Far above the earthly exercise of contemplation is one which belongs to a much higher and purer sphere, above the clouds and mists of the one in which we move. To reach it is given to few; and of those few, fewer still have left us records of their experience. Yet—and this is sufficient for our present purpose—that the consummation of their desires, and attainment of their scope, was a closer union with God, is acknowledged by all. The soul, thoroughly purified of all other affections, reaches a sublime and supernatural power of setting all its faculties in the contemplation of the Supreme Being with such clearness and intensity, that its very existence seems lost in Him; the most perfect conformity and uniformity with all the emanations of His will are established as its guiding laws; and, as far as is yet compatible, union the most complete is obtained between the imperfect spirit of man and the infinite Spirit that created it to its own image and likeness.
Now, this aim of infirm humanity, and the possibility of reaching it, may appear, at first sight, extravagant and presumptuous. Yet there has hardly ever, if ever, existed a religious system which has not supposed such an aspiration as its highest, but still possible, flight to be within the reach of some more favoured votaries.
It is too well known to require proof that there existed, beyond a gross visible idolatry, a hidden, esoteric, and mysterious system in the mythologies of the East, handed down in the succession of their priesthoods. The mystic teachings of India, the best known to us, because we possess their works, reveal this doctrine to us, that contemplation is the means by which a man may attain to unification of himself with the Deity, rising by steps gradually to this almost blissful enjoyment of His presence. In China the sect or school of Lao-tseu, with which the learned Abel Remusat made Europe acquainted by a special memoir, taught and practised the same mystical system.
Chaldea and Egypt no doubt held it also; for it was from them that Pythagoras borrowed, and infused into the philosophy of Greece and Italy precisely the same doctrine; for while his foolish theory, also Oriental, of transmigration put off to an indefinite period the fruition of the Divine essence, he taught that the soul, thoroughly purified and detached from every inferior affection, could, through contemplation, attain a union with God.
Although this sublime philosophy became obscured in the ages which succeeded him, it shone forth again in the Neoplatonic school—in Plotinus, Porphyrius and their followers. Whether they merely revived a faded, or published an occult, tradition of their heathen philosophy, or whether they were disfigured doctrines and practices from the still young and fresh Christianity of their times, it matters but little. In the one case we conclude how instinctive it is to man, even amidst absurd wanderings of his intellect, to expect, nay to crave for, not merely an approach to God, but unification with him; and such a noble and holy desire and longing of humanity may naturally expect to find satisfaction in the true revelation of man’s Creator.
In the second hypothesis, we must admit that already Christianity had sufficiently developed the germs of its mystical system to be known to aliens, and even enemies.
Indeed, we cannot doubt that the religion of Christ, following the early manifestations of God in the Old Testament, laid deep those seeds of highest contemplation which were at once matured in His Apostles. St. Paul, who was taken to the third heaven, to hear words unutterable to man and to require a severe counterpoise to the greatness of his revelations (2 Cor. xii.), came to be united with his Lord so as to hold but one life with and in Him (Gal. ii. 20 ; Phil. i. 21).
As to the existence, in the seers and holy sages of the Old Law, of a state of unitive contemplation, as in Abraham, Job, Moses, and Elias, we are not called aside to speak or consider. This point may be safely left in the hands of St. John of the Cross; for though he does not anywhere expressly treat of this point, he has so filled his pages with quotations from every part of Scripture in illustration of his teaching, and the texts alleged by him are so apt and naturally applied, as to force conviction upon us that the mystical and spiritual communion with God was carried to the highest degree. Nay, does not a state of close intercommunion between God and man, through revelations, manifestations, angelic messages, and the prophetic spirit, on the one hand, and visions and ecstasies on the other, necessarily suppose it? And does the frequent boldness of the Psalmist’s familiarity with God, still more the domestic intimacy with Him so tenderly shadowed forth in the Canticle of Canticles, allow of any alternative except the highest and purest admission of a perishable and frail creature into the very sanctuary of the Divine glory ? Surely on Sinai and in the cave of Horeb such loving intercourse of almost friendship was held.
But the history of the Church soon unfolds to us a bright page, on which is emblazoned, as its title, Contemplation. At the very time when martyrs are shedding their blood and receiving the highest homage and praise, the Church, which so loves and honours them, reveres scarcely less the hundreds who fled from the very persecutions which the martyrs encountered and overcame. And the reason was, that the anchorets and cenobites, who retired to the desert and did not again return to the world after peace was restored to the Church, but swelled their numbers to thousands, were considered by her no less conquerors of the world and triumphers over the weakness of nature. Their lives of solitude and silence were not idle, for they laboured with their hands for their slender sustenance; but this was expressly the rule of their lives, that even while their hands were at work, their minds should be fixed on God. And hours of the dark night had no other occupation.
It was this power of fixed and unflagging contemplation which sustained them through eighty, often, and a hundred years of seclusion. Many were men of refined minds and high education, who, in their thoughtful meditative lives, must be supposed to have attained the highest refinement of devout application to spiritual things which can be enjoyed on earth. And what pious solitaries thus gained in the desert of the Thebais, our own hermits, like Guthlake, and monks, like Cuthbert, as surely possessed. Without the peaceful enjoyment of such a sweet interior reward, their lives would have been intolerable.
So necessary does the power of communing with God alone, and ‘ face to face,’ appear to every class of Christians, that not only the ascetics of the Eastern Church, or the mystics of the Western, profess to possess it, but even the least enthusiastic forms of religion claim, or admit it. Jacob Böhme and Swedenborg have found plenty of admirers: the latter is still leader of a sect. It would be invidious to enter into a comparison between the writings of these men and the volumes before us. We refer to them only as evidence that every form of Christianity feels the want of some transcendental piety, which bears the soul beyond the dominion and almost out of the prison of the ‘ body of death,’ and allows it a free and familiar intercourse with God, as of spirit with spirit.
When, however, perusing the writings of St. John, the reader will find no symptom of fanaticism, no arrogation of superior privileges, of inspirations, Divine guidance, or angelic ministrations, as are to be found in pretended mystics. There is scarcely an allusion to himself, except occasionally to apologise for being so unequal to the sublime doctrines which he is unfolding, or for the rudeness of his style. Never, for a moment, does he let us know that he is communicating to us the treasures of his own experience, or describing his own sensations. One sees and knows it. A man who writes a handbook of travel need not tell us whether or not he has passed over the route himself. We feel if he has, by the minuteness of his details, by the freshness of his descriptions, by the exactness of his acquaintance with men and things.
Then, no one who had not tasted, and relished, the sweetness of the spiritual food prepared by him, could possibly treat of it with such zest; its delicious flavour is on the lips that speak about it. Nor need the reader imagine that he will hear from this humble and holy man accounts of visions, or ecstasies, or marvellous occurrences to himself or others; or rules or means for attaining supernatural illuminations or miraculous gifts. No ; he proposes to guide any pupil, who feels drawn by God, to supreme love of Him, and towards those regions of contemplative prayer in which He often communicates Himself most intimately to the human soul; but only through a dark and painful road, from which all joy and almost consolation is excluded.
It is now time to lay before the reader an outline, though imperfect, of what he will find in the volumes before him. The [two first] contain two treatises, embodying what may be called the portion of mystical instruction, most fully and excellently imparted by St. John.
It may be considered a rule in this highest spiritual life, that before it is attained there must be a period of severe probation, lasting often many years, and separating it from the previous state, which may have been one of most exalted virtue. Probably many whom the Catholic Church honours as saints have never received this singular gift. But in reading the biography of such as have been favoured with it, we shall invariably find that the possession of it has been preceded, not only by a voluntary course of mortification of sense, fervent devotion, constant meditation, and separation from the world, but also by a trying course of dryness, weariness of spirit, insipidity of devotional duties, and, what is infinitely worse, dejection, despondency, temptation to give all up in disgust, and almost despair. During this tremendous probation, the soul is dark, parched, and wayless, as ‘ earth without water,’ as one staggering across a desert; or, to rise to a nobler illustration, like Him, remotely, Who lay on the ground on Olivet, loathing the cup which He had longed for, beyond the sweet chalice which He had drunk with His Apostles just before.
Assuming, as we do, that this trial comes upon the soul from God, its purpose is clear. That sublime condition to which it aspires, and is called, of spiritual union with infinite holiness, and of the nearest approach allowable to the closer gazing of blessed spirits into the unfathomable glory, requires a purity like gold in the crucible, and a spiritualising unclothing of whatever can be cast off, of our earthly and almost of our corporeal existence. The soul is to be winged, strongly as the eagle, gently as the dove, to leave all this world behind it, and seek a sweet repose.
Detachment and purity are the reasons for this intermediate state of desolation; detachment not merely from outward objects and from visible bonds, but from our own wills and desires, however virtuous; detachment from our own ways of even seeking God, and still more from our sensible enjoyment of devotion, and the very sweetness of His service. There must be no trust in one’s own intellect, where faith alone can guide through the deep darkness; no reliance upon the ordinary aids to contemplation, for the very impulses and first thrilling touches of love must come from God’s delicate hand; no impatience for release, no desire to return back. It is an earthly purgatory, in which all dross is painfully drained out, all straw and stubble burnt up.
And what is the result? The soul has indeed been brought into a state little below that of angels; but it has given proof of a love than which theirs cannot be higher. That dark period of hard probation has completely inured her to fidelity to God, not for the sake of His rewards, not for the happiness of His service even here below, but for His own dear and good sake, because He is her God. And this persevering and persisting love of Him, without a ray or even a glimmering of the brightness of His countenance to light and cheer the dreary path, has surely, by gentle patience, won a returning love beyond the claims of ordinarily virtuous souls.
