St. John of the Cross
One
Today, December 14th is the Feast of St. John of the Cross. Together with Teresa of Avila, they are the most important teachers of the Catholic spiritual life. So we should know what they teach.
John was ordained in 1567. Then he met Teresa of Avila. She persuaded him to help her reform the Carmelite Order from a life of busyness and distraction in which they had no time or interest in daily meditation to a life of prayer and the pursuit of God.
Well, how do you think the Carmelites responded to this effort to make them change? On December 2nd, 1577, a group of Carmelite monks kidnapped John and took him to Toledo Spain. They tortured and imprisoned him in a 10 x 6 cell with very little light. He had no change of clothes, no bed. He lived on bread and water for nine months.
John writes, “The immense blessings of God can only enter and fit into an empty and solitary heart…”
We must be emptied to be filled by God. What do you think God was doing in John during this time?
Two
God did not send the friars to kidnap, imprison, and beat John, they did that on their own.
But God allowed it and turned it in John’s favor. And the fruit of this experience was that he was totally stripped of every earthly thing he relied upon. Being emptied of all things, he surrendered himself totally to God. He let God do what He wanted to do through the people and events in John’s life. Once he was emptied, God flooded John’s soul with the river of Living Water, His Divine Life
Finally, on August 15th, 1578, John escaped. He and Teresa of Avila formed a new branch of the Carmelites and they became the two most important Doctors of the Spiritual Life.
The word that John used to capture his main idea was nada. Nada means to be unconditionally surrendered to God, a joy filled total abandonment to the good will of God, no matter how it comes to us, so that God may empty us, make room in us that we may be filled by God.
Three
For John, the most important thing is making room for God. Our effort is not to go in search of God but rather to make room for God to come to us.
Imagine being lost in a jungle stranded and starving. Somebody has to get packed up and sent off into the unknown to search for food, taking what water is left, hacking a way through the undergrowth, hoping somehow to forge a path to something somewhere. But then comes the noise of a helicopter, and rescue approaching. That changes everything. The one thing needed now is some space, so that what is coming can come.
For John, God is an approaching God, and our main job will be not to search and build but to receive. The key will be not so much ‘achievement’ as ‘making space for God in order to receive.’
Four
There are two ways to make space for God
Firstly, by our effort. We make space for God by daily meditation and a resolution, receiving the Eucharist and Reconciliation often, removing sin and its temptations, practicing virtue, and by taking care of responsibilities and doing our ordinary duties.
The second way to make room for God is by our acceptance. Something occurs in your life that you did not choose, do not like, and cannot change. What do we do now? Accept it!
This thing that you cannot change and don’t want to accept is the way God is trying to break in and carve out more space in your soul so that He can flood you with His life. Surrender to God, let Him do what he wants, and don’t resist Him. Accept it.
This is where God, by heavy trials, particularly interior ones, perfects and completes what the soul has begun on its own, but cannot complete on its own. That is why it is passive but not inactive. Because we cooperate by faith, trust, acceptance, and love, with a total gift of self to God rather than resisting Him.
What is it you cannot change but you refuse to accept? Where are you resisting God?
Five
Do you know the difference between God and me? He never thinks He is me.
God wants to flood your soul with His Divinity and transform you, make you like Himself. But we resist, we cling to things of this world that we think we have to have to be happy – achievements, relationships, good health, financial security, a certain way of living – the list goes on and on. We think we know better than God and we don’t want Him messing up our plans.
As long we cling to these, we block God from transforming our lives with Himself. That is why the most important thing we need to do is to unconditionally surrender ourselves to God, tell Him He can do whatever He wants and whatever we need to be emptied of these earthly attachments and filled by Him.
Then, when He does start emptying us, don’t panic. Don’t tell God to back off and leave you alone. Instead, say “Yes” to whatever God is doing even when all your being wants to cry out and yell, “Stop!”
And if you can’t say, “Yes” to God, then give yourself to Mary and ask her to say “Yes” for you. In fact, that is her job, to come into your soul, and help you say “Yes” to all that God wants to do in you so that you can RECEIVE God fully!