Part 125: Doctors of the Church and Perfection: John of the Cross

There is a misunderstanding among some Catholics and many Christians of other denominations, that the process of holiness is anti-intellectual. It is NOT. But, there is a time when one must face that the intellect is totally inadequate in attaining knowledge of God.

One remembers St. Thomas Aquinas' famous saying that all he wrote was "straw", after he had a vision of God in Glory.

But, as I have mentioned before, one must have the Mind of Christ with regard to the Church's Teaching before getting to these states. A cooperation with grace does not mean that one has to have a doctorate in theology, but that one accepts the basic truths and is in obedience.

The Catholic Church has always valued the intellect and began the great institution of schools and liberal arts.  We are not a religion of feeling and emotion, but of reason and deliberation. Man Catholics get led astray in the pursuit of emotional highs.

St. John warns us against this. One must go on to realize that one's idea of God is limited, and be open to God revealing Himself. But, He would never reveal Himself in a way contrary to the Teaching Magisterium of the Church, as He has ordained that is the way to Truth.

We do not "hold" God. He hold us and leads us more and more into the knowledge of His Person.

CHAPTER IX

How faith is the proximate and proportionate means to the understanding whereby the soul may attain to the Divine union of love. This is proved by passages and figures from Divine Scripture.

From what has been said it is to be inferred that, in order for the understanding to be prepared for this Divine union, it must be pure and void of all that pertains to sense, and detached and freed from all that can clearly be apprehended by the understanding, profoundly hushed and put to silence, and leaning upon faith, which alone is the proximate and proportionate means whereby the soul is united with God; for such is the likeness between itself and God that there is no other difference, save that which exists between seeing God and believing in Him. For, even as God is infinite, so faith sets Him before us as infinite; and, as He is Three and One, it sets Him before us as Three and One; and, as God is darkness to our understanding, even so does faith likewise blind and dazzle our understanding. And thus, by this means alone, God manifests Himself to the soul in Divine light, which passes all understanding. And therefore, the greater is the faith of the soul, the more closely is it united with God. It is this that Saint Paul meant in the passage which we quoted above, where he says: ‘He that will be united with God must believe.’²⁷¹ That is, he must walk by faith as he journeys to Him, the understanding being blind and in darkness, walking in faith alone; for beneath this darkness the understanding is united with God, and beneath it God is hidden, even as David said in these words: ‘He set darkness under His feet. And He rose upon the cherubim, and flew upon the wings of the wind. And He made darkness, and the dark water, His hiding-place.’²⁷²

I know one woman who has experienced this. She is about 75. Her way to God has been through a life of suffering, with no complaints. She has not sought out consolations or mystical experiences. But, God in His Goodness has visited her many times in her life. She has no higher degree, but is a whizz with languages and has much knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. She is a Catholic and agrees with all the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Her way has been one of grace, walking in faith alone.

2. By his saying that He set darkness beneath His feet, and that He took the darkness for a hiding-place, and that His tabernacle round about Him was in the dark water, is denoted the obscurity of the faith wherein He is concealed. And by his saying that He rose upon the cherubim and flew upon the wings of the winds, is understood His soaring above all understanding. For the cherubim denote those who understand or contemplate. And the wings of the winds signify the subtle and lofty ideas and conceptions of spirits, above all of which is His Being, and to which none, by his own power, can attain.

The Old Testament describes what the Rabbis came to call The Shekinah Glory. This was a dark fog which came into the Temple and denoted the Presence of God. This is the concealed Presence. Christ in the Eucharist is also a concealed Presence, which we accept on faith. 

Here is part of Thomas Aquina's great hymn on this idea: from the Pange Lingua;

Word-made-Flesh, the bread of nature
by His word to Flesh He turns;
wine into His Blood He changes;
what though sense no change discerns?
Only be the heart in earnest,
faith her lesson quickly learns.

3. This we learn from an illustration in the Scriptures. When Solomon had completed the building of the Temple, God came down in darkness and filled the Temple so that the children of Israel could not see; whereupon Solomon spake and said: ‘The Lord hath promised that He will dwell in darkness’.²⁷³ Likewise He appeared in darkness to Moses on the Mount, where God was concealed. And whensoever God communicated Himself intimately, He appeared in darkness, as may be seen in Job, where the Scripture says that God spoke with him from the darkness of the air.²⁷⁴ All these mentions of darkness signify the obscurity of the faith wherein the Divinity is concealed, when It communicates Itself to the soul; which will be ended when, as Saint Paul says, that which is in part shall be ended,²⁷⁵ which is this darkness of faith, and that which is perfect shall come, which is the Divine light. Of this we have a good illustration in the army of Gedeon, whereof it is said all the soldiers had lamps in their hands, which they saw not, because they had them concealed in the darkness of the pitchers; but, when these pitchers were broken, the light was seen.²⁷⁶ Just so does faith, which is foreshadowed by those pitchers, contain within itself Divine light; which, when it is ended and broken, at the ending and breaking of this mortal life, will allow the glory and light of the Divinity, which was contained in it, to appear.

If we avail ourselves to weekly Adoration, some of this becomes more clear. To be continued...

4. It is clear, then, that, if the soul in this life is to attain to union with God, and commune directly with Him, it must unite itself with the darkness whereof Solomon spake, wherein God had promised to dwell, and must draw near to the darkness of the air wherein God was pleased to reveal His secrets to Job, and must take in its hands, in darkness, the jars of Gedeon, that it may have in its hands (that is, in the works of its will) the light, which is the union of love, though it be in the darkness of faith, so that, when the pitchers of this life are broken, which alone have kept from it the light of faith, it may see God face to face in glory.

5. It now remains to describe in detail all the types of knowledge and the apprehensions which the understanding can receive; the hindrance and the harm which it can receive upon this road of faith; and the way wherein the soul must conduct itself so that, whether they proceed from the senses or from the spirit, they may cause it, not harm, but profit.