Today's Gospel reflects the necessity for the Dark Night of the Soul-the death of the sensual side of us.
The senses must be so pure that these only desire God alone and nothing else. St. John of the Cross, whose feast it is today, understood this.
God did St. John a great favor. God allowed the very brothers of St. John in his order, in his house, to imprison him and torture him.
What John discovered was an inner darkness which led to Light.
We must all go through this. In the darkness, we see all the creepy-crawly nastiness of our senses. When the senses are purified, we are then led into the purification of the spirit.
Let God do these things in your life.....
Luke 14:25-33
Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)
25 And there went great multitudes with him. And turning, he said to them:
26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
27 And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
28 For which of you having a mind to build a tower, doth not first sit down, and reckon the charges that are necessary, whether he have wherewithal to finish it:
29 Lest, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that see it begin to mock him,
30 Saying: This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
31 Or what king, about to go to make war against another king, doth not first sit down, and think whether he be able, with ten thousand, to meet him that, with twenty thousand, cometh against him?
32 Or else, whilst the other is yet afar off, sending an embassy, he desireth conditions of peace.
33 So likewise every one of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth, cannot be my disciple.