The Living Flame of Love by St. John of the Cross - Stanza 2, Part 2: CarmelCast Episode 53

[Music] thank you praise be Jesus Christ and welcome back to another episode of carmelcast combocast is a production of The Institute of Carmelite studies Publications for more information about The Institute and the books that we publish you can visit our website at www.icspublications.org my name is Father Pierre Giorgio of Christ the King and today I'm joined by Brother John Mary of Jesus crucified and we are continuing our book study of the living flame of Love Study Edition and we're finding ourselves in the second half of the second stanza and in in the last episode we were focusing on this imagery of touch and cautery the the imagery that John uses and that sort of continues into this episode today so we want to review that or remind people of not necessarily going to review it but we want to remind people of of that aspect of of which we began in in the second stanza and today we're um sort of transitioning into the second half of the second stanza in terms of the so like we've been saying each stanza has six lines right and uh in the first half or in last week's episode we we covered the first half the first three lines and so today we begin with this line the tastes of eternal life um and father Kieran points out to us or in his sort of interpretation of this work of Saint John the cross he's he's sort of uh directing our attention he's he's proposing for us a framework by which to better understand Saint John the cross through this through these tenses of temporal tenses of of um of what the spirit of God does in the soul and so the tastes of eternal life of course are going to be more future oriented more oriented towards the life to come and um in it's in this section of um paragraphs 21 and 22. um that John again is grappling with the difficulty of the ineffability of his experience and so he he reminds us it's kind of reminiscent of what we were talking about in the prologues when John was having difficulty expressing himself and that sentiment kind of comes across once more and John is speaking of how um this experience that he has in his own life is so personal it's so intimate it's so close to him uh that how can he how can he even sort of uh bracket it with through understanding and um he speaks of how uh Perhaps Perhaps the most appropriate way to to approach such experiences because of their intimacy because of the closeness they are to us is through silence and so this is why it's difficult for him to share it with other people but he's being a good spiritual director and he's being a good chair of of uh and friendship to his his friend Dona Ana dependulosa who for whom he's writing this uh and he is you know doing his best right to to express this and you know of course we we believe and know as he is a doctor of the church that he does a he does a pretty decent job at it you know he's he's apprehensive to really tackle this issue yeah and even there in the very beginning of the his commentary on on uh the paragraph 21 there he's explaining why this is so intimate and it's because it's he says it's a touch of substances and uh father Kieran and the the study notes of this he explains what is what does John mean by substances and it's like what's at the very core of what a thing is and so it's not only that God is touching us I mean this is part of it God is touching Us in like the core the most intimate deepest part of who we are but it's also he's John John lacrosse is saying it's the substance of God in the substance of the Soul so it's also the very like deepest core part of of God himself so it's God himself touching the substance of who we are it's substance touching substance and so that's why it's something like that's so intimate and and so um mysterious in a sense that John is hesitant and that's yeah exactly like you said uh John John's uh the words there are pretty strong he says the appropriate language for the persons receiving these favors is that they understand them experience them within themselves enjoy them and be silent yeah I think that's such a good reminder for us for our own experiences and when it comes to the experiences of others right there's often this tendency within the spiritual life to compare ourselves with other people uh maybe comparing comparing and you know it's always a comparison that is that is uh that is not grounded in reality ultimately it's often it's often shaped and highlighted by our own wounds and insecurities when we're dealing with our relation to maybe someone else's experiences of God in their own life um and so that in and of itself is sort of um I don't want to say cheating but it it all it's a disloyalty to to what God is really doing in in your individual soul uh by by comparing you know yourself with someone else and I think it also speaks to the the caution that we need to have with respect to um the the writings of of other people and their mystical experiences and not putting too much of our self not understanding them through through our own experience not relating them too intimately because it might um it might it might not be our experience it might not be for us it might not be what God has planned for us in his relationship with us and so it's it's sort of I don't know jumping the gun with respect to to the intimacy that God has planned for the individual person and um it's it's another opportunity for us to become attached and for us to to view certain uh phenomena mystical phenomena experienced by other people in a way that is shaped by our own insecurities by our own woundedness exactly yeah I think we can look at the extraordinary mystical experiences that we read about from the Saints or from other such Mystics and we can begin to think that that is the goal of the spiritual life and and John of the Cross is just very clear about how these are just the exterior kind of effects of what truly matters is this substance to substance contact that's happening between the person's soul and God and that's something that's totally hidden and is is very intimate and secret um and so yes he you know he explains in paragraph 22 here that sometimes the unction of the Holy Spirit overflows into the body and all the sensory substance so sometimes these experiences might have these external manifestations but the reality that he's uh singularly focused on is the one that's happening on the interior and so when we put too much of our Focus whether it's our own experience or again the experience of someone that we read about or someone that we know when we put too much of our focus on the exterior phenomenon whatever it is um we might be missing the point we might be missing the the the very thing that the very the very essence of what that experience is for the trappings of the exterior experience right and in in any sort of experience like that should always uh I think a good a good sign or a good measure of of what it's doing within us is it strengthening our faith is it strengthening our love is it strengthening uh Our Hope and and and so John will speak in in future in future paragraphs I think we'll get to in this in this section he'll speak of of how um the new life in Christ is is measured by our new life in in taking on the theological virtues of faith hope and love yes yeah there's there's a great story from the life of Saint John of the Cross when I think he was attending some meetings in in Portugal and there were a bunch of the Friars who were going to go off and go visit this um supposed Mystic uh who is having all these incredible experiences and Jonathan cross basically told them the other Friars he wasn't interested and going he wanted to stay and just read his scriptures um and it turns out that the the woman was a false Mystic anyways um but even if she wasn't a false Mystic I I wonder if Jon would have had the same the same response it's he he it wasn't that there was anything wrong with her or her own experience and maybe she herself was very could have been very holy um she wasn't as historically the case but even if she was uh I think John noticed there was an over eagerness and these other people like if I just meet this woman and um and and can witness this external phenomenon then there was they were overly focused on that and so John John lacrosse almost wanted to bring them back to the reality of what what was it that truly mattered and that was God coming to us and the scriptures God coming us to us in the sacraments God coming to us in our our own personal prayer so what do you think is the difference then in in last last week's episode you and father Michael Joseph were speaking of um the transverberation of Saint Teresa and how this is a maybe a particular experience that is more that is appropriate for someone like a religious founder and that to me makes me think of the distinction between between something like private Revelation versus the propagation of a charism in the church and that seems to be kind of well the the the difference and the reason why that this is something maybe to be shared in that sense and so what what's the Nuance there between the two yeah well primarily I think and this is where John of the Cross goes even in his discussion of transfibration and Stigmata that we talked about in the last episode is John is immediately focused on the interior of reality he's still um so yes he's acknowledging that there is something happening in this external phenomenon but his focus is very much on what's happening in the soul that's causing an increase in love of God or an increase in the theological virtues but also John I think this understanding of overflow can be helpful for us because um an image that's helpful to me is like if I have a cup uh or like a mug here um I I can make the outside of this mug wet by like spraying water on it um or I can pour water into it until that water overflows onto the outside and the result is the same in the sense that the outside of the mug is wet but one of them there's no water on the inside it's only something that's happening exteriorly and so that's something that there's not this substance to this depth to it can be deceiving but if the water is being poured into the inside and then flows out then it's flowing it's coming out of this place of fullness yeah and so to apply that to to these experiences um a true experience of the substance of substance meeting with God is going to fill us and it may even overflow exteriorly but the Overflow is just an effect of the reality of being filled with God it's not something that's exterior lacking the internal Foundation right yeah it's a really great illustration and and it really kind of demonstrates that I that the difference between appearances versus you know what what is what is causing what is an effect of something that is that is interior and and also fruitful right I like what he what I just want to read one quote from from this section in in paragraph 21 because it speaks also of bringing back this idea of touch and he says this touch nevertheless since it is a touch tastes of eternal life as a result the soul tastes here all the things of God since God communicates to it fortitude wisdom love beauty Grace goodness and so on and so there's an aspect of these experiences that are a uh that are that culminate in eternal life and so um maybe to understand that aspect a little bit more of of what these experiences and what they're aiming towards and what what the purpose of them is with respect to our eternity yeah and so just to recall to um this is all hearkening back to the last episode the first three lines of the Stan so you really can't separate the first three lines so if you remember it was the um the father who is the hand uh touches and the touches the Sun the soul and and produces a cautery which is the Holy Spirit and creates this wound of love and that's this touch that that John's talking about here um this touch of substances and he's saying that it tastes of Eternal eternal life um and it's interesting because what that means is that so John's very clear it's not the same it it's you know it tastes of eternal life it's not the exact same as eternal life but it is the same reality it's just to a different degree and I think that's really helpful to see like the the separation between the future um that father kieran's pointing out here in the present reality of the soul is almost like breaking or it's that thin veil because again it's this very same reality that we're we're possessing um we're experiencing here and now just to a different degree but it's the same reality of heaven right yeah and it's so we were speaking of in in I think the second episode of of the idea that it's the same reality that we experience even in something like um the night of the senses or um in in purification in purgation and dryness and aridity it's just that we don't it's to a different degree and we have a a blindness because of because of our growing in faith or growing pain so to speak um that that it doesn't seem to be to be the same but it's all it's all sort of degrees of the same reality which is which is God in the soul yes I love there's a quote from Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity one of my favorite lines is that faith is heaven and darkness and so it's this understanding that through faith we're experiencing the realities of Heaven here and now just in a dark way or in a dimmer way we don't yet have the capacities to see the glories that were being given but we're being given those Graces here and now insofar as we're open to receive them yeah good so in the next section uh of of the stanza um we come to the line and pays every debt and and here John returns to an idea that he's developed earlier on uh in in his earlier writings with the Dark Knight and the ascent of Mount Carmel um and so we're we're speaking again of of this um yeah the the earlier reality and and its connection with both the the present experience of intimacy with God as well as the future culmination of this experience in eternity with God and so he's constantly sort of revisiting various aspects of this of this uh the fullness of this interior reality um both both from how it's experienced in a mystical way in in a sole advanced in the spiritual life as well as someone who is who is growing maybe in in the purgative way yeah yeah I think it's it's helpful here to go back to that image of the fire the log and the fire um and John himself does that in his commentary in Stan and uh paragraph 25. um but he's he's he's reminding us that um the the log at first when it is assaulted that's the word that he uses by the flame it experiences you know it's the same flame we talked about that it's the same flame that eventually will will bring a great joy and and Glory but at the beginning because the log is wet and and um it's not on fire yet the flame will cause it to sputter will cause it to hiss will cause it to give off this black smoke um and so that's kind of what John's referring back to here is that there's there's something in the past which he's ref he he kind of lays out for us but it's there's a suffering in the past and so it's looking to that suffering but saying now in this state all of that suffering has been worth it it's been repaid with with the joys and Glory of Heaven and the suffering wasn't something apparent or deceiving or you know like the the sprayed water on your cup it was something that was that was it was real it was substantive it was the it was the uh the important thing to to to receive from that experience yeah yeah and I mean maybe it's helpful that we kind of can enumerate a little bit on like what that suffering is because um I think often when we read about like the Saints talking about suffering we think it's something like else other than what we're not experienced like something oh I don't experience that they're talking about something different and I think John kind of lays it out pretty um straight in a straightforward way he says that you know we suffer from he says the the trials that those who reach this state suffer are threefold he says they're come from the world from the senses and from the spirit and he enumerates some of those things trials discomforts fears Temptations aridities afflictions tribulations darknesses distress abandonment um and these are things that we all experience in our in our lives this is not something removed this is not some great persecution um I mean that could be included but um it's the same realities that that we experience I think and it's the reality of what needs what is in most need of transformation yes in US exactly because we uh one thing that that I've I've you know I frequently um I know I'm relating to people is this idea that uh I can I can be very attached to my to my wounds I can be very attached to my weaknesses because they justify a lot of my bad behavior you know and so this idea of of those aren't your identity and God wants to purify that because he wants your identity to be to be United with his yes yeah that's exactly right and so um I mean some of these sufferings are things that come from our own sinfulness our own weakness but also some of these things are maybe exterior uh things that happen to us and so um I don't know here's just some examples I think of what John could be talking about in this um these types of sufferings there could be um afflictions due to our physical health it could be uh aridities due to uh like depression or loneliness it could be Temptations due to sensual Pleasures such as overeating or drinking too much um but also he's talking about an interior kind of suffering too a very interior type such as those who might have a temptation to not believe that God's present with him in prayer or that feeling abandoned by God um or a lack of Hope kind of stemming from this sort of spiritual dryness or darkness and so I think those are like very practically what some of the things not obviously not an exclusive list but some of the things that John has in mind here that these are the trials that he's talking about um that are being offered to us to purify us and so much depends on on our response yeah yeah and so he he'll he'll essentially get into that into the next section um but but there's there's one thing in here that um that I I this aspect of his quote quoting of the wisdom literature uh so the the Hebrew wisdom tradition yes um you have these quotes from uh uh sirach from uh Lamentations as well so from the prophets uh but this idea that there's there is a plan there is a there is a there's a wisdom to the way in which to the way in which God is bringing this about uh and it it's intentional there's which can be which can be a it can be a contradiction it can be something that we that we struggle with understanding um and it's not to say that God willed us to be wounded God will that we be broken in in this or that way uh but it's it's the constant rerouting that God does in the life of people to make good by by the sin of the world and so he he he takes the bad things that have happened to us and he wants to transform them and so it's not that he wants to just shove them to this side and pretend like they didn't happen and that's that'll be your healing then um it's the transformation through them and this is this is in his wisdom yeah yes that's exactly right and and also that like this payment of the debt um that that comes uh through this purification process is not something um separate from or totally separate from the suffering itself so it's like you're saying like these very sufferings these very wounds are then the means that are glorified and are multiplied and are given back a hundred fold um that are repaid it's not something like totally separate it's there's like a connection there and so somehow in God's Divine Providence that he's taken um the the worst things in our lives the worst things in the world and made them opportunities for um a great great good yeah yeah and this is this is ultimately the the the the um the centrality of the Paschal mystery and this is the centrality of our faith um in in the the some of the more recent documents uh that they give to seminarians who are learning how to preach at Mass um the it's this this document from the Vatican called the homologic directory it says that every homily should be directed on the Paschal mystery because it's the centrality of our faith and if you're not mentioning the Paschal mystery in the in in this uh in in your homily then you're missing you're missing the lens by which the church wants to to feed its people with the with the the word that's being proclaimed at Mass yeah without the death and resurrection of the Lord like all of this would just be meaningless and so this is something that we share and so this is something that we need to be reminded of we share this with Christ and in this we have Union with him as well and so it's it's it's it's to see in the suffering this opportunity for Union exactly yeah and I think that leads like directly then into this next section which is um starting out with a 27th paragraph of John's commentary and basically he's asking the question and like um okay if this is what God wants to do and in my soul if he wants to raise it to these Heights why is it that so few people reach this state I have a few guesses well his answer though is is he surprisingly like simple yeah it's not as complicated as as I think people generally think God wants to give you this Grace yeah but I I like to double down on my sin exactly and self-medicate my suffering with more suffering and with more with more sin rather you know right but it's not even the huge things like that's not what John's talking about he's saying that what God's done is he's testing us or trying us um and not even that he's causing the suffering right so these sufferings that we experience in our life like I said they could just be caused from the sins sins of others or sins in the world but it's an opportunity that's trying us um and God's allowing it for our ultimate good and seeing how is it that we respond and John's John lacrosse writes that um he tries them in little things and finds them so weak that they immediately flee from work unwilling to be subject to the least discomfort and mortification and so that he finds US unwilling in these small little sufferings to respond to unite them to his cross and respond in love and because of that um he he's not going to offer us the greater the greater trials and the greater gifts and he's he's not offering that out of love for us right because yes because we can't we can't we can't handle it we can't we can't even accept the little ones so so why would he burden maybe not that's not the right word but why would he why would he try us with the more difficult things right and again I think it's so essential to know that these sufferings are again not this like in these elaborate things that we think of these are the little daily trials that we experience in our lives um these are the things of like instead of accepting the annoyances of my family and friends with love do I get frustrated and then like strike back in order to get even um instead of accepting like dryness and prayer do I try to avoid the times of prayer uh instead of accepting like my physical or emotional discomfort do I complain these I think are the little trials that that God again God's not necessarily causing them but he's allowing them and when we don't respond well then um it's like it's like cutting off the the growth it's like it's like putting a wall that we can't surpass because uh Jonathan cross writes in the ascenta Mount Carmel about this same reality and he says when we do this when we're we're fleeing from the cross and in doing so we make ourselves enemies of the Cross of Christ yeah it's like this strong language and so like well yes we need to be there with Christ um on the cross we need to embrace that with love and this is why the church throughout the centuries I mean has been so insistent in its art in its in its architecture in in the form its form of worship of of embracing and making the cross our identity not just not just in any in an internal sense but but but making it the symbol of our faith exactly wearing it on on our neck yes you know these uh having it in every church and and having it in the rooms of our house yeah because it's it's to be from the early stages of the church they knew that it's it's it's helpful to have this reminder of how this symbol which is more than a symbol is are actually the our identity yes yeah and maybe one clarification that's needed here um just to be totally clear what we're talking about we're not saying though that this means that a person should um just fold under uh unjust sufferings so like if someone's being abused it's not saying well you know I just have to accept this and right um out of love for Christ just accept this right John is saying um and and I think that like this is just the reality of our Christian Life that we should do all that we can to get out of the situation that's harmful to us um it's not that we should this isn't to perpetuate some sort of like Injustice in the world um if there's Injustice we need to do the right thing and speak out and and do what we can to put it into the situation right so it's not trying to like just put allow and say that we have to put up with those things but it is saying that all those things in our life that we um that aren't these big injustices um or the things that we can't change how is it that we respond with love Yeah and but also too that the the the the transformation that they're all they're all capable of transformation as well right even you know even we need to get ourselves out of harmful situations but even even these deepest darkest uh wounds in in trauma in our life um that these two are worthy of redemption by Christ and and they're not like the thing that's keeping us from reaching God it's not a wall that's keeping us if only this didn't happen to me or if only this wasn't the case right it's it's the opposite it's instead like no this is the opportunity and the means by which God is going to bring me to him and sanctify me right and he didn't he didn't he didn't cause this in your life but he does want to transform it yes and he because he wants to make good by it by it he wants to he wants to redirect the evil into something that is that is that is redeemed yes yeah let me read this uh section from this is a paragraph 28 I just think it's very a beautiful section John Lacross writes o Souls who in spiritual matters desire to walk in security and consolation if Yuba knew how much it behooves you to suffer in order to reach the security and consolation and how without suffering you cannot attain to your desire but rather turn back in no way would you look for Comfort either from God or from creatures you would instead Carry the Cross and place on it desire to drink the pure Gall in vinegar it's just uh yeah it's a beautiful reminder I think to us because so much of our life is is trying to avoid these realities yeah when what God wants us to do is to love him and to love others in the midst of them I wonder what you think also about um how this of this avoidance of or wanting to to sort of comfort ourselves through you know like self-medication um well ultimately this is this is being self-reliant right we're trying to solve our own problems which is is not going to be uh is not you know grounded in the Paschal mystery but there there can be I think for many people a a compulsiveness to want to seek one's own comfort and how how can we break from from that that sense of of compulsion yeah in in our seeking of comfort or seeking to to deny to deny our suffering yeah something interesting about I think the teaching of Saint John of the Cross is very often he's a he's a great um psychologist before his own before like that was even a thing he's ahead of his time yeah but John realized that like we as human beings are are made such that we're attached to things like that's just how we work and so the answer is not just a focus on trying to detach from something but instead attach myself to something better that's always the answer so like in in the cases that you're talking about it's like if if instead of focusing so much on myself and avoiding discomfort if I can focus on loving and serving others and loving and serving God that's the the ultimate thing that's going to pull me out of myself and then you won't even and feel the tension so much because you're just you're you're outwardly focused on on others and on God and I think that's the that that is kind of the answer there is like attach yourself to something else yeah and and to do so with determination and because it's it's you're not going to you know today's the day once for all um there's going to there's a there's a process and because it's it's habitude and because it's something that we have to that is acquired we can pray for the infusion of it too but you know it's something that is most most of the time it requires our cooperation and our work to say to be determined about it because we're going to want to give up we're going to want to we're going to want to go down the path of least resistance with respect to our own uh comfort and seeking our own sort of self-medication whether it be pointing the blame on someone else through like things like gossip to kind of take the spot life off myself and put it on someone else for a while this is a form of of kind of self-medication and you can increase your comfort as well and to um to to just to just remember um that we have to get up again yeah try again and and this is something that happens over over the course of of sometimes a Lifetime right yeah and and once again a reminder that we're not saying that a person should be totally unconcerned about themselves um it's not this kind of uncontrolled like just going out of themselves and so like I'm just never gonna take care of myself um but the idea you know the idea of like self-care is is very popular right now but what is true self-care and it's really like the reason I'm taking care of myself is because I need to in order to serve God and serve others so it's always other focused right and so often we can use self-care as just an excuse to kind of pamper or Comfort ourselves or lick our wounds or whatever it is but that's just so inwardly focused the the goal the final goal of that always has to be exteriorly your focus because that's that's what love is it's it's turning towards the other yeah the self true self-care is living immoral is living the moral life right and and and uh and and it's something that's been laid out for us yes uh time and again you know in scripture and then in the in the teaching of the church exactly okay so before we go now I just want to read one last little section from John of the Cross this is his advice of how we should respond in the midst of these sufferings this is from paragraph 30. he says people then should live with great patience and constancy and all the tribulations and trials God places on them whether they be exterior or interior spiritual or bodily great or small and they should accept them all as from God's hand as a good remedy and not flee from them for they bring Health that's true self-care so in the final line the final verse of the second stanza John writes in killing you change death to life and and this is very strong wording and for me it and it's clear in the in the commentary that he writes concerning this line that it evokes it evokes again uh the Paschal mystery um and through in transformation um but there's also sort of a play in in this section on identity and and what are and what our true identity is and what we have to do with the old ones yes yeah it's really a death to all that made up our old self yeah our um in in finding our identity completely in God that's the the transition that's happening here again it's with these touches this um the substance of God touching the substance of our soul right in in the beginning in in let's see uh paragraph 34. um this is after he's he's you know quoted Saint Paul take off the old self and put on the new self who according to God is created in Justice and Holiness uh and so this new life that we've received it needs to look a little different from our old life and at the same time we have we have things in our old life that are I don't know um not pertinent but are are in the background we have we have the things the ways in which we knew the world we have we have um our old loves we have the things that we were formally attached to we have the memories that um that that's um shape our our vision of who God is we have uh the wounds and the trauma uh that that affects all of these things combined in terms of seeing ourselves seeing God and so these things need to be transformed as well and so here we're speaking of um yeah faculties of the person that's um that are very important in how we approach the world how we know the world how we know ourselves and how we know God and so John you know understandably says that these things need to be transformed as well that these things need to be changed from Death to life right exactly yeah it really what John's talking about here is um when John in in so we're talking about an anthropology here so like and what is John of the cross's understanding of the human person right and when John says the soul what he really means is the entire human person all that we are with the focus particularly on that part of us the spiritual part of us but he's really referring to the whole human person so that's what's being transformed here it's every single part of us but in this section John lays out um the three what he calls would call faculties of of the spirit or of the Soul which we'll talk more about in The Next Episode but I just want to like lay them out here because they're mentioned here without much explanation John talks about the intellect the will and the memory and the reason why he he sort of assumes that he doesn't need to explain them is because at the time this was something that was it was sort of in within Scholastic Theology of the 16th century and in centuries before then and centuries after as well yes was uh was sort of catechism 101 for for at least most people who are interested in these sort of things right yeah and I think just to give like a brief explanation then of these that is the most important thing to remember is that for John of the cross the faculties of the Soul or the of the spirit are not um they're not things or objects they're they're capacities or powers and so the intellect will and memory then are um thing our capacities or powers that our soul to for our soul to act and so the intellect is simply um our sole understanding when our soul understands that's what we refer to as the intellect the will is our our soul loving when our soul loves that's what we call the will and then the memory is a little more tricky but it's basically uh I would say like our sole um possessing or like recalling something um that's when when that that power when that action is happening that's what we would call the memory okay so it's but it's all the One Soul that's doing these things and these aren't parts of the Soul these are the ways that that our souls can act and so the the transformation that John's talking about which we're going to talk more about again in the next um the next uh stanza but he says here that in this transformation our intellect our will and our memory go from very limited natural ways of understanding of loving and of uh remembering the world to uh Supernatural ways and he says the intellect of this soul is God's intellect its will is God's will its memory is the memory of God and its Delight is God's delight and so these these um well it's interesting because historically these terms of memory intellect and will come from a work by Saint Augustine or at least that's where they're probably the most known yeah even before that Aristotle right yeah but right so but in terms of a theological context um there there is something there's something to there's something that is shared in these faculties of the Soul with with God and so there's things that can be United to God exactly um just to kind of make a long story short Augustine Augustine Associates these these three faculties of the Soul with the three persons of the Trinity and so there's something very there's very uh something very um Divine uh that is that is shared in this and it shouldn't surprise us either that there's a part of us that is that has some share in in Divinity or in in God's Own attributes because we have a supernatural component I don't know it's probably not the best word there's a supernatural aspect of ourselves that is that is um Beyond nature it's above nature it's the the definition of Supernatural right and so this is something that that is that ought to be shared with God and so when we've lived our entire life you know um sort of misusing these these Supernatural spiritual or using them for finite limited natural ins right so the example that I always use is it's it's like it's like taking your Maserati to go to the to go to the grocery store yeah uh you're you have this this incredible uh these incredible capacities um that are that are you know can go you know zero to sixty and in however many seconds uh and and we're using them from rather Monday to drive 35 miles an hour yeah through through a school zone yeah to get to to get to the to the grocery store and so we're using the supernatural faculties for a very mundane purposes and so this is something that through purification uh is very much transformed and takes on and takes on new life because it's some we're now using them United with God in in the way that God desires for them to be used and he himself uses them right and and that's really what the next standard is completely about John is referencing it here to say that there's there's going to be some type of death um that takes place in the way that we use these faculties in the way that we understand love and and possess um there's going to be a necessary death to those things in order for there to be this Resurrection um to so that we just participate in God in the way that we do those things okay just one closing comment I have uh my I promise Pierre Giorgio this so I'm gonna this is this is my image that I like to use for this stanza this entire um the second stance the second stanza and it might be somewhat of a strange image but I I like to think of the stanza it reminds me of a deep tissue massage um so you know and and you were an athlete when you were younger too so you might understand but um massages you know were this part I didn't know when I was younger all right well you're still very much an athlete and a spiritual athlete I know what you mean yeah um but massages were this tool used for Recovery um from either injuries uh or after like a hard race or a hard workout and basically the physical therapist would apply heavy pressure to certain areas of the body in order to reach the Deep levels of the muscle and the surrounding tissue and that pressure would then break down Scar Tissue it would promote uh blood flow and kind of release toxins in the area and that would allow the muscle you know to heal more quickly and to prepare for the next workout or the next race and if you've ever gotten a massage before especially after like a hard workout then you know that this pressure applied to tight and sore muscles is not comfortable um typically actually the physical therapist is like seeking out particular problem areas these are the areas that cause pain and applying extra pressure to those areas and while the experience is somewhat painful it's at the same time like uh somewhat Pleasant like there's something pleasant about getting a massage too something something relaxing even though it can be painful at the same time and so it's not something that's just endured for the sake of the effect of feeling better but the experience itself is actually healing um both physically and I think psychologically and so I think that this has a lot of parallels to the stands of the living flame because God's like the great physical therapist whose gentle hand and his delicate touch are seeking out the problem areas in our souls in order to heal these these deep wounds and um he finds those areas that you know that often cause us the most pain when uh they're touched and he digs deep into them in order to release the toxins of sin and attachment in order to promote the inflow of his grace um and so just like a physical massage we have to remain kind of passive under this work of the Divine physician and we learned that the discomfort that we experience is not um is not a bad thing um it's actually a sign of the healing that's taking place in us and so the wounding that experience of the pain is the very thing that's causing the healing the muscles that were once dead can now live again um and and and find new life and so I think that's for me that's a helpful image for what's happening in killing uh you change death into life that's the same experience that God is doing within the soul yeah cool a good analogy and one that I think is really helpful so great so next week we're going to be diving into the third stanza of the living flame of love and so we ask you to join us again in a week's time and get started on on that reading you can find again the reading schedule in the description of the episode so thank you and God bless you thank you

Channel: ICS Publications

Views: 3,666

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Id: mqh342aMD0Y

Length: 47min 6sec (2826 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 17 2023