Introduction to Mass
Today, with some deference to Advent season, we commemorate St John of the Cross who lived in Spain during the 16th century and helped reform the Carmelite religious order. As a contemplative he wrote ‘It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others’. As we begin Mass by calling to mind our sins we might recall our failure to refrain from judging the remarks, deeds and lives of others. Such refraining, however difficult in the judgmental culture of the 21st century, is part of loving our neighbour. As we reflect we might recall another saying of John, ‘In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone’.
Sermon
‘Apart from me, all is nothing. I am the Lord, unrivalled, I form the light and create the dark’ (Isaiah 45:6) Those words of prophecy spoken through Isaiah in our first reading capture something of the spiritual invitation of today’s saint. Spaniard John of the Cross was a man of his times, the troubled times of the sixteenth century with reformation and counter reformation shaping the Church. With his near contemporary Teresa of Avila John was about shaking Christians out of complacency, even Christians living under the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. It's almost unbelievable that his attempts to reform religious life led to his being imprisoned by fellow monks in a tiny cell in Toledo for nine months!
‘Apart from me, all is nothing. I am the Lord, unrivalled’. John saw this and taught the need for Christians, even monks, to work for detachment, emptiness and poverty, before God. ‘Desire to possess nothing’ he taught, ‘in order to arrive at being everything’. God is the greatest good to which all other goods must be subordinated. Through worship, prayer, study, service and reflection we are to shake off inordinate desire for trivial pursuits and see growth in our desire for God’s agenda in our lives and the working out of that for the good of the world around us. As a smartphone user I am challenged by that teaching on detachment as, like many, I feel the grip of electronic media as a world of sensory addiction tantamount to bondage. I try to break this bond, especially as part of my Friday fast. St John of the Cross encourages decisive action here. The soul that is attached to anything however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union he teaches. ‘Whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for, until the cord be broken the bird cannot fly’.
‘Apart from me, all is nothing. I am the Lord, unrivalled’ writes Isaiah. ‘I form the light and create the dark’. A second aspect of St John is the insight he gives in his mystical works: ‘The Ascent of Mount Carmel’, ‘The Dark Night of the Soul’, ‘The Spiritual Canticle’ and ‘The Living Flame of Love’. Complementary to his call for detachment from worldly concerns we read here invaluable teaching on purification of Christian aspiration towards God. His teaching gives unique insight into times of spiritual desolation. What do we make of times when God seems absent or far away? ‘I form the light and create the dark’. To Saint John of the Cross times of darkness - and he had a lot of them - are God-given and can be precious times if we keep looking to the Lord. His poem title ‘The dark night of the soul’ has entered Christian vocabulary. Through faithfulness in times of hardship, looking to God for being our loving God rather than for the consolation he gives on many occasions, we prove and we forge our love for God.
‘Apart from me, all is nothing. I am the Lord, unrivalled, I form the light and create the dark’ May the prayers of St John of the Cross help deepen our dependence upon God through consolation and desolation, summer warmth and winter chill.
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