DEFINITIVE PROMISE PROGRAM 2008

TEXT: St. John of the Cross, ASCENT TO MOUNT CARMEL, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross (1979) ICS Publications, Washington, D.C. 

For a specific heading for each of these following entries, please consult the Table of Contents at the very outset of our text. It would be otiose to repeat these headings here since they are immediately available in the table of contents of our published text.  

                                                            THE SPIRITUAL CANTICLE (pp. 393-565)  

PREFACE: The principal thrust of this commentary is to present to the person (i.e., mystic) who seeks to fathom the height, width, and depth of this Canticle with a dialogical, cruciform, mystagogical context in which it is written and expounded by our Carmelite Holy Father, St. John of the Cross. St. John expresses his mystical experience of God in a poetic metaphorical subjective description. He further expounds his poetic experience in prosaic definitive terms which do not betray but rather present a non-poetic objective basis for this subjective experience. Hence, there is a height and width to his mystagogy. The height is the vertical beam of the cross and the width is the horizontal beam of the cross. The vertical beam employs a prosaic language of literal significance; the horizontal employs a non-literal language suitable to poetic metaphors and free-wheeling comparisons. The two separate linguistic forms are integrated together in the cruciform integrity proper to the cross of Christ’s crucifixion. This cruciform integration presents the reconciliation of the two separate but compatible and complementary orders inherent in the human person’s constitution. This cruciform integration makes manifest not only the height and width of the human person but also the depth.  

            There is no attempt in this commentary to outdo our Carmelite Holy Father in explaining his own prosaic exegesis of his poetry. His own account speaks for itself. However, there is every attempt here to enable the mystic who prayerfully enters into the very mystagogical “spirit” of both the poetry and the prosaic explanation of the various verses to grasp the dialogical and cruciform nexus between the two. Otherwise, the mystic misses the very crux of mystagogical theology which is to both encounter God objectively, informatively, sacramentally, and transcendentally beyond the mystic’s cognitive grasp and to simultaneously experience subjectively, prayerfully, and immanently the transformative influence of this divine encounter. The human person is created in the image and likeness of God. But, God is both singularly and indivisibly one while being personally three in His divine personhood. Similarly the human person is one in his subsistent objective personhood, but triune when this personhood is considered in its subjective personality (i.e., selfhood) compounded with his objective personhood to constitute integrally his authentic or inauthentic personage. That is, the human person is simultaneously a person, a personality, and a personage. Each of these is in a different order. He is by nature a sovereign person from the instant of his existence. He is by culture a self-developed and self-cultivated autonomous personality from the very instant of his conception. Thirdly, he is by the integration of his personhood and personality a self-fulfilled or self-unfulfilled personage.  

            Furthermore, the human person is not only Trinitarian, the threefold dimension of the human person is himself constituted within the umbrage of the Blessed Trinity’s Divine Personhood. In the vertical order the human person’s existence and sacramental super-existence is both initiated (created) and consummated by the Father. In the horizontal order, the human person’s personality is personalized, redeemed, and justified by the Son. In the cruciform order of the integration and integrality of the cross’s two beams, the Holy Spirit both personifies the mystic as an adopted son of the Father and personalizes the mystic as the transformed personality of the Son’s very Selfless Selfhood. And, thusly, the mystic becomes an authentic Personage under the subtle and delicate influence of the Holy Spirit who is simultaneously the integral “Spirit” of the Father and the Son. 

            The principal task of this commentary is not merely to further interpret St. John’s own prosaic interpretation of his poetic expression of his mystical encounter with the Blessed Trinity. Rather, it is to expound the triune, dialogical, cruciform context within which his mystagogical theology captures the height, width, and depth of Christ’s own cruciformity which reveals to every human person the real measure of the human person’s dignity and super-human realization and self-fulfilled authentic personage through, with, and in Jesus Christ, God/Superman. Dogmatic and Moral Theology develop principally in the vertical order of the cross’s cruciformity. Mystagogical Theology develops principally within the horizontal order of the cross’s cruciformity. Yet, it does not develop in isolation from the vertical order; it develops in conjunction with and in its compatibility and integration with the vertical order. Otherwise, the human person loses his authenticity and integrality as a personage which is simultaneously a personable personality and a personalized personhood; that is an authentic son of the Father, a full-fledged brother of the Son, and a personage vitalized by the Holy Spirit’s own vitality and divine divinizing freedom.  

            The cross’s vertical beam is orthodox in the order of being (i.e., existence). Here there is no ambiguity or wriggle-room for deception or error. Anything and everything that exists cannot simultaneously be and not be both what it is entitatively (i.e., in its identity and significance) and existingly. Thus, the human person that is the offspring of human parents cannot be simultaneously human and not/human at any instant of its existence as the progeny of human parents. At the instant of its conception it is human and remains such until the instant of its death. The cross’s horizontal beam is paradox in the order of having (i.e., resistance). Here there is ambiguity and wriggle-room for deception and error. This is not the order of nature but that of culture. It is not the order of being but the order of having and not-having which is in need of development to achieve its authentic fulfillment. Thus, the human embryo at the very instant of its conception needs to develop and grow to become an adult person. It both has an infantile embryonic personality and has not yet an adult developed personality. Accordingly, it both has and has not a personality at this earliest stage of its growth. Here, in the horizontal order it is not the human person’s personhood and identity which is being considered; it is the person’s subjective functional developed personality which is addressed. The vertical order is fundamental and addresses the human person’s intransitive vital activity proper to the human person’s natural personhood. The horizontal order is supplemental and addresses the human person’s transitive functioning (i.e., self-fulfilling or self-non-fulfilling) personality. In other words, the vertical beam of the cross could not be of itself elevated and remain existing suspended above the ground were it not for the vertical beam which suspends it and holds it in suspended existence there.  

            The intersection of these two beams forms the cross’s cruciformity. In this cruciformity the vertical beam does not become the horizontal beam and, vice versa, the latter beam does not become the former. Each remains distinct from the other. However, the two remain connected to each other. Accordingly the orthodox being of the human person sustains in existence the paradoxical personality proper to the human person’s orthodox personhood. The human person’s personhood sustains his/her own personality in existence. At the same time, the human person’s personality influences and impacts on the human person’s life-style and functional behavior. Thus, this cruciform juncture and intersection of the cross is the point of reconciliation of the two irreducible and non-educible orders of the human person.             

One final observation is in order. The cruciform reconciliation between the cross’s two separate orders and beams cannot be achieved without the mediation of Christ’s very own crucifixion. Why not? The vertical order is one of moral conscionable obedience which does not entail any self-sacrifice by the human person to remain true to his inherent inalienable personhood. On the other hand, the horizontal order involves the human person’s alienable self-cultivated personality which cannot become fully developed without a self-imposed sacrificial self-denial and self-abnegation. This cruciform order, accordingly, is heterodoxical because it combines the cross’s two beams bonded together to form the third order of the human person’s integral reconciliation between his fundamental personhood and supplemental personality. This is the order in which person becomes or fails to become a full-fledged personage. In this heterodoxical order, the human person is simultaneously a personable personality (i.e., fundamentally morally and truly human in his existence); as well as a personalized person (i.e., supplementally humanized and authentically humane in his conduct). In other words, this heterodoxical order combines the previous two vertical/orthodoxical and horizontal/paradoxical orders. This, then, is the cruciform order of both being and having taken together in each’s proper fundamental and supplemental priorities; this is the order of heterodoxical order of be-having. 

            Conclusion and consummation of the Spiritual Canticle [Verses 33-40]. The Spiritual Canticle ends in a spiritual marriage between God (in the vertical order) and the mystic (in the horizontal order). This spiritual marriage is itself a reconciliation between the two cross-beams of the cross. This reconciliation and marriage cannot, however, be sustained without the indomitable superhumanized morale which Jesus Christ, God/Superman, exercised in view of and in virtue of the Holy Spirit infused supernaturally into His Selfless Personality. Without the supernatural gift of this same Holy Spirit alive in the mystic, no human person could sacrificially and heroically cultivate the subjective personality of Christ’s own Selfless Selfhood sufficient to achieve the super-humane saintly and holy Personage proper to Jesus Christ and the saints who are full-fledged members of Christ’s Mystical Body, the Sacramental Church.

JANUARY

The Cross of Cruciformity [Verses 1-8] Introduction to the dialogical format of the Spiritual Canticle.

FEBRUARY

Preliminary [Verses 9-16] Continuation of the dialogical format of the Spiritual Canticle.

MARCH

Further explanation of the dialogical cruciformity inherent in the Spiritual Canticle [Verses 17-24].

APRIL

 The Canticle’s cruciform dialogue further explored and expounded [Verses 25-32].

MAY

Conclusion and consummation of the Spiritual Canticle [Verses 33-40]. The Spiritual Canticle ends in a spiritual marriage between God (i.e., in the vertical order) and the mystic (i.e., in the horizontal order)

                                                            THE LIVING FLAME OF LOVE (pp. 569-649) 

            Prologue: This mystagogical treatise expresses and expounds the spiritual marriage between God and the mystic more intensively and expansively than was put forth in the Spiritual Canticle.  

JUNE

The “Living Flame” is the Holy Spirit [Verse 1].

JULY

The “Living Flame” is both one and three [Verse 2].

AUGUST

The “Living Flame” gives off both light and heat [Verse 3].

SEPTEMBER

Contemplative prayer and blindness [Verse 3 addendum].

OCTOBER

When St. John speaks of the “soul” he addresses the mystic as a person [Verse 4]. The human person so considered must be addressed in his triune cruciform constitution as a personhood (vertically), as a personality (horizontally) and as a personage (combining the former two) cruciformally.

PRAISED BE JESUS CHRIST! NOW & FOREVER!

BLESSED BE MARY! NOW & FOREVER!

HONORED BE ST. JOSEPH! NOW & FOREVER!