ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS, THE SPIRITUAL CANTICLE: VERSES 9-16 INCLUSIVE

PRELIMINARY In the previous segment of this commentary it was noted that this entire commentary would be modeled on the cruciformity of the cross of Christ’s crucifixion. This cross has two separate beams and three configurations: the vertical, horizontal, and the intersection of the two to form the cross itself. We indicated the peculiarities proper to each of these three configurations. We can now add several other considerations to the previous listing.

Each of these three configurations has its own built-in logic. The logic proper to the vertical order is the logic of excellence; that of the horizontal is the logic of equivalence; and, that of the cruciform order is the logic of compatibility and reconciliation. The logic of excellence is a metaphysical logic in that this logic is based on a holistic indivisible whole that cannot be reduced to its constitutive parts wherever such a whole involves such parts. The logic of excellence is a mathematical logic in that this logic is based on a piecemeal divisible whole that can be subdivided into its component parts. The logic of compatibility is a logic of integrity which is based on the compatibility of the two previous logics. This logic both sustains the irreducibility and non-educibility of metaphysical and mathematical reasoning. At the same time, this logic advances the compatibility of each vis-à-vis the other when each remains within its proper fundamental-supplemental prioritization.

In the metaphysical logic of excellence, every human being is naturally constituted of a holistic indivisible whole human nature which is not reducible to its body-soul constitutive parts. Inasmuch as Peter is human, he is substantively constituted of body and soul. Peter’s one and the same human substance is both a bodily (i.e., material) and soulful (i.e., spiritual) substance. There are not two substances that make up Peter’s human nature. There is only one holistic substance with two constitutive parts. One and the same Peter is indivisibly both material and spiritual even though his material body is not his spiritual soul. That is, Peter’s body is wholly human and Peter’s soul is wholly human even though the body is not the soul and vice versa.

In the mathematical logic of equivalence, every mathematical whole is culturally reducible to its piecemeal divisible components. The arithmetic integer, 1, is reducible to any combination of multiple fractions such as ½ + ½ or 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3, etc.. The same is the case for any segment of the geometric unilinear dimension, the line. Any segment line, x---y, is divisible into its smaller sub-segments. In view of both of these mathematical factors, one and the same number “1” and one and the same segment line, x-y, are reducible to their sub-segments. In view of this, one cannot reasonably identify any component part with its original mathematical whole. One cannot state reasonably that 1/3 of a line is wholly the whole line or that ½ of 1 is wholly 1. In a logic of equivalence, the part is not equivalent to the piecemeal whole. Yet, one can state in a metaphysical logic of excellence that the soul is wholly human and the body is wholly human because Peter’s human nature is holistically and indivisibly a whole of excellence which is not reducible to its constitutive parts.

Now, Peter is metaphysically constituted of a holistic whole of excellence, his human nature; and he is also mathematically composed of many different piecemeal wholes of equivalence, such as his body members. In view of his human nature, every constitutive of Peter (whether material or spiritual, essential or incidental) is wholly holistically and indivisibly one and the same human nature. In view of his fragmentary components (viz., his bodily members), each fragmentary component of Peter (regardless of its importance or function) is a non-holistic piecemeal whole reducible to its component parts. Thus, Peter’s arm and legs are made up of physiological and anatomical parts (viz., bones, muscles, cells, etc.) to which they are reducible. In other words, the individual, Peter, is both reasonably a metaphysical whole of excellence and irrationally a mathematical whole of equivalence; but, not for the same reason. One is reasonably so by a logic of excellence while the other is irrationally such by a logic of equivalence. In other words, “reason” and “reasoning” differs completely in meaning when applied objectively or subjectively within a metaphysical or mathematical context.

These two logics are compatible with each other providing the one is fundamentally prior wile the other is supplementally prior. If Peter is fundamentally a mathematical compound divisible piecemeal whole, he cannot be supplementally a metaphysical indivisible holistic whole. On the other hand, where Peter is fundamentally a metaphysical holistic whole, he can have supplementally and additionally many mathematical complex piecemeal wholes. Thus, there is a logic of integrity, complementarity, and reconciliation in which each antithetical logical reasoning can be compatible with the other. This occurs when metaphysical logic is fundamentally prior to (i.e. independent of) mathematical logic while the latter has supplementally a priority of its own vis-à-vis the former. This integral prioritization is one of completion. For example, when the human person is conceived, he is lacking many body members which have not yet grown and developed. He has not as yet arms and legs. Yet, every constitutive of this newly-conceived embryo is fundamentally holistically and metaphysically human albeit not yet fully developed and full grown. When the human person later grows and develops his body members, such as his arms and legs, he is supplementally, piece by piece, and mathematically more fully human in his full-grown anatomical physiology.

Now, Peter who lacks arms or legs (or both) is still fundamentally holistically human. However, supplementally he is less than fully human in his anatomy and physiology. Peter does not subjectively experience his fundamental metaphysical holistic objective human nature and identity. But, he does subjectively experience his supplemental mathematical piecemeal physiological and anatomical humanism, at least in part; especially in the use or in the loss and the absence of his body’s anatomical components such as his arms and legs when he is deprived of these. Here, without the use of these bodily members, he is severely handicapped in his functioning as a human being even though such a terrible loss does not detract from his fundamental holistic identity as a human being.

Another example of this fundamental-supplemental complementarity is any sensory faculty such as the nose. Metaphysically there is but one faculty of smelling but there are anatomically two separate nostrils; there is but one metaphysical faculty of sight but anatomically and mathematically there are two separate organs. Similarly with the heterosexual faculty of procreation; there is but one heterosexual faculty but two separate organs: the male and the female. If we insist on making the piecemeal anatomical supplemental whole as fundamental which it is not, this precludes and eliminates altogether the underlying metaphysical holistic unit-identity of these faculties. This, indeed, is the case today with the current claim that the human embryo is not yet human. This claim is based on approaching the embryo’s supplemental physiological and chemical make-up as though it were the fundamental make-up of the embryo. The more fundamental metaphysical reality is that each and every part of the human embryo is wholly and holistically human with one and the same metaphysical holistic unit-identity nature.

Catholic Christian mysticism takes into account both the fundamental metaphysical vertical holistic order of existence and the supplemental mathematical horizontal piecemeal order of resistance. The former is the order of being while the latter is the order of having. Being-more is fundamentally more than having-more is supplementally more. Yet, having-more supplementally brings to completion what being-more cannot of itself complete. Being-more is objectively in the order of nature while having-more is subjectively in the order of culture. It is possible to cultivate artificial arms and legs to supplementally complete the human body’s proper anatomical functioning when such members are missing. It is possible to have crutches and canes to supplementally assist one in walking when one’s legs are lame and no longer agile.

The Spiritual Canticle is a dialogical logic between the objective order of being and the subjective order of having. This dialogue engages in the reconciliation, integration, and solidification of the two orders within the cruciformity of Christ’s cross of crucifixion. It is framed within the mystery of the Catholic Church’s supernatural foundation that includes a cruciform marital union between a bride and groom. The groom is God, a divinity of three Persons, and the bride is the creature, the human person. It is a dialogue between Christ, God/Superman, as the groom in the vertical order and man as the bride in the horizontal order. Christ refers to Himself in the Gospel as the Bridegroom. Considering the Church vertically, she is a sacramental institution in which the mystery of the Trinity is really, existentially, liturgically, supernaturally, and holistically God being present to mankind. Considering the Church horizontally, she is Christ’s Mystical Body which is made up of the “people of God,” the individual human persons who are Christian disciples. These Christian disciples have or have-not within themselves subjectively, prayerfully, and experientially an awareness of God’s objective holistic fundamental sacramental presence and supplementally of that same presence in themselves and other Christian disciples.

When the two orders of the Church are wed together cruciformly, there is established an objective sacramental marriage between God, Jesus Christ, sacramentally incarnate in His Church and sacramentally incarnate in the members baptized into this Church. In addition, there ensues an interpersonal subjective prayerful marriage between the Church’s Christian disciples and the one divine Groom, Jesus Christ, in the vertical order and an intrapersonal prayerful discourse within the Mystical Body between the “people of God” bonded socially together as children of one and the same God-the-Father. All of this is conducted under the auspices and unctuous sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit.

Subjectively, the Christian disciple is experientially addressing Christ, the Groom, as a bride that has been graciously and mercifully embraced and espoused by God. Objectively, Christ the Groom, is responding to the bride in terms that are proper to God’s own divinity and supremacy. The two irreducible and non-educible vertical and horizontal orders are in dialogue with each other within the framework of a bride and groom conversing with each other. The divine Groom speaks from the vertical order’s transhistorical eternity while the bride speaks from the horizontal order of history’s ephemerality. In the vertical order, Christ as God is not merely the summit of creation; He is the very Beingness infinitely beyond the contingency of all creatures. In the horizontal order, the disciple of Christ is aware of his own Nothingness as the very abysmal core of his own selfhood infinitely removed from God’s Beingness. The marital dialogue between Christ as the Groom and Christ’s disciple as the bride within the mystery of the Church’s sacramental constitution awakens the mystic’s acute awareness of the abyss of his own nothingness separating himself from the infinite transcendence of God’s Everythingness.

The mystic becomes experientially aware that his own bottomless nothingness desperately needs God’s inexhaustible Everythingness. In this awakened awareness he experiences in his bodily sensitivity and in his mental intimacy something of this infinite Everythingness. He falls in love. He cannot fail to fall in love with God’s infinite loveliness. God’s irresistibility overcomes the built-in resistance of his own willful nothingness. Yet, when God seemingly withdraws from the mystic’s own subjective religious bodily sensitive experience the tenderness of His delicate touch and from the mystic’s own subjective religious mental intimate experience the serenity of His consolation, the mystic is left to wrestle to overcome his built-in self-centered abysmal selfishness which persistently resists surrendering its own willfulness to God’s providential Holy Will. When the mystic persistently and prayerfully continues to heroically contend with his own willful resistancy through the unctuous influence of the Holy Spirit, he eventually rediscovers experientially something of the fullness of God’s infinite sublime loveliness both superficially in his body’s sensitivity and deeply in his mind’s intimacy. This is the drama of the SPIRITUAL CANTICLE.

Verse 9: The mystic is smitten with love and wounded by this love. He is wounded because he is love-sick and unable to cure himself of this sickness nor to find someone who can heal him. He is sick because this love itself cannot be brought to consummation. It remains unfulfilled. Only God Himself can consummate this love. Why doesn’t God bring this love to its proper consummation? This lack of fulfillment on the part of God who is Goodness itself leaves the mystic stricken and greatly distressed.

Verse 10: The mystic is sick with love and with longing for God. He is listless, restless, forlorn, lost in vagrant day-dreaming; he is home-sick and cannot focus on anything specific. This home-sickness is characterized by 3 symptoms: 1) longing and aching for God; 2) no interest in anything else; 3) annoyed and vexed with having to deal with others and being involved in mundane things. The mystic realizes that God alone can cure his malady. Indeed, it is very much the case that when the mystic can and does eventually turn to God “with his whole heart,” he becomes susceptible to receiving from God a perfect cure for his love-sickness. What actually holds him back from completely surrendering to God is his own entrenchment within his selfish self-centeredness. By experiencing this absence of God, his “heart” becomes purified of its own self-attachment to himself. “Heart” here must be understood to be the very nuclear core of the mystic’s willful bodily self (i.e., self-centered self-interest and self-importance).

It must be noted that the terrible trial of the mystic’s experience of the complete loss of all emotional religious fervor and zeal for God in the body’s sensitivity must not be confused with simple depression. Simple depression whether chronicle or not is occasioned by a specific trauma. A young man or woman who loves another and finds that this love is not requited does not seek assistance from a psychiatrist to relieve his emotional distress; he seeks relief from the person whom he admires and loves.

Verse 11: The mystic begs God to reveal Himself completely even if this entails the soul’s flight from the body (i.e., inevitable physical death). It is a matter of record that in the Old Testament were God to completely reveal Himself to anyone, Moses included, this would have brought about immediate death.

At this point, St. John of the Cross differentiates between three separate and distinct Self-revelations of God to mankind in which He makes Himself present: 1) by God’s essence and power as the Creator of the universe; 2) by supernatural sacramental grace in the soul; 3) and, by experiential divine touches within the mystic’s own selfhood. The first two cases are entirely objective and independent of the mystic’s own willfulness. As the Creator of the universe, God in the Trinity of His Godhead makes this one Godhead’s divine nature manifest to mankind. As the Author of sacramental grace, God in the Trinity makes manifest His Triune Personhood to mankind. The third is entirely subjective and very much dependent on the mystic’s own self-centered willfulness to correspond with God’s Personal Self-manifestation.

This Self-manifestation makes itself felt in the mystic’s willful bodily sensitivity as a tender devotional feeling and affectionate liking for God. It also makes itself borne in the mystic’s willful mental intimacy as a serene pious bearing and amorous caring for God. When the mystic prays that God reveal Himself he has all three of these ways of God become more vividly present and manifest. Of course, the death that the mystic would udergo and suffer would differ with each manifestation. If God’s almighty power were made manifest in something of a physical disaster, this could be the untimely physical death of the mystic. If God’s stupendous holiness and merciful moral power were made manifest miraculously in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, for example, this would mean the death of the mystic’s subjective personalized bodily sensitive and mental intimate experience of God. After all, to observe such a miracle objectively demonstrated would awaken and fortify the mystic’s belief and faith in God above and beyond any need for a private bodily emotional feeling or mentally emotionless caring for God. Finally, if God were made manifest to the mystic subjectively in the mystic’s private stimulated religious feeling and intimate religious caring for God, the latter’s intimate caring would eclipse and bring completely to naught (i.e., death) the mystic’s bodily feeling for God.

St. John further points out that any form of death does not pose a threat for the one who is totally in love with his beloved. Suffering even death itself is no deterrent to the lover who is madly in love. Love is stronger than death; it is immortal and outlives death itself. Such love is a testimony to the human person’s immortality. And, indeed, such love is memorialized by others throughout the ages of time. But, it must be emphasized that this love is not merely a dutiful love; it is a sacrificial love. It is a love that emerges sacrificially from the mystic’s willful selfhood and not merely from the mystic’s soulful intellectual will.

This love is a sickness because it weakens the mystic’s willful selfhood. At this stage of the mystic’s love-affair with God, it is very much an imperfect love. It is not yet a completely charitable selfless love for God. It remains in the very heart of the mystic’s willful bodily selfhood a love that is both self-attached to the mystic’s own bodily religious experiences of God as well as to Christ Himself. When this love becomes later a love that is purified of the mystic’s selfish attachment to his body’s own religious sensitivity and feelings, it will be a strong charitable selfless love for God above and beyond all selfish considerations.

Verse 12: Here the mystic is levitating toward God more urgently than is a stone plummeting toward earth. The mystic turns toward God in faith. Through faith the mystic is inerrantly, objectively, personally, and infallibly united with God who is sacramentally through sanctifying grace present in the mystic’s soul. At the same time, by reason of hope the mystic is subjectively, personalistically, experientially, and fallibly united with Christ in hope because Christ has freely and sacrificially substituted His own subjective Personality in the place of the mystic’s subjective personality when Christ suffered His death on the Cross and made Himself the mystic’s scapegoat.

Paradox: Sacramentally and objectively by faith the mystic is more infallibly in the presence of God than he is subjectively and experientially by hope in which he experiences God as absent and not fully and securely in his own possession as his Beloved. In this subjective fallible personalized experience of God through his own sensitive bodily feelings and/or through his own intimate mental bearings, the mystic suffers excruciating anguish in not fully possessing God and in not having absolute assurance of such a possession.

Here, a distinction must be made between the objective intellectual will which is the human soul’s appetitive faculty and the subjective willful selfhood which is the human person’s self-serving facilitator. The difference between these two wills is crucial in appreciating the significant difference between dogmatic and moral theology, on the one hand, and mystical theology on the other. The soul’s intellectual will is an obedient will that is subject to the intellect’s recognition of the truth-as-such of whatever is practically and conscionably worthy of willing and choosing. An obedient willing Love of the Truth is objectively and fundamentally a LOVE OF WISDOM (literally, philosophy). This is the foundation for Dogmatic and Moral Theology. This obedient “love of God” is a wise love when it loves God appropriately in regard to God’s infinite worthiness deserving of such love. When a person willingly loves God wisely and appropriately, the person’s obedient love is meritorious.

The reverse is very much the case in the instance of the human person’s subjective self-centered willful selfhood. Where the person’s intellectual will is directed to love appropriately and fittingly, the same person’s willful selfhood services and serves the person’s self-interest by appropriating possessively (i.e., selfishly) whatever it is that the person loves. Hence, this will does not love its object of love because it is inherently worthwhile and worthy of such love. It is simply the reverse. This self-centered will bestows an importance on the object of its love simply because it needs it for its own self-centered service. Thus, whatever this will possessively loves is that which the person treasures as of paramount importance for his own self and his own selfhood’s self-fulfillment. Now, when the mystic lovingly and possessively treasures God (i.e., the God of faith) above every other treasure, this love itself becomes wise with a subjective, supplemental, sacrificial wisdom metaphorically described as a WISDOM OF LOVE.

Here, the priority is not on intellectual truth but on amorous love. This is the priority that belongs supplementally to Mystical Theology. This sacrificial “Godly love” is a wise love when it heroically and superhumanistically transcends and overcomes its own selfish self-centered possessiveness. When this is accomplished through an ascetic program of self-denial, the Catholic Christian mystic finds himself able to heroically possessively treasure God primarily and his neighbor charitably, he enters into the very WISDOM OF LOVE which is not merely a wise love but wisdom’s very amorous loveliness. In experiencing subjectively such wisdom, the mystic’s sacrificial love of God and neighbor becomes intimately united with Christ’s very own Paschal Mystery.

The reason why the mystic at this stage of his pilgrimage toward God finds himself in such straits and suffering so much anguish and travail is that his possessive love and longing for God remains unfulfilled without any self-assurance and security that it will ever be fulfilled. That is, he lives in hope but not yet with that love which is perfectly the supernatural love of charity.

Verse 13: This verse marks the end of the Purgative phase of the mystic’s union with God and the beginning of the Illuminative stage. Up to this point the dialogue between the mystic as bride and Christ as groom has been conducted by the mystic himself from within the mystic’s own horizontal subjective religious experience of being experientially deprived of God’s transcendent presence. In this present verse, the dialogue shifts to the vertical objective order inasmuch as the mystic commences to have religious experiences of being experientially alive in God’s transcendent presence.

It must be noted again what has caused the severe suffering and anguish which has characterized the Purgative stage of the mystic’s pilgrimage to God. This suffering was occasioned by the mystic’s loss of his religious (i.e., zealous) bodily sensitive feeling and affectionate liking for God, on the one hand, and his loss of his religious (i.e., pious) mental intimate bearing and amorous caring for God. With the loss of these religious devotional feelings and bearings, the mystic no longer experiences any self-satisfying religious bodily stimulating righteous self-contentment as well as no self-vindicating religious mental pacifying righteous self-containment. His zeal for God has dried up and his mental serenity has given way to a restless disturbing anxiety. In other words, his love of God was not characterized as loving God with a pure heart and with an unstinted single-mindedness. His love was still mired in his own self-centered selfishness and religious self-attachment.

But, still the mystic has persevered in prayerful devotion to God throughout his mystical torments rooted in his supernatural faith and hope that God continues to be faithful to His promise to dwell in the mystic as in His own tabernacle. The long and seemingly interminable siege of the mystic’s “dark night” unexpectedly gives way to such bodily feelings and mental bearings of ecstatic piety and devotion that he finds himself in a new predicament. His inner intimate mental religious experiences are at odds with his outer bodily religious experiences. His bodily religious experiences expansively dilate and stimulate his body’s sensitivity and resonance while his mental religious experiences contractively concentrate and soothingly permeate the mind’s intimacy.

The body’s religious dilation inhibits the mind’s own religious contraction. Hence, the mystic cries out to have the body cease hampering the mystic’s mental selfhood from becoming intimately swallowed up and vanishing within Christ’s very own intimacy. So ecstatically entrancing is this intimate experience of Christ that the mystic becomes oblivious to the body’s sensational sensitivity. That is, the body seems to have become numb.

This rapturous love awakens the mystic to love God unselfishly under the unctuous influence of the Holy Spirit. That is, this love is fanned into a burning flame of love by the breath of the Holy Spirit. This burning love is experienced deeply within the innermost intimate recesses of the mystic’s willful mental selfhood as a combustible fire which burns up and purifies the mystic of the residue of any lingering selfishness. It is a flame that seeks to become increasingly more flammable. This love transforms the mystic’s self-centered love into the superhumanistic and superhumane generous selfless love of charity bearing the fruits of the Holy Spirit listed by St. Paul in the 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.

Verses 14 & 15: The bride here experiences and praises the groom’s sublime magnificence and grandeur. Here the mystic enters into a formal espousal (i.e., engagement) to God as a prelude to becoming completely and consummately wed to God in the final Unitive stage of his mystical journey. The mystic’s religious sufferings cease and are replaced with a sensitively sweet and intimately serene love.

These two verses are prototypical of the mystic’s experiential love for God. But, not every mystic will experience this love in the same manner. In these transports of love in which the mystic is himself embraced within the Trinitarian womb of God’s own Godhead, he experiences many supernal blessings with the following characteristics: an infinite abundance, inestimable riches, rest and recreation (i.e., refreshment & revitalization), secrets, hidden knowledge of God, God’s awesome power and strength, splendid spiritual (i.e., reverential) sweetness, gratification (i.e., exultation), intimate quietude and divine light (i.e., inspiration), God’s august wisdom manifest in His creation, the fullness of blessings, and a removal of all dehumanizing evils.

The bride experiences God as the eminence and infinitude of all that is attributable to God without reservation. That is, the mystic experiences that God is not merely good but Goodness itself; not merely wise but Wisdom itself; not merely lovely but Loveliness itself, etc.. Further, the mystic experiences that what is in God His very Goodness is identical with His very Wisdom, Loveliness, etc.. That is, the mystic experiences God as “my God and my All.”

It cannot be sufficiently emphasized or overstated that the mystic’s experience of these divine grandeurs is distinctively different from an intellectual grasp of these same grandeurs. Intellectually in terms of dogmatic theology the mystic’s understanding grasps God apart from and transcendent to the mystic himself. But, experientially in terms of mystical theology, the mystic’s experience of these same divine grandeurs is “as though” (i.e., in a metaphorical sense) the mystic himself were experientially full of these sublime divine grandeurs which transcendently are proper to God alone.

These marvelous and stupendous religious experiences of God are still not evidence of the actual marriage of the mystic with God which is the final Unitive stage in the mystic’s journey. The reason for this is that in this present Illuminative stage the mystic is still not completely yet purified and purged of his self-centered selfish religious attachments. Further, these ecstatic transports are only sporadic and not long lasting. And the mystic remains prone to experiencing the devil’s temptations and enticements luring him away from God.

Verse 16: The mystic is habitually at peace and mentally recollected and serene. The mystic’s greatest joy is to offer to God in one compound offering a spiritual bouquet of the many blessings, virtues, gifts, and spiritual enhancements he has experienced and received from God’s infinite and merciful generosity. It is for the mystic an exquisite joy to be able to return to God “love for love.”

To blunt and to interfere with this the devil still has access to the mystic’s sensuality and bodily sensitivity and emotional feelings through his manipulation of the mystic’s imagination. He afflicts the mystic with all manner of improper suggestive sensuous images. To ward off the devil’s assaults, the mystic has recourse to his guardian angel including all the host of angels beseeching them to be protected from the devil’s blandishments.

PRAISED BE JESUS CHRIST! NOW & FOREVER!

BLESSED BE MARY! NOW & FOREVER!

HONORED BE ST. JOSEPH! NOW & FOREVER!