Yesterday we were in Spain. Today we shall linger there a little longer because the person for our inspiration is none other than John of the Cross. A brief biography will make up the first part of the homily. A more comprehensive biography is easily accessible through the internet. What is of interest to us are some of the details of his life which are relevant to the sanctity which he models for us. This will be the second part of the homily.John was born Juan Yepes in 1542 to a poor Jewish convert family near Avila. He learnt the importance of self-sacrificing love from his parents. His father gave up wealth, status, and comfort when he married a weaver's daughter and was disowned by his noble family. After his father died, his mother kept the destitute family together as they wandered homeless in search of work. When the family finally found work, John still went hungry in the middle of the wealthiest city in Spain. At fourteen, John took a job caring for hospital patients who suffered from incurable diseases and madness. He came into contact with the new order of the Society of Jesus but it was into the Carmelites that he entered. He took the name John of St Matthias. He was ordained when he was only 25 years old. He was disposed towards solitary and silent contemplation and indicated his desire to join the Carthusians order. However, he met St Teresa of Avila (Santa Teresa de Jesus) and that was to change the course of his life.
Saint Teresa of Avila asked him to help her reform the Carmelite movement. John supported her belief that the order should return to its life of prayer—a return to the primitive rule. But many Carmelites felt threatened by this reform, and some members of John's own order kidnapped him. He was locked in a cell six feet by ten feet and beaten three times a week by the monks. There was only one tiny window high up near the ceiling. It was within this narrow confine that he had many mystical experiences of God’s closeness. After nine months, John escaped by unscrewing the lock on his door and creeping past the guard. Taking only the mystical poetry he had written in his cell, he climbed out a window using a rope made of strips of blankets. With no idea where he was, he followed a dog to civilisation. He hid from pursuers in a convent infirmary where he read his poetry to the nuns. From then on his life was devoted to sharing and explaining his experience of God's love.
The followers of Ss John and Teresa differentiated themselves from the unreformed by calling themselves the “discalced”, that is, the barefooted as opposed to the “calced” Carmelites. He died in 1591, was canonised in 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII and declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XI in 1926. He is called the Mystical Doctor.
St John of the Cross provides some points of reflexion for us today. First point is about a cynical response to life. Second, the experience of his imprisonment highlights the reality of structural sin. Third, how do we know that we are doing God’s will?
Firstly, life’s many vicissitudes have a way of reducing us into cynics. To those who are involved with the Church, this is a grave danger. Many of us have this illusion that those who preach holiness are the ones who should live holiness. But, the Pharisees are our first teachers. Christ criticised their hypocrisy because their actions did not match their words. However, our response to hypocrisy is often a heart coarsened by cynicism. Cynics are actually hurt idealists. In St John we see the contrary. His mprisonment by his Carmelite brothers did not harden his heart. Instead, it gave birth to a compassionate mystic. He asked a pointed question: "Who has ever seen people persuaded to love God by harshness?" and "Where there is no love, put love -- and you will find love." This leads us to the reality of structural sin, which is the second point.
Imagine the Carmelites Order and this young upstart reforming friar. The Carmelite friars thought that they were in the right when they imprisoned him, thinking that John’s reform disturbed the status quo. Mob mentality is no respector of status or even intelligence. So, the idea that religious life should embody everything that is of God is disabused by our long Catholic history of reform as we witness the different tides of reform that took place simply because of corruption that had crept into religious life. [1]
Long before Liberation Theology popularised the term “structural sin”, the Church already had reformers who understood the need for structures to be reformed. The Benedictine family is a great testament with their reforms: the Cluniac, the Cistersian, the Camadolese and the Trappist reforms. The Franciscans too gave us the Capuchins as one of their reforms and from the Capuchins, there is a renewal in the form of the Community of the Friars of the Renewal. Both Ss John of the Cross and Teresa de Jesus took the same path of reforming the Carmelite Friars and Nuns by embracing their primitive and stricter rules. What this says to us is this: that structures need reform because it is made up of sinful people. Structures in themselves are neutral. What make structures sinful are sinful people. And we all know the stubbornness of sin. Today’s Gospel is proof of the collective resistance to conversion. The people when pointed out their faults were indignant and they hustled Jesus out of town intending to throw Him off the cliff.
Thus, personal conversion is fundamental for any structural change. Change of structure does not guarantee that people will change. The change of state governments after the last election is a good example. Sinful structures are often protected by sinful men.
Finally, that we believe that we are doing God’s work is no guarantee that we cannot err. The detritus of history is proof enough. The more we feel inspired, the more we need to be humble. If a person feels that he or she has this fool-proof plan that God has communicated to him or her about a vision of how things are to be, it helps to think that the Devil can appear as an angel of light. The more I am convinced that I have the truth, the more I ought to be wary of the Devil’s intention. Furthermore, it is useful to know this difference: when we are persecuted, it does not mean that we are doing God’s work. It is easy to fall into this temptation when our inspiration meets opposition, that we are being persecuted for doing God’s will. Often, we are also the cause of people’s resistance.
However, what is true is the contrary. When we embark upon God’s work, we will be persecuted. The difference is very subtle. Why? There are a lot of times when we are opposed or persecuted simply because we are doing our own thing, we have an agenda, etc. But, if we persist in God’s work, know that the path will be difficult. And, only time can tell if our inspiration is of God and the only way forward is humility and deep faith in God. If I am mightily convinced that what I am doing is God’s will, then let my humility be even greater because I am nothing more than a servant and secondly God’s enterprise cannot be stopped.
Finally, I leave you with an inspiration of St Ignatius, a contemporary of St John of the Cross, whose humility teaches us an important lesson. There was a Cardinal named Giovanni Carafa who was really opposed to the founding of the Society of Jesus. He had founded his own so-called society of priests, called the Theatines. He felt that the ideals of the Society of Jesus were similar to his priestly order and was of the opinion that anyone who wanted to be a Jesuit should join the Theatines instead. As fate would have it, Carafa was elected Pope Paul IV. St Ignatius was reputed to have trembled when he heard that news. He was asked what he would do if the Pope were to suppressed the Society of Jesus. Ignatius’ answer was simply this: “I would spend 15 minutes in prayer and I will think nothing of it after”.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Just as an aside, the health of the Church can be measured by the health of religious life. The Preface of Virgins and Religious gives a clue to why I make this assertion. It says: Today we honour your saints who consecrated their lives to Christ for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. What love you show us as you recall mankind to its first innocence, and invite us to taste on earth the gifts of the world to come. If anything, religious life is to be the embodiment of the eschatological community to come. They are to reflect, by their love, what the new earth is to be like. If you like, if you see religious life, you see heaven—as taste on earth of the gifts of the world to come. Religious life is a form of beatific vision granted not to mystics but rather to those who are caught very much in time and space. However, the truth is religious life is often hell and there is no greater scandal and a source of cynicism than brothers or sisters in religious life fighting it out. However, this is where grace comes in. Where human efforts fail, we must continually turn to God to tame the pride that separates us. The making of a religious community is truly a work of grace and not of our machination. It can only be crafted from humility and conversion.
