We
meet Jesus' Passion and His Cross two times
It
is important to understand that in our life time, we are supposed to
meet the Lord's Passion, Crucifixion and Death (and Resurrection, it
goes without saying) twice. Of course, this is in case we fulfil all
our call to follow Jesus, if we realise the whole journey.
(Otherwise, some steps are “aborted”.) The two moments are quite
different. The first time is – we may say – an “ascending
moment”, toward the union with Jesus-God. So when we meet the
Passion, it is a fundamental purification time for us. The deepest
purification that prepares us for the Spiritual Betrothal and the
Spiritual Marriage. This purification is what S. John of the Cross
calls: “Dark night of the spirit”.
Note:
Let us remember the deep meaning of the “Spiritual Marriage”. It
is a deep and real “union with Jesus” who is God. It is something
that one has to really study, in order to understand the new synergy
that emerges from it, and constitutes it. Saint Paul says something
about it when he says: “it is not me who lives but Jesus who
lives in me”. Do we really understand what is to have Jesus
living in us? Do we know the exact proportion between “Jesus'
Spirit” (the Holy Spirit) and “us” in this synergy? Do we grasp
“how it works”? These are fundamental questions each Christian
should know, should study. Because this is the meaning of Baptism,
and it's first realisation (the Union with Jesus), this is the
meaning of our life on earth.
Jesus
lives in us, acts with us, through us. The merits of our acts are
His'. It is only by understanding the greatness of this spiritual
state that we can address the second part of the Spiritual Journey.
To my eyes it is a condition, otherwise we will make a very un
pleasant psychological projection.
While
the second time (that will usually come much after) we meet the
Passion of the Lord happens when we start to understand the “weight
of love” (as saint Augustine calls it), how it brings us down
toward the earth, toward our brothers, toward the “lower parts of
the earth” (see Isaiah 9:2), the people who are walking in the
darkness, waiting for their deliverance. Saint Thérèse of the Child
Jesus, in her Manuscript C mentions as well the “weight of Love”.
The
power of the Holy Spirit in us, starts to make us hear in a
much greater strength the voice of “those living in the land of
deep darkness” (Isaiah 9:2). So we “roll up our sleeves”
and start to lay down our life (see John 15:13), in the Hands of the
Holy Spirit who offers us (as a “lab” or “womb”) for our
brothers and sisters, where salvation can happen: “my
little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth
until Christ is formed in you!”
(Ga 4:19) says a man, saint Paul.
Here
is one of the best descriptions of the work of the Holy Spirit in
this crucial period of descent, when we meet again Jesus' Passion:
“Very truly I tell you, when you
were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when
you are old you will stretch out your hands, and Someone else will
dress you and lead you where you do not want to go”
(John 21:18).
It
deserves a commentary. “stretching
out our hands”... becoming,
because of spiritual marriage, so humble, and in total synergy,
docile under the Action of the Holy Spirit. “Someone
else”: the Holy Spirit.
Or
if you prefer, there is a more “symbolic” description: you get up
“from the meal”
of the Wedding (its joys, celebrations, enjoyment), like Jesus (see
Philippians 2) you “take off your
outer clothing”, you empty
yourself like Jesus, in Jesus (see Philippians 2), you “wrap
a towel around your waist”
(purified, and transformed, the Power of the Holy Spirit has much
greater grip over you), “After
that”
you “pour
water into a basin and begin to wash your friends' feet, drying them
with the towel that was wrapped around you”
(See John 13:4-5)
Great and deep description of what is offered to the bride of the
Lord. He truly made of her a “mother” for others.
The
two periods (I- ascent and II- descent) will probably be separated by
a “resting” time, an enjoyable time. We may call it a “honey
moon”. Right after the “spiritual marriage”, the soul needs to
rest a bit, after the deep radical toughness of the purification.
Spiritual growth continues, always, there are no limits in Love, in
the Action of the Holy Spirit.
So,
as we see, in a synthetical way, we have two journeys that end with
the Passion (see the Cross on the diagram). One ascending: the
purification, always deeper and deeper, and the other, descending:
the participation to the Passion of Jesus, for the sake of our
brothers.
“Dark
night” or “Participation to the Passion”
The
two are very different. The description made by the saints of each
spiritual stage might look the same (same words, same darkness, same
toughness, ...), and the bad trend today is to call anything that is
a bit tough a “dark night”. “Dark night” is an expression
taken from Saint John of the Cross (see his book called: “The dark
night”). It is a bad trend/fashion to do that because he is the one
who shaped that expression, and in his writings it has one main
meaning: purification (and not just any suffering).
You
can't then use that expression and apply it to what happens to the
soul when it is invited to “sit at the table of the sinners” (see
the Gospel when it is said that Jesus is sitting amongst the sinner
for a meal. It is an expression of saint Thérèse of the Child
Jesus, Manuscript C). You can't help in the purification process of
your brothers if you are not even in the Light yourself!! Totally
absurd! But the “spiritual literature” today is full of these
absurdities that some still call: spiritual theology.
Of
course, some small purifications will always continue to happen after
the Union with Jesus (Thérèse speaks about them, see Manuscript B,
the little bird), but the state of a human being is totally different
before the “great trial” of the great purification (end of the
ascending curve, meeting the Passion) and after it. By the "great
purification", the soul joins the group of the anawim, the poors of
spirit, lead by Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
So,
again: we meet the Cross, the Passion, in at least two main moments,
ascending and descending. But not in the same way, and not for the
same purposes.
One
should read the deep and correct analysis Father Louis Guillet ocd
made of Thérèse's so called “trial of faith”, in the end of
her life: “Gethsémani ou l'amour crucifié”. He obviously
reaches the “conclusion” that what she is going through can only
be a participation to the Passion of Jesus, and not the “dark night
of the spirit” as many still say.
The
“dark night of the spirit” happened much before in Thérèse's
life, just check her letters before early 1893. The years before, she
goes through something very tough: it is “the dark night of the
spirit”. We'll come back to that another day.
Just
enjoy the vision of the total shape of the spiritual journey.
