John of the Cross - The man



Rays of Hope - Likeliness

As the time is approaching for the starting of the Course on Saint of John of the Cross at St. Ignatius Church, quotes keep on coming to my email. According to the sender Tee Boon Wah,  bwtee@talisman-energy.com  this is the last quote before we head for the class this coming Saturday.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY 
John of the Cross became as it were an altar of pain where he offered himself as an holocaust of love.  John had one yearning in life and that is to love, to love beyond all measure.  He was convinced that this could be done only when we are courageous enough to brave pain and suffering.  

John was insistent that genuine love was patient and kind and endures everything.  He knew that it was the Lord who was guiding him through the path of pain, sufferings and misunderstandings to the peak of love.  He would therefore bless God and praise His Name and call this night of pain, “a sheer grace”, “a secret ladder”, “a guiding night”, “a night more lovely than dawn”, and “a night that unites the Lover with the beloved transforming the beloved in her Lover”.  

It was during the period of intense suffering in the prison that he wrote those beautiful poems which won him the title “Patron of Spanish Poets” in 1952.

During this period of ordeal sometimes it looked as if God had forsaken him and therefore he cried out:   "    Where have You hidden,  Beloved, and left me moaning?"

 But in fact God did not abandon him.  By means of these crosses, the Divine Guide was leading him to a newness of life in perfect love beyond all sense experience and rational understanding.  If John sought the loving God, the loving God sought him all the more and did not leave him till he was fully transformed into a new man. 

Extracted from “Transforming Flame”Author:  Gregory D’Souza OCD