Thoughts on Bp. Vasa's e-Column

Bishop Vasa quotes the first encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI:

The element of agape thus enters into this love, for otherwise eros is impoverished and even loses its own nature. (Part I, 7, Deus Caritas Est, Encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI)

which continues with:

On the other hand, man cannot live by oblative, descending love alone. He cannot always give, he must also receive. Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift.

This demonstrates a difficulty of English. Give and receive love? what are we speaking of? Charity? Piety? Diligence? It is hard to know, and that is poverty of our language. But we are not destitute, as we have the mystical tradition of St. John of the cross, which I think helps us understand what is going on here, and how it applies both to the vocation of marriage, abd religious life, all of which image an aspect of the heavenly marriage God has made with man. As I dare to tread where angels tremble, have patience with me, and may God grant me the words to be of help to you for love of Him.

our beloved Holy Father alludes to the fact that sensitive love, or eros, sought for its own sake, destroys itself. St. John of the Cross, if I understand his mystical insight (and who really does?), describes the dark night of the soul as the withdrawal of all of the sensitive love which initially accompanies us in our search for union with God; in other words, if our love for God has any hint of self-love, the desire for the gifts of God, or even if pure, the gifts, the sensitive aspect of our relationship with God will be dried up and eliminated. At that point, if we continue, we do so because it is God we seek, if we break off, it is because we sought His gifts rather than Him. We proceed, walking by faith, with full trust in Him, but without the consolations which we once received. In other words, we do as He says, be it through his Holy Word in Sacred Scripture, or as the Church, His body directs, or in obedience to our state in life, or even in accepting his Will of good pleasure as revealed by events. But we do so for no other reason than He wills it, and that He has said that "those who love me will keep my commandments." In this time the cross becomes the signal standard to remind us that sometimes when all appears lost, victory is close.

Private revelations, raptures, ecstacies, tears, transports, and other mystical experiences are good, but they are not Faith, which is the evidence of things unseen. and without Faith, we cannot please God. Thus, even if our precious and beloved Lord gives these things, and they are wonderful things, St. John of the Cross tells us that He always withdraws them.

Here is where I'd like to make the connection between the Divine espousal and spiritual marriage with Jesus experienced by the saints, and the vocation of the sacrament of marriage. As the holy souls, such as Ss. John of the Cross, Catherine of Sienna, and Rose of Lima, attained a relationship with Jesus in this life that touches on that which will be obtained by the rest who make it to heaven, thus consisting in spiritual consolations and delights; the vocation of marriage, an image and type and figure of the heavenly marriage, has it's consolations and delights.

If you've followed me this far, and can see this with the eye of your intellect as well as the heart, I have communicated at least a part of what I hope to say here, and may God be praised and assist me further. If I have not, then may God forgive me for being inadequate for the task.

Now regardless of the purity of love with which one enters into marriage, the evidence would seem to suggest that God permits and arranges that the same thing happens as with those who seek an espousal with Him; that the consolations and delights which are initially so bountiful are gradually diminished and withdrawn.

Now the world attempts to tell us that this is because love has died, and thus the marrige is taken to court and declared legally dead, and the body is severed into it's parts. Yet Jesus has said that what God has joined together, let no man put assunder, and He certainly has provided the grace to make marrige successful? So what gives?

What has happened is a purification. For whatever reasons marriage was entered into, those reasons contained the aspect of receiving, and love cannot be purified until it is willing to give without immediate recompense; recompense being promised as a deferred payment. Father Morse Later used to say that he had married thousands of young couples, none of whom really loved each other; they simply suffered from a glandular disorder. But at the 50th anniversaries, ah, he then saw many who did!

The dark night of the soul, a phrase popularized by St. John of the Cross, but generally miss-understood, I think has it's analog in just this aspect of the sacrament of marriage. It makes sense that it should, for the husband is to the wife as Christ is to the Church. St. John of the Cross tells us that the period of dryness is followed by a superabundance (although Bl Teresa of Calcutta's experience contradicts this); and generally in marriage this is the case as well, for if two are willing to give without demanding receiving, when love is purified the consolations and delights will be greater at the end than in the beginning.

At the beginning of this, I mentioned religious; so to complete my thoughts I will try and fold this in as well. The insight of this connection came from reading the book Rooted in God: The Essence of Christian Perfection, which is a transcription of the late Father Kevin Wall, O.P.’s conferences given to a group of Dominican nuns (in the 1950s?). In this, while he was not exactly speaking of St. John of the Cross' dark night of the soul, he did approach it slightly different, and this is where the connection to marriage comes in. Almost casually, Fr. Wall makes the observation that whatever the motivation that brings a religious to take vows and enter an order, it is only when all of what they come in with is stripped away and they have nothing, that they are ready to be taught! This is fascinating, because it is so similar to the spouse who is finally ready to love without expecting return.

It is my suspicion, fueled by observation and prayer for priests, that the same sort of thing perhaps happens to the secular clergy, that a point is reached where all the motivations and aspirations which brought one into the clergy are stripped away by the hammering tides of parish life; I can easily imagine that being spiritual father to a family of dozens, hundreds, even thousands of needy children of God will in time bring even the most generous soul to his spiritual knees, so to speak, in his own version of the dark night. In this I learned much from Fr. Later, cantankerous as he was, who willed to love, God rest his beloved soul.

And here is where the spiritual euthanasia occurs; if in the dark night; be it in what ever vocation one is in, no one is there when it is the right time, as Fr. Wall says, to teach, the path is abandoned, or another teacher sought. How many married souls have hit this point, and declared the patient, their marriage, dead, and killed it just as it was ready to be born? How many hopefull souls have entered religion, and just as they were ready to be formed into the image of Christ, were instead turned to the world?

forgive my boldness for entering into this speculation. One can almost unite oneself to Jesus on the cross for the repentance of the sinner which will cause great rejoicing in heaven, but to do so for the sinner who will not, herein seems to lie the key. Lord help us to walk in your Way.