Some years ago, the Swedish Discalced Carmelite Cardinal Anders Arborelius OCD led a retreat — a time of silence and reflection — in which he highlighted the poetry and thought of Saint John of the Cross (1542–1591) on the path toward personal holiness. This Spanish saint is both the nation’s patron and its national poet — a kind of Catholic counterpart to Runeberg.
Cardinal Arborelius, the only Nordic cardinal in the history of the Catholic Church, regards John of the Cross as one of the foremost guides to the spiritual life, both then and now. His teachings, the cardinal says, touch every believer who senses that there is something deeper and greater than what today’s neoliberal consumer society has to offer. And this insight, he adds, also applies to those who do not believe. Saint John of the Cross writes:
“Where did you find the refuge, my Beloved, who leaves me in tears?
You fled from me like the hart that wounds before it flees;
my cry ran after you, but none could trace your path.”
(Spiritual Canticle)
According to the cardinal, this verse can be profoundly healing and edifying — and therefore a valuable spiritual experience — when we realize that everything we encounter in life, our vulnerable disappointments, our emptiness and our deserts, all speak of the fact that we are on our way toward a fuller meeting, the day when the Lord will take possession of us: the personal encounter with Jesus Christ after our own death.
He observes that everything we meet along life’s way is too small for us. It can never satisfy or fill our hearts. That is why we so often feel a kind of restlessness, a searching, a longing that is never fulfilled. We ask ourselves: what am I filling my life with, to numb my longing, my vulnerability, the wounded sense of being unfinished?
The awareness of our weakness is vitally important. According to Saint John of the Cross, we must keep alive our longing to meet Christ. We must believe that he truly meets us also in our poverty, emptiness, and disappointment when life has not turned out as we imagined. The people we met did not meet our expectations. We did not get the work we hoped for.
We must trust that this is God’s work within us, even if at first we see only our own weaknesses and falsehood. This, after all, is how God works. The essence of Christianity is to let God do the work for us — and our part is simply to allow it, says the cardinal. We often forget that salvation is something painful, something that cuts deeply into us. Whatever happens in our lives, it is God at work, saving us. Sometimes we forget this and wish we were something other than what we are.
God’s will for us is simple: we are to help one another, live in mutual love, and build a world pleasing to God. This happens through other people. It is the mystery of the Catholic Church: we are called to perfect union of love between God and humanity. Everything that prevents this must be purified away, the cardinal emphasizes. This happens through all of life’s small and great trials.
Our great temptation is not to believe that God is present where we are, and that he is even now setting us free. That is how we can reach the great union of love with him. To keep the flame of faith alive is the most important thing for us. Even longing for him is a grace. We often discover it the other way around: we feel that something is missing, that there is a void, a desert, dryness, emptiness, unpleasant people. But precisely in this we meet Christ.
The cardinal notes that no matter how hard we try, we will always wound one another. The closer we come to another person, the more we hurt them. At HUS Kivelä Hospital in Helsinki, a sign on the wall reads: “Even your nearest can hurt you.” One marries and thinks one is marrying a dream prince or princess. But one day one discovers that one has married a difficult person — and then the wounding begins. Yet it is precisely then that love can deepen. The wounds we inflict on one another make us more dependent on Christ’s love and his salvation. In truth, our whole earthly pilgrimage is a desert, but we are on the way to the promised land. At times the journey is pleasant, but the same divine love also burns in order to cleanse us from all impurity, from deep-seated selfishness, self-satisfaction, self-pity, complacency, and the urge to exalt ourselves. Saint John of the Cross writes in The Spiritual Canticle: “Why do you hide from me?”
The cardinal reminds us that we are not puppets with God pulling all the strings. Yet he helps us to receive even another blow, to endure what comes. Nothing is so freeing as turning the other cheek, says Cardinal Anders Arborelius. He observes that in God’s kingdom we do not grow greater, but smaller, poorer, and more stripped of self. We learn to accept our limitations. Here on earth we must constantly be purified and saved. There is always something within us that needs healing, cleansing, and transformation. That is why it hurts. Time and again we must learn this. And we seldom believe it precisely when things are at their worst.
Saint John of the Cross never leaves us in peace. We must move forward. The Spirit, the living flame of love, never leaves us in peace. And that is, in fact, our happiness: life never becomes quite as comfortable as we had imagined. Saint John of the Cross was the most unrelenting of saints — and a Doctor of the Church — while also one of the most beloved. This is his mystery: to help others without clinging to anything along the way.
Cardinal Anders Arborelius ends with a verse from The Spiritual Canticle:
“I find the mountains empty and see no one, the river has fled the guest;
I pluck no flower, I fear no lair of beasts;
I cross beyond border, wall, and fortress.”
Jan-Peter Paul