A PURE HEART
- Transformation of Desire
Union
with God
Carmelite spirituality has frequently been presented as a "high"
spirituality, a rarefied spirituality for the chosen few. It is
often presented as soaring ecstatic unions, or dramatic sufferings
more intense than the usual troubles in life. Images come to mind
of Bernini's statue of Teresa's "transverberation",
her vision of being pierced by a golden dart with all the accompanying
ecstasy and agony.
John of the Cross's stark drawing of Christ on the Cross, from
the perspective of the Father looking down on his crucified Son,
evokes the unremitting single-mindedness of the saint. Or one
thinks of John's drawing showing the way up Mount Carmel. The
paths of material and spiritual possessions do not reach the top;
only the middle path of the nadas opens to the top where
God is nada and todo (no thing, yet everything!).
Carmel seems to represent an heroic, even epic journey to God.
And it is only for experienced mountaineers who dare scale its
heights.
If the ascent of Mount Carmel is such an epic feat, what are we
ordinary Carmelites doing here? Do we sometimes feel we are guardians
of a tradition we have never really experienced? Do we feel that
we often are reporting second hand accounts of the land that is
Carmel, but have never really been there ourselves? As a result
of our transformation in love, "We become god!" John
of the Cross boldly proclaims. How rare is this divinisation celebrated
in our tradition?
An
awakening
John uses another image for the journey, besides travelling through
a night or climbing a mountain. He writes that "The soul's
centre is God" and that our journey in life is to that
centre. (15) But, instead of envisioning a distant centre requiring
an arduous journey, John says that even with one degree of
love we are in the centre! With one degree of desire, of yearning,
of hope, no matter how inarticulate, we are in the centre.
Our theology today reinforces John's observation. Strictly speaking,
there is no natural world. It is a graced world, from the beginning,
creation and redemption going hand in hand. In other words, our
lives are permeated with the loving, enlivening, healing presence
of God, uncreated grace. Instead of searching for a hidden centre,
the centre has come to us.
So, what is the journey? The journey, said John, is to go deeper
into God. But we are in union with God all the way; divinisation
is a continual process. So, the goal described by our Carmelite
authors is one taking place in each soul who only feebly desires
more.
"And now you awake in my heart, where in secret you dwelt
all along", wrote John of the Cross. But in his commentary
he corrects himself and says it was not "you"
who awoke, but it was I who awoke to the love always present and
continually offered me. This awakening, and the difference it
makes in a person's life, is Carmel's call. A conclusion we could
draw is that many, many Carmelites and certainly others as well
reach the so-called "heights" of Carmel. The heights
are approached, not when someone drops off their pew in a swoon,
but when a life more and more is expressing God's will.
To
want what God wants
The purpose of prayer is conformity with God's will, wrote Teresa
of Avila. The prayerful person is more and more in union with
God and this union is expressed in the individual more and more
wanting what God wants. We do not get tougher ascetically and
thereby wrestle our will into submitting to God's will. No, God's
love lures us into a transformation of our desire so that we desire
what God desires; we want what God wants. John reported, "What
you desire me to ask for, I ask for; and what you do not desire,
I do not desire, nor can I, nor does it even enter my mind to
desire it".(16)
Divinisation is the gradual participation is God's knowing and
loving. The pilgrim is so transformed that all their ways of living
become expressive of God's will. If we may interpret Jesus as
saying that God's will is the well-being of humanity, then the
prayerful person is more and more living in a way that furthers
that well-being. In other words, the transformed, divinised person
is living in a way which cooperates with God's present and coming
reign.
These people are hard to identify. Meister Eckhart warns us that
someone living from their centre very naturally lives in accord
with God's will. He says while others fast, they are eating; while
others keep vigil, they are asleep; and while others pray, they
are silent. After all, what is the purpose of the vigil, the prayer,
the fasting, if not to live out of the soul's centre, which is
God. Of course, he is exaggerating to make a point since our pilgrimage
is never finished this side of death. The point, I take it, is
the absolute humanness of the transformed person.
Teresa tells us that these people are not even continually conscious
of their spiritual life. Interiority becomes less and less an
object of focus. Not even God preoccupies them, because in all
the ways they are living they are expressing their relationship
with God. The goal was never to be a contemplative, or a saint,
or to have a spiritual life. The goal was always to want what
God wants, in a consonance of desire.
In the conclusion of the Carmelite Rule, Albert, Patriarch of
Jerusalem and the law-giver, writes "Here then are a few
points I have written down to provide you with a standard of conduct
to live up to; but our Lord, at his Second Coming will reward
anyone who does more than he is obliged to do".(17) Kees
Waaijman of the Brandsma Institute in Nijmegen sees this statement
as a clear allusion to the Good Samaritan story. The Carmelite
is placed in the role of innkeeper. His plans and orderly house
are upset when a stranger brings a beaten man to be cared for.
The stranger asks the innkeeper to take care of the beaten man,
and if the innkeeper incurs further expense, i.e. does more,
the stranger will compensate him when he returns.
The stranger, Christ, asks the Carmelite to take care of His people
in His absence. The guest is unexpected, the order of the house
is disturbed. But the innkeeper dutifully takes care of the wounded
person, perhaps without emotional investment or ego-involvement,
and maybe with very little satisfaction. Kees concludes that all
real giving is essentially dark. The Presence met deep in Carmelite
hearts is a night that guides, a flame that heals, an absence
that reveals.
Friars need make no apologies for not being true Carmelites. Our
spirituality is not about heroic asceticism; it is about God's
all-conquering love, a love that has touched every heart and made
it ache; otherwise we would not be here.
Realizing that we are naturally at home on the heights of Carmel,
or better, in the arms of God, and still always in need of God's
mercy, our spiritual ministry is to make available Carmel's tradition
to help our brothers and sisters "see" and "hear"
the presence of God in their own lives.
In order to tend this flame in others, it seems right that we
will have come to terms with it in our own lives. If we listen
to our hearts, we will know the hearts of the people with whom
we live and minister. Dust off any Carmelite vocation and you
will usually find a glowing ember waiting to be fanned into a
flame, a flame that yearns for wholeness, peace, security, joy,
unity and that finds its best expression in service of our brothers
and sisters. That is why we came. That is why we stay.
Summary
"Entering Carmel" is not simply a matter of entering
a building, joining a community, and taking on a ministry, whether
of prayer or apostolic mission. It is that, certainly, but "entering
Carmel" is also entering a drama playing out deep within
every human life. That drama of the human spirit encountered by
God's Spirit is essentially inexpressible.
Carmelites are explorers of an inner place of intimacy with God,
a fine point of the human spirit where it is addressed by Mystery.
Carmel honours that pristine, privileged relationship between
creature and Creator. Carmelite mystics have used bridal imagery
and, regularly, the love story of the Song of Songs to
capture the intimacy of this encounter. The landscape of the Song
begins to give shape to the "land of Carmel".
The purpose of prayer is conformity with God's will, writes Teresa
of Avila. In this relationship the desires of the pilgrim are
transformed so that more and more the life of a Christian is expressing
desires which are in accord with God's desire. If we may describe
the goal of God's desire as the well-being of humanity, then the
transformed Christian is living in a manner which naturally cooperates
with the reign of God.
Questions for reflection:
- Who are the truly holy people in my experience? What do they look like?
- Do I understand the spiritual life as an heroic ascent, or an awakening to a love always offered from the core of my being?
- Am I able to trust, in practical ways, that God's love is freely given, unable to be earned? Are there subtle ways I try to guarantee my worth?
- "Relax, it has been done!" said one theologian of grace. What might that expression mean?
