Let's get back to the beginning of the conference [Chapter Two]. So then they ask this question:
"So
then we asked this Blessed Daniel, why it was that as we sat in the
cells we were sometimes filled with the utmost gladness of heart
together with inexpressible delight and abundance of the holiest
feelings so that I will not say speech but even feeling could not
follow." See, that is the concupiscentias spiritus, this is
what we all desire and this is what we assume, this is the way it ought
to be: this is it! And Cassian would that say that as well. "And pure prayers were readily breathed, and the mind being filled with
spiritual fruits, praying to God even in sleep could feel that its
petitions rose lightly and powerfully to God." See, that's the way we all want to be. "and again, why is it that for no reason we were suddenly filled with
the utmost grief, and weighed down with unreasonable depression, so that
we not only felt as if we ourselves were overcome with such feelings,
but also our cell grew dreadful, reading palled upon us, aye and our
very prayers were offered up unsteadily and vaguely, and almost as if we
were intoxicated". Do you recognize the symptoms? "so that while we were groaning and endeavouring to restore ourselves to
our former disposition, our mind was unable to do this, and the more
earnestly it sought to fix again its gaze upon God, so was it the more
vehemently carried away to wandering thoughts by shifting aberrations
and so utterly deprived of all spiritual fruits, as not to be capable of
being roused from this deadly slumber even by the desire of the kingdom
of heaven, or by the fear of hell". So, in other words, they had their troubles.
So,
there's the problem. Well, now, the way Cassian treats this, or the
way Abbot Daniel treats it, he tells them first the causes of this, the
immediate causes, what promotes this sort of thing, and, then, by
showing what this is for, he leads into this thing that we were just
talking about, this concept of a balance, of a purity of heart, of a
freedom, an enlightened freedom that stands in between these two things
[carnal desires and spiritual desires]. The thing that he says, the
thing that he makes clear, is that it is through suffering these things,
through this question of being pulled this way and that you learn, by
the grace of God, that you learn to maintain the balance in the middle.
So, therefore, what he is saying is that the purpose of trial is to
purify our hearts and bring us to this balanced and enlightened
condition. I think this is very practical.
Then
he goes into the three causes, these are these immediate causes, and
one of them is negligence. Obviously if my mind is slack I am going to
be pulled in all directions. Another is impunatio diaboli, an attack,
. . . he pushes you in all directions. Then, finally, dispensatio Domini, . . .the
way God disposes, the way God provides. Which of these is the most
important? The third one, so that's the one Cassian is going to study.
So the next time you find yourself dragged in all directions by
concupiscentias carnes et spiritus and so forth, realize that this is
something that is part of God's plan for your purification. That's what
we were saying yesterday, you have to take a constructive view of
this, you have to work with this. So God causes us to be tried, or God
allows us to be tried. This is a very good thing and we should be glad
that God allows us to be tried because it has a very good purpose. He
causes, as they say, desolation in the spiritual life. Everybody seems
to recognize this phenomenon, everybody knows exactly what we are
talking about.
(This is from Conference IV of Saint John Cassian, Chapters 2 through 3)
It really is great to sit in one's cell and bliss out. Been there, done that, but, then, all dries up. Every time. I like what Cassian says at the end of Chapter 4: "For men are generally more careless about keeping whatever they think can be easily replaced." I never thought I was careless yet it is a helpful way of looking at it because when the bliss comes I forget the source and that it is a gift.
Yes, the consolation of bliss once the spiritual journey is underway is rare. Instead, we get "trials", day after day after day. These trials "purify us" by helping us build up our "balance muscles". Our temptations are to look for consolation rather than do the work of learning to balance our desires.
I think the path is through the Cross, the path of trials, because then as I follow that path
I am purified. I don't attempt to appease my appetite for spiritual fervor, I practice the charismatic and the contemplative in an integrated way because
all the time that I am on that path I am suffering redemptively rather than straying into bondage. JPII
talks about "freeing freedom" and I think this is it, to stay on the
path of the Cross, regardless of the source of the trials, as it frees me ("redeems me") to maintain this
balance. That's really what the covenant promises (and vows) help us to
do, to practice suffering redemptively through voluntary trials. We can then more and more
integrate the apparent opposites and avoid the temptations to the fervor
that tempts us to allow ourselves to get dragged off the path, and, thus we are ever more free to love.
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