Maxims from Saint John of the Cross
Reproduced with permission from "God Is A
Feast" by Fr Pius Sammut, OCD,
which uses the ICS Publications translation.
4. It is better to be burdened and in company with the strong, than to
be unburdened and with the weak. When you are burdened you are close to God,
your strength, who abides with the afflicted. When you are relieved of the
burden you are close to yourself, your own weakness; for virtue and strength
of soul grow and are confirmed in the trials of patience.
12. God desires the smallest degree of purity of conscience in you more than
all the works you can perform.
13. God desires the least degree of obedience and submissiveness more than
all those services you think of rendering him.
14. God values in you the inclination to dryness and suffering for love of
him more than all the consolations, spiritual visions, and meditations you
could possibly have.
15. Deny your desires and you will find what your heart longs for. For how
do you know if any desire of yours is according to God?
19. The soul that in aridity and trial submits to the dictates of reason
is more pleasing to God than one that does everything with consolation, yet
fails in this submission.
20. God is more pleased by one work, however small, done secretly, without
desire that it be known, than a thousand done with the desire that people
know of them. Those who work for God with purest love not only care nothing
about whether others see their works, but do not even seek that God himself
knows of them. Such persons would not cease to render God the same services,
with the same joy and purity of love, even if God were never to know of these.
23. Those who do not allow their appetites to carry them away will soar in
their spirit as swiftly as the bird that lacks no feathers.
24. The fly that clings to honey hinders its flight, and the soul that allows
itself attachment to spiritual sweetness hinders its own liberty and
contemplation.
26. The very pure spirit does not bother about the regard of others or human
respect, but communes inwardly with God, alone and in solitude as to all
forms, and with delightful tranquility, for the knowledge of God is received
in divine silence.
27. A soul enkindled with love is a gentle, meek, humble, and patient soul.
40. Bear in mind that your flesh is weak and that no worldly thing can comfort
or strengthen your spirit, for what is born of the world is world and what
is born of the flesh is flesh. The good spirit is born only of the Spirit
of God, who communicates himself neither through the world nor through the
flesh.
49. If you wish to attain holy recollection, you will do so not by receiving
but by denying.
50. Going everywhere, my God, with you, everywhere things will happen as
I desire for you.
54. It is not God's will that a soul be disturbed by anything or suffer trials,
for if one suffers trials in the adversities of the world it is because of
a weakness in virtue. The perfect soul rejoices in what afflicts the imperfect
one.