Valentines’ Day with St. John of the Cross

“After I have known it Love works so in me That whether things go well or badly Love turns them to one sweetness Transforming the soul in itself. And so in its delighting flame Which I am feeling within me, Swiftly, with nothing spared, I am wholly being consumed” – St. John of the Cross

Over the past couple of years, I have had a developing relationship with St. John of the Cross. In reading his poems and coming to an understanding of his spirituality, I have been realizing more and more that I so desire to relate to God the way he does.

In our world that is so charged with emotion, sometimes it is tempting to want to swing the pendulum in the other direction. As catechists, youth ministers, and leaders in our faith, we often emphasize reason and the intellectual side of the faith in order to combat the world’s “touchy feely” sentiments that are so enticing. St. John of the Cross certainly wrote about the dangers of letting your emotions run wild, and that when your faith was hanging on by a thread, it would be the intellect and the will that would keep us faithful.

Re-read that poem at the beginning. This poem is a reflection of the way that God was working through John’s affectivity, his “feels”. While we need to have an intellectual understanding of the faith, and we need our will to rise above emotions when they threaten to damage our faith, we need to be open to affectivity and feeling in our relationship with God.

God gave us emotions, and intends us to use them in order to experience the good. Philosopher and theologian Dietrich von Hildebrand writes in his book “The Heart”that in experiencing affectivity, we need to look at the reason behind why we are feeling emotion in order to experience it to the fullest extent. He writes, “The truly affective man is preoccupied with the good which is the source and basis of his affective experience. In loving he looks at the beloved; in happiness he directs his thoughts to the reason for his being happy; in his enthusiasm, he focuses on the value of the good to which the enthusiasm is directed.”

When we have joy, direct that joy to God, the source of joy. When we are anxious, call upon Jesus, who promised us that we would have nothing to be anxious about. When we feel alone and separated from God, seek the Holy Spirit, who we know dwells within us.

One fear that many people have expressed to me is this: Someone might have a “feely” religious experience and portray emotion towards God, but their faith goes out the window when the emotion is gone and life hits them with a ton of bricks. But John of the Cross writes “That whether things go well or badly”, he can feel himself being consumed by God’s living flame of love.

St. John of the Cross allowed himself to be transformed and changed by Love, and felt the very real presence of God scorching away the parts of him that did not yet belong to God.

Today, on Valentines’ Day, I invite you all to turn your eyes to Jesus. Ask God to let you feel Him. God wants to change and transform us, and He wants us to give Him our WHOLE selves, our affectivity included, to do with what He will. 

Originally posted on Ablaze Ministries’ blog on 2/11/2014