Many people who practice prayer adopt a contrary approach. They seek their own gratification and satisfaction, rather than what is pleasing to God. To our surprise, perhaps, what is pleasing to God in our prayer may often contradict our own preference. What God desires especially is that we empty ourselves for love of him; nothing less and nothing more. Yet how difficult to accept this idea of prayer as a progress in self-emptying rather than a path of advancement in knowledge and experience of God. As Saint John of the Cross writes in this section, “I think it is possible to affirm that the more necessary the doctrine the less it is practiced by spiritual persons” (AMC 2.7.4). This “doctrine”, as it were, is the reality of the cross encountered, not just in trials in life, but in the purifying interior experiences of the life of prayer. If we forget that the cross is met not only in the exterior trials of life but in prayer itself, then we erect a barrier on the path to greater love for God. The identification with the Beloved who is the crucified Lord must be fully embraced in prayer itself if prayer is to advance in a genuine manner. The seeking of consolation is not just a fault and an indulgent weakness, but essentially a refusal to embrace the crucified Lord as the Beloved. The following words are a sharp rebuke to this tendency: “From my observations Christ is little known by those who consider themselves his friends. For we see them going about seeking in him their own consolations and satisfactions, loving themselves very much, but not loving him very much by seeking his bitter trials and deaths. I am referring to those who believe themselves his friends, not to those who live withdrawn and far away from him” (AMC 2.7.12).

‘Saint John of the Cross: Master of Contemplation’ written by Father Donald Haggerty