Saint john of the Cross places great importance in particular on the exercise of the will in the purification of so-called inordinate feelings. What he means by feelings are the passiins of the soul, which, if uncontrolled or regularly indulged, cause constant turbulence and disruption in our lives. The reason is that the passions, if not tempered, cling heavily to the will and weigh down the three operations of the will. No deeper interiority with God can be maintained Without a discipline of the passions. These feelings, if not governed by an exercised strength of the will, tend to dominate a life by cleaving oppressively to the will, influencing its desires, its choices, and its pursuit of delights. The passions can lead us to continual instability in the spiritual life, including the life of prayer. In the treatment of Saint John of the Cross, there are four primary passions or feelings: joy, hope, sorrow, and fear. The challenge is to rule these passions in such a manner that “a person rejoices only in what is purely for God’s honor and glory, hopes for nothing else, feels sorrow only about matters pertaining to this, and fears only God” (AMC 3.16.2). That statement in itself presents an immensely difficult demand. But the result of exercising or not exercising a control over these passions and directing them toward God is consequential: “When these emotions are unbridled they are the source of all vices and impertections, but when they are put in order and calmed they gave rise to all the virtues” (AMC 3.16.5).

–“Saint John of the Cross: Master of Contemplation” Fr. Donald Haggerty

“Supernatural union exists when God’s will and the soul’s are in conformity, so that nothing in the one is repugnant to the other. When the soul rids itself completely of what is repugnant and unconformed to the divine will, it rests transformed in God through love. … A soul makes room for God by wiping away all the smudges and smears of creatures, by uniting its will perfectly to God’s; for to love is to labor to divest and deprive oneself for God of all that is not God. When this is done the soul will be illuminated by and transformed in God.” (Ascent of Mount Carmel)

Saint John of the Cross will teach repeatedly a particular lesson that must be mastered over time. The refusal to give into the desire for the gratification of the appetites is the underlying principle that must motivate all practices of self-denial. Deprivation of the senses has value only inasmuch as it purges and purifies the will in its craving and coveting for immediate satisfactions. The goal is a nakedness of desire, a poverty of desire, so that interior desire is consumed, instead, with an intense longing for God. Desire does not die like a fire with no fuel to feed it; rather, it becomes a concentrated fire of greater desire that can be directed to God and his pleasure. Self-denial of all kinds can pave this inner transformation. –Saint John of the Cross: Master of Contemplation