Daily Gospel Reflection – December 14, 2022
December 14, 2022
Memorial of Saint John of the Cross, Priest and Doctor of the Church
Gospel: Lk 7:18-23
Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people: “What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ The son said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and went. The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did his father’s will?” They answered, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the Kingdom of God before you. When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds and believe him.”
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, today we celebrate the memorial of the great Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross.
We find ourselves, St. John of the Cross taught, in the midst of a good and beautiful world, but we are meant finally for union with God. Therefore, the soul has to become free from its attachments to finite things so as to be free for communion with God.
This purification first involves what John called "the night of the senses" (the letting go of physical and sensual pleasures), and it continues with "the night of the soul" (a detachment from the mental images that one can use as a substitute for God).
Like all purifications, this one is painful, especially if one’s attachment to these finite things is intense. It will often manifest itself, John of the Cross said, as dryness in prayer and a keen sense of the absence and even abandonment of God.
In this process, God is not toying with the soul; rather, he is performing a kind of surgery upon it, cutting certain things away so that its life might intensify.
COMMENTS