5 — THE WAY OF NOTHINGNESS

Presence of God. — Show me, O Lord, the narrow way that leads to true life, that leads to union with You.

Meditation

1 — If you want to enter decisively upon the way of total detachment, the only one that leads securely to union with God, you must “lay the axe to the root of the tree,” that is, you must strike and uproot the root of your attachments, and this is the unruly tendency to enjoy, that is, to seek your satisfaction in yourself, in your self-love, or in creatures. You were truly created to enjoy, but instead of going beyond yourself and things to reach God, instead of using creatures to ascend to the Creator, you stop to seek your happiness in them. You stop there with disordered affection and thus, for a crumb of satisfaction, you bind your heart to earth and make yourself incapable of reaching union with God, who is the only source of true happiness. The disordered tendency to enjoy is precisely what, instead of fixing your desires and affections in God, turns them toward creatures. Here is the root of every one of your attachments, however small.

To mortify this unruly tendency to the very end, St. John of the Cross teaches you to “renounce any sensible pleasure that is not purely for the glory and honor of God; and remain empty of it for love of Jesus Christ, who in this life had no and sought no satisfaction other than fulfilling the will of the Father” (A. I, 13, 4). The Saint does not claim that you should live without the least taste or the least satisfaction - which is impossible, since man is created for happiness - but he teaches you to renounce all those satisfactions that do not please God and instead to place your tastes and your satisfaction only in fulfilling God’s will, in pleasing Him, in giving Him glory. Exactly as Jesus lived, who could say: “I always do what pleases My Father” (Jn. 8, 29).

2 — If that way of acting or speaking satisfies your self-love, but you understand that it cannot please God, you must renounce it; if that conversation, that friendship, that comfort gives you pleasure, but you doubt that it gives pleasure to God, you must leave it; if your will urges you to do something that, even slightly, is contrary to the will of God, you must abstain. These are the cases in which St. John of the Cross repeats without reticence: nothing, nothing, nothing.

Nothing to the satisfactions of pride or selfishness, nothing to the satisfactions of the senses and not even to those of spirit or self-will, when they are not in accord with the will of God. There is only one choice: either to live for self or to live for God.

If you, even in small things, act for the selfish satisfaction of your ego, you will never be able to live totally for God. If, for example, you do not want to renounce the satisfaction of venting your wounded self-love with some impatience or ill temper toward your neighbor, it is clear that you prefer to act to satisfy your ego rather than to please God, who obviously loves only virtue and never defect.

In short, you must always replace the tendency to seek your own satisfaction with the tendency to seek God’s satisfaction and pleasure. It is precisely in this sense that St. John of the Cross proposes detachment to you: not as an end in itself, but as a means to unite you with God; not to leave you in emptiness, but to fling you into God. This is always the line given us by Jesus. “Deny yourself,” He tells you; but why? In order to go after Him, to follow Him until you are perfectly united to Him. The end is union; the way is self-denial or total detachment, and we must not forget that it is precisely of this way that Jesus said: “narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leads to life” (Mt. 7,13).

Colloquy

“O Lord, You created me for Yourself, to love and enjoy You, infinite Good, ineffable Beauty; do not permit, then, that I deviate from the sublime end assigned to me by You, losing myself among the wretched satisfactions that vain and passing creatures can offer me.

“O my Lord, how badly I have used creatures! Forgive me, O Lord! I never again want to make use of anything except for Your glory and according to Your most holy will, imitating the example of Your Son Jesus:

“O my God, if in the past I turned away from You who are my Principle, my End and my supreme Good, if I turned toward myself and creatures, preferring their and my wills to Yours, behold now, I swear to You that I want to renounce, forever and entirely, the world and myself, converting and giving myself, wholly and forever, to You. O my God, I give myself to You as to my Principle: take total possession of me, that I may remain always in You. And may You be the principle and end of all my actions. O my God, I give myself to You as to my End, as to my Center, and as to my supreme Good. Draw me to You. May I tend continually to You, and may You always be all my delight, all my glory, all my treasure and my all” (St. John Eudes).

O Lord, teach me to use things, to deal with creatures with purity of intention, without wanting to draw from them any selfish satisfaction.

“It seems too rigid to require me not to seek satisfaction in anything. But why is it not likewise said to me that such a method procures joy, consolation, and security even in this life?” (T.G. Cam. 12, 3). Yes, O Lord, I understand Your word. I shall have to renounce my own will, so many little personal satisfactions; but in exchange I shall have the joy of doing Your will, of pleasing and giving satisfaction to You, my God, who are my All.