SJC6 – Intense Certitude of Love – St. John of the Cross with Fr. Donald Haggerty – Discerning Hearts Podcast

The initial insecurity of a darkened experience in faith, advancing by unknowing, surely requires some adjustment and an assimilation. However, the insecurity need not continue interminably. The deliberate refusal of satisfaction for the intellect in prayer may be for a certain period of purification a radical austerity for the intellect. But the result in time can be to sense a door opening into a purer encounter with God himself. He who is infinite mystery in his being must be approached in the unknown truth of his infinitude as Someone known and loved. Intensity of faith accompanies the more intense love that unites us personally to God. As heard earlier in this chapter and worth repeating: “Only by means of faith, in divine light exceeding all understanding, does God manifest himself to the soul. The greater one’s faith, the closer is one’s union with God” (AMC 2.9.1). A pure, naked faith will come to know the presence of God in a more intense certitude of love. Every other sense of understanding God must be subjugated in prayer to the truth of God as the exceedingly Almighty One who is loved. In the following passage, Saint John of the Cross insists on the vigor of an intense desire needed for the pursuit of God precisely when our intellect in faith is submerged in an incomprehension of God’s ultimate mystery. This longer quotation conveys how narrow and serious is the road into the night of contemplation where a blessed contact with God awaits the depths of a soul in its prayer.

Haggerty, Donald. Saint John of the Cross: Master of Contemplation (pp. 78-79). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.