Interesting Quote

[PHSshamrock]

“Reveal Your presence,
And let the vision and You beauty kill me.
Behold the malady
Of love is incurable
Except in Your presence and before Your face.”

-St. John of the Cross

I’m interested in hearing what you guys think of/ get out of this quote.

 

[Patrick1540]

“Reveal Your presence,
And let the vision and You beauty kill me.
Behold the malady
Of love is incurable
Except in Your presence and before Your face.”

-St. John of the Cross

I’m interested in hearing what you guys think of/ get out of this quote.

I think it’s to God’s pure love,Holy Fire, that mortal man, can not be in the presence of the Father, and live.That is why we had the Word of God in the flesh “Emmanuel” God with us. Through the Catholic Church in the Eucharist we get his presence of love and live.That perfect Love of God sacrificing God to himself, so we may be worthy of his love for us and presence in the second person of the Trinity,Jesus Christ. Any way that is how I take it.
God Bless

 

[exquisitor]

“Reveal Your presence,
And let the vision and You beauty kill me.
Behold the malady
Of love is incurable
Except in Your presence and before Your face.”

-St. John of the Cross

I’m interested in hearing what you guys think of/ get out of this quote.

"Reveal Your presence,
And let the vision and You beauty kill me

Reveal your presence O my Lord, hidden in all souls both saints and sinners, and may the vision of your beauty by my death to all temptations of the flesh. How I long to leave this physical form to see you my God in the Glory of Heaven.

Behold the malady
Of love is incurable
Except in Your presence and before Your face."

For my malady which is to seek your presence and to love you always, has no other cure than you my beloved Lord, and In the kingdom of Heaven I will gaze upon your sacred Face with an eternal love.

 

[fhansen]

“Reveal Your presence,
And let the vision and You beauty kill me.
Behold the malady
Of love is incurable
Except in Your presence and before Your face.”

-St. John of the Cross

I’m interested in hearing what you guys think of/ get out of this quote.

In God’s presence (when He reveals Himself) we melt. We’re still ourselves and yet* He* then becomes our full focus-nothing else matters due to the sheer ecstasy of the experience. We can’t help but pursue love and the happiness it brings but, once shown, we know it’s only attainable in His presence. And then we hunger and thirst for it all the more. As Aquinas said, “God alone satisfies.”

 

[JimR-OCDS]

The OP quote is from the Spiritual Canticle, of St, John of the Cross.

It’s a poem, and as St. John does, he provides the commentary on each part of the poem and no one explains it better than he does.

THE soul, anxious to be possessed by God, Who is so great, Whose love has wounded and stolen its heart, and unable to suffer more, beseeches Him directly, in this stanza, to reveal His beauty — that is, the divine Essence — and to slay it in that vision, separating it from the body, in which it can neither see nor possess Him as it desires. And further, setting before Him the distress and sorrow of heart, in which it continues, suffering it because of its love, and unable to find any other remedy than the glorious vision of the divine essence, cries out: “Reveal Your presence.”

ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/canticle.xvii.html

 

[LaSainte]

He is lovesick for God. The only way he can be with God/see God face to face is to die, because no man can be in His presence and live. So he wants God to reveal Himself to him and die so that he can be with God forever.

Sort of like someone who kills themselves to be with their beloved in the afterlife, only without the suicide.