Only Desires Can Dwell Within and Harm the Soul

[C.laypersona]

Saint John of the Cross wrote in the book Ascent of Mount Carmel:

“(I)f the soul rejects and denies that which it can receive through the senses, we can quite well say that it remains, as it were, in darkness and empty; . . . For that reason we call this detachment ‘night’ to the soul, for we are not treating here of the lack of things, since this implies no detachment on the part of the soul if it has a desire [or: craving, coveting] for them; but we are treating of the detachment from them of the taste and appetite, for it is this that leaves the soul free and void of them, although it may have them; for it is not the things of this world that either occupy the soul or cause it harm, since they enter it not, but rather the will and desire for them, for it is these that dwell within it.” (I, III, 4)

“I am not writing here of the other natural desires which are not voluntary, and of thoughts that go not beyond the first movements, and other temptations to which the soul is not consenting; . . . For, although a person who suffers from them may think that the passion and disturbance which they then produce in him are defiling and blinding him, this is not the case; rather they are bringing him the opposite advantages. For, in so far as he resists them, he gains fortitude, purity, light and consolation, and many blessings, even as Our Lord said to Saint Paul: ‘That virtue was made perfect in weakness.’ (2 Cor. 12, 9). But the voluntary desires work all the evils aforementioned, and more. Wherefore the principal care of spiritual masters is to mortify their disciples immediately with respect to any [sinful] desire soever, by causing them to remain without the objects of their desires, in order to free them from such great misery.” (I, XII, 6)

(From the translation done by Edgar Allison Peers, Professor in Hispanic Studies; Image Books, second? edition, 1962.)

 

[C.laypersona]

“(E)very pleasure that presents itself to the senses, if it be not purely for the honour and glory of God, must be renounced and completely rejected for the love of Jesus Christ, Who in this life had no other pleasure, neither desired any, than to do the will of His Father, which He called His meat and food (cf. John 4: 34). I take this example. If there present itself to a man the pleasure of listening to things that tend not to the service and honour of God, let him not desire that pleasure, nor desire to listen to them; and if there present itself the pleasure of looking at things that help him not God-ward, let him not desire the pleasure or look at these things; and if in conversation or in aught else soever such pleasure present itself, let him act likewise.” (I, XIII, 4)

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It perhaps should be mentioned here, that in the book Dark Night of the Soul, which is the continuation to Ascent of Mount Carmel, the saint also wrote:

“The third source whence these impure motions are apt to proceed in order to make war upon the soul is often the [inordinate] fear which such persons have conceived for these impure representations and motions. Something that they see or say or think brings them to their mind, and this makes them afraid, so that they suffer from them through no fault of their own.” (I, IV, 4)