St. John of the Cross: Session 4

Turning to the Mystics with James Finley

Center for Action and Contemplation

Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 19 April 2021

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is the fourth session that focuses on the mystic, St. John of the Cross, and the conclusion on The Ascent of Mount Carmel. In the tenor of the ancient practice of Lectio Divina, James Finley begins with a passage from St. John's The Ascent of Mount Carmel, and reflects on the qualitative essence of the spirit of this text. Resources: Turning to the Mystics is a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation. To learn more about Jim, visit jamesfinley.org  The transcript to this podcast can be found here. The book being used for this season can be found here. Connect with us: We also produce other podcasts you might enjoy. To learn more about them and our other offerings, visit cac.org This podcast is made possible, thanks to the generosity of our donors. If you would love to support the ongoing work of the Center for Action and Contemplation and the continued work of our podcasts, you can donate at cac.org/podcastsupport Thank you!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation to learn more
0:05.0	visit caac.org.
0:08.0	Greetings. I'm Jim Finley. Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.
0:15.0	Greetings, everyone. Welcome to our time here together, turning for guidance to the
0:30.0	Christian Mystics and John of the Cross. How he tries to help us to discern and to cooperate
0:40.0	with the dark night through which we pass into perfect union with God in so far as possible
0:49.0	on this earth through love. And we began with the Ascendomal Carmo Book 2 chapter 13, where
0:58.0	he gives some guidelines on how to discern the presence of the dark night as it begins to
1:04.0	appear in meditation and prayer. This sense of powerlessness to be consoled or nurtured
1:13.0	by the presence of God as a way that God weens us off our dependency on these grace but finite
1:21.0	ways of experiencing and responding to God. The God might lead us into the beginnings of this
1:29.0	deeper sense of an infinite union with the infinite mystery of God beyond thought, beyond words.
1:39.0	And then we saw how this night has an active aspect and a passive aspect. It's passive
1:46.0	that it happens to us, that it's an active God, interiorly at work in the depths of
1:54.0	ourselves. But then it's active, the ways we freely choose to cooperate with it, we
2:01.0	are sent to it, in a way of saying open to and trusting in God in this transformative
2:09.0	process, beyond our own understanding, beyond our own abilities. Then we turned in the
2:16.0	previous session then to the Ascendomal Carmo Book 1, where he takes this active night that
2:22.0	is this active cooperation and extends it throughout the day as an attitude toward
2:29.0	the gratification that comes to us through the senses. And since the senses are finite and
2:36.0	the gratification that comes to the senses is finite, the gratification that comes to us
2:41.0	through the senses is infinitely less than the gratification we long for to be infinitely
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Center for Action and Contemplation, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Center for Action and Contemplation and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.