The Distinctive Christian Tension
Thirty years ago, a not yet thirty year old Rowan Williams wrote a remarkable book, The Wound of Knowledge: Christian Spirituality from the New Testament to St. John of the Cross.
To celebrate today’s feast of Saint John of the Cross, some reflections from that book:
John of the Cross sums up, in very many respects, classical themes of Christian spirituality, of the distinctively Christian understanding of spiritual maturation.
On the one hand: the Word is flesh and is communicated in the flesh — in historical tradition, in personal human encounter, in material sacrament. The Word re-forms the possibilities of human existence and calls us to the creation of new humanity in the public, the social and historical world — to the transformation of behavior and relationship, knowing God in acting and making.
On the other hand: the Word made flesh is recognized as such in the great crisis and resolution of crucifixion and resurrection. The Word is crucified and rejected by the world; only when we see that there is no place for the Word in the world do we see that he is God’s Word, the Word of the hidden, transcendent creator. And then, only then, can we see, hear, experience the newness of that creative God, resurrection and grace, new life out of the ultimate negation and despair.
En una Noche oscura/ con ansias en amores inflamada/ Oh dichosa ventura!
St. John is not characteristically Christocentric in his mystical treatises or in his greater poems, which the treatises take as their starting points and frameworks. His Christic sense comes out most eloquently in bursts, in minor works such as his drawing of Christ on the cross, brief sayings such as this “The Father spoke one Word, which was his Son, and this Word he speaks always in eternal silence, and in silence must it be heard by the soul.”
One extended treatment is the “romance” on the Incarnation, which ends with a beautiful treatment of a marriage between the Word and his bride. The Word has said to the Father,
“I will go and tell the world,
spreading the word
of your beauty and sweetness,
and of your sovereignty.”
and in the end the Word comes forth as a bridegroom:
When the time had come
for him to be born,
he went forth like the
bridegroom
from his bridal chamber,
embracing his bride,
holding her in his arms,
whom the gracious Mother
laid in a manger
among some animals
that were there at that time.
Men sang songs
and angels melodies
celebrating the marriage
of Two such as these.
But God there in the manger
cried and moaned;
and these tears were jewels
the bride brought to the
wedding.
The Mother gazed in sheer wonder
on such an exchange:
in God, man’s weeping,
and in man, gladness,
to the one and the other
things usually so strange.
I read a few lines of Juan de la Cruz yesterday — it is strangely tonic, cleansing. heartening stuff — one feels that a strong sense of the divine love guides his pen.