Chapter
17
by Fr. Thomas Keating
The Greater Grace of John
We have now seen various people in the
gospel successfully passing through their crisis of faith. I could mention
others who did not, but let us stick to those who did. Here are people who have
left behind their spiritual diapers, so to speak, and have advanced to
adolescence. Now there is nothing wrong with wearing the appropriate garment of
one's spiritual age. We all have a very humble beginning as regards our natural
life. It would be unreasonable to expect us to have a glorious beginning as
regards to spiritual life. We must adapt ourselves to this lowly beginning.
We are still very much beginners if we
respond to the events of life in a self-centered way, giving in to the
hundred and one emotions and combinations thereof that arise in our hearts from
morning to night: those feelings of animosity, discord, anger, hatred,
jealously, envy, impatience, timidity, discouragement, lust. In other words, if
pride, ambition, and sensuality dominate our conduct.
While there is nothing wrong with being
a beginner, because what else can we do but begin somewhere, still we might ask
ourselves: "How long, O Lord, how long?"56
At this spiritual age we need a mother. Devotion to the Virgin Mary has proved
to be an inspiration to people at this stage. We need someone to carry us,
console us, teach us to walk, pick us up when we fall down, and dry our tears.
The response of faith to the events of
life is the sign of spiritual adolescence. We stop trying to solve our emotional
problems by means of selfish motives and try to solve them after the manner of
the people we have been observing in the gospel. Victory is never a hundred
percent, but a more or less affair with innumerable regressions.
In the crisis of faith, God asks of us
two sacrifices. One is the sacrifice of the desert, and the other is to
sacrifice of praise. We saw both of these at work in the incidents already
described. The sacrifice of the desert is the sacrifice of bearing with
temptation. When we experience the rebellion of our passions we offer ourselves
to God in that state of weakness, misery, and apparent defeat. It is the
sacrifice of serving God without relish, without feeling that we are getting
anywhere--of just plain offering up the daily round of ever recurring duties and
ever recurring faults.
But there is also the sacrifice of
praise exemplified by the three women commemorated on the feast of St. Mary
Magdalen, and in David's hymn, Psalm 34. From time to time in this desert we
come to an oasis, and for a few moments God allows us to experience his love and
to be conscious of his divine help. When we are up against it and have no
strength of ourselves, and cast all our hope on him; or when we expect to fail
but for some extraordinary reason, which can only be the grace of God, do not;
then there wells up a flood of gratitude, very gentle at times, at other times
like a tidal wave. Call it consolation if you wish. At least it is the
consolation of not having failed, of not having surrendered to temptation and
sin.
Jesus himself experienced the sacrifice
of the desert. It was, in fact, in the desert that he suffered temptation. He
also allowed himself to feel the terrible undertow of human weakness. It caused
him to cry out in his agony to be spared his passion and death. We also look
forward in moments of fervor to serving God greatly, and then when the moment
arrives and the Lord offers us the sacrifice of the desert, we suddenly face a
cross that looks to be completely beyond our strength. Our knees begin to knock
together and we say to the Lord, "Please, could we postpone this for a few
days--just until I feel a little more spiritual strength?"
He says, "Not tomorrow, but
today." If we get through it, there follows that deepening of trust that
comes from experiencing God's help when we did not expect it, and yet hoped
against hope.
Both of these sacrifices are frequent
in the growing up process. Indeed we have need of both. We need to experience
our weakness and we need to experience the divine strength over and over again
before we can attain the age of spiritual adolescence.
There is a very special grace which is
connected with the sacrifice of praise. It should be distinguished from that of
Mary of Bethany when she was a Jesus' feet and absorbed more in himself than in
his words. She clearly was growing up interiorly. She was receiving from him a
deeper understanding of the mysteries that he was teaching her.
But there is a still greater grace
described in the gospel of John.57
Jesus had just washed the feet of the disciples. It was a striking example of
humility, and must have evoked great admiration in the heart of John. It
undoubtedly awakened in him a new depth of love for Jesus.
"When Jesus had said this, he was
shaken in his inmost soul and with great emphasis he declared, 'I tell you
truly, one of your group is about to betray me!"
Once again we see him suffering with
suffering and not with joy. It was the sacrifice of the desert which Jesus
allowed himself to feel, the agony which every human heart feels when betrayed
by someone whom he loves.
"The disciples then looked at one
another, at a loss to know whom he meant. Now one of the disciples of Jesus lay
resting in his bosom, the one whom Jesus loved." Bosom means the
hollow of the breast. Thus John had his ear tucked up against the heart of
Christ. He was close enough to hear it pounding in response to the knowledge of
his betrayer.
We might well ask, "How did John
get there?" The ancients, when they went to supper, leaned on their left
elbow. Thus it would not be difficult for him, because he was so close, to lay
his head against the breast of Jesus.
Peter had something he wanted to say to
Jesus. He saw that John was in a position to speak to him without anyone else
hearing, so he whispered, "Ask whom he means."
"Then he, freely drawing close to
Jesus' breast, said to him, 'Who is it, Master?'"
We already saw him resting in the
hollow of Jesus' breast. How could he get any closer? Perhaps he drew away for a
moment to listen to Peter. In any case, the position of John is most
significant. We saw the penitent woman washing his feet; we saw Mary of Bethany
pouring perfume over his head; but we are in the presence here of a greater
grace. What does the bosom of Jesus represent? And what does it mean to rest
your head in his bosom?
First of all, we know that Abraham's
bosom was a symbol for the Jews of perfect happiness, intimacy, protection,
security, familiarity. Intimacy, then, is certainly one of the notes. We read in
the parable of the rich man and Lazarus58
how the poor man, Lazarus, was carried to Abraham's bosom, where he was having a
grand time. That is the place where everyone wanted to go. If Abraham's bosom is
paradise, what about the bosom of Jesus?
John speaks elsewhere of the only
begotten Son, "who is in the bosom of the Father." It would seem then
that John, resting in Jesus' bosom, was being carried by him into the bosom of
the Father.
Paul says, "Christ is the head of
every man . . . and God is the head of Christ."59
As John rested in Jesus' bosom, Christ was becoming completely his head.
The disciples at this moment were about
to receive the Eucharist. John, characteristically, is a little ahead of the
others in spiritual perception. Perhaps Jesus is trying to teach him what the
Eucharist really means: it is not so much a taking of Christ into ourselves, as
of his taking us into himself. Each reception of the Eucharist is an insertion
of the branches, which we are, deeper into the Vine, who is Christ. So at this
moment, this little branch, John, is being inserted more deeply into the Vine.
What he experience there is not said, but is evident that the position that he
held entitled him to know secrets that the others were not entitled to know.
Jesus reveals to him three things:
first of all, the person who is to betray him; secondly, the great love that he
has for the betrayer; finally, the agony which his heart is suffering at this
betrayal.
Jesus' answer is, "It is he to
whom I will give the morsel after dipping it in the bowl."
This gesture was traditionally one of
friendship. It can be interpreted as a last attempt on Jesus' part to show his
love for his betrayer. He showed him that he knew who he was and yet still was
offering his friendship.
"So he dipped the morsel and with
his own had reached it to Judas. Directly after the morsel Satan entered into
him and he went out, and it was night."
To rest in the bosom of Jesus is not to
be idle. Because as Jesus tells us, "The Father works until now and I
work." This rest is something special; it is not just a nap. It is
different from the leisure, however holy, that Mary was enjoying at the feet of
Christ. This is rather the grace to rest in God no matter what you are doing. It
is a greater grace because it unites action and contemplation. This grace that
John had was the grace of Mary and Martha combined; it required a greater
spiritual maturity.
It is one thing to be able to pray and
to rest in God when everything is quiet and peaceful. It is another to be able
to rest in him when you are running for a commuter train or catching finished
goods flying off the end of a machine. It is a greater grace to be able to
talk to other people and still be resting in God, than to have to stop talking
to anyone in order to speak to God. It is a greater grace than Mary had because
it involves greater liberty of spirit, greater intimacy with God. It brings us
to the threshold of the crisis of love.
The rest of which John is the symbol
consists in the calm of our hundred and one passions. They are in repose because
faith has conquered them. Not that we no longer feel them. But the habit of
referring everything to God and of flying to him for refuge, together with the
experience of being delivered, has brought us a profound stability of soul. It
is the Sabbath rest, of which Sunday is the symbol, and of which heaven is the
perfect fulfillment.
"Eternal rest grant unto the, O
Lord," is the prayer the Church offers for those who sleep in the Lord.
That does not just mean sitting down under a heavenly palm tree. It means the
fruition of all our desires in the possession of the object for which they were
intended, the Triune God.
The rest of which John is a symbol in
this scene is the rest which comes to those who are most active in love, the
highest form of activity open to anyone in this life. The fullness of love
brings the maximum of rest at the same time that it makes possible the maximum
of action.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the
exemplar of this grace. That is why, on the feast of the Assumption in the
Cistercian liturgy, the gospel of Mary and Martha is read.60
As the perfect contemplative, she unites in herself the capacity to work for God
and to rest in God, which belongs to those who have passed through the crisis of
faith and of love, and who have entered interiorly in to the Sabbath of the
Lord.
Footnotes
56. Job
1-2. To
Text
57. John
13:1-30. To
Text
58. Luke
13:19-31. To Text
59. I Corinthians 11:3 To Text
60. Luke
10:38-42. To Text
More information can be obtained by reading the book Crisis
of Faith/Crisis of Love by Fr. Thomas Keating. It is offered in our
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