From St. John of the Cross and Dr. C. J. Jung, Part II, Chapter 3. Inner Growth Books, 1986.
St. John starts his
description of the life of prayer with conversion and the state of beginners:
"It should be known, then, that God nurtures and caresses the soul, after it has been resolutely converted to His service, like a loving mother who warms her child with the heat of her bosom, nurses it with good milk and tender food, and carries and
caresses it in her arms."
Before this time the beginner had been attached to the things of the world, but now a dramatic change has taken place, for the soul which had been circumscribed by the world now becomes inflamed with love
for spiritual things and the love for the world is replaced by the love for the things of God. Here there is no purely negative asceticism. Undoubtedly, the beginner must make strong efforts to break with his former habits, but these efforts are powerfully aided by the new yearnings of love that have sprung up within. The transition from the world to the beginning of the spiritual life is explained by St. John in the Ascent when he comments on the words "an enkindling with longings of
love":
"The love of one's Spouse is not the only requisite for conquering the strength of the sensitive appetites; an enkindling with longings of love is also necessary. For the sensory appetites are moved and attracted toward sensory objects with such cravings that if the spiritual part of the soul is not fired with other more
urgent longings for spiritual things, the soul will neither be able to overcome the yoke of nature nor enter the night of sense; nor will it have the courage to live in the darkness of all things by denying its appetites for them."(6)
The prayer of these beginners is what St. John calls meditation. Meditation today, when it is applied to spiritual practices, usually gives the impression of being a very orderly and rational analysis of a spiritual topic which gives rise to affective resolutions by way of conclusions to the reasoning process. For St. John, however, meditation is more generic and covers a great deal more ground.
