Lenten Meditation - April 13, 2006 - Holy Thursday

In this interior union God communicates Himself to the soul with such genuine love that no mother’s affection, in which she tenderly caresses her child, nor brother’s love, nor friendship is comparable to it. The tenderness and truth of love by which the immense Father favors and exalts this humble and loving soul reaches such a degree – O wonderful thing, worthy of all our awe and admiration! – that the Father Himself becomes subject to her for her exaltation, as though He were her servant and she His lord. And He is as solicitous in favoring her as He would be if He were her slave and she His god. So profound is the humility and sweetness of God!

In this communication of love, He exercises in some way that very service that He says in the Gospel He will render to His elect in heaven, that is: girding Himself and passing from one to another, He will minister to them [Luke 12:37]. He is occupied here in favoring and caressing the soul like a mother who ministers to her child and nurses it at her own breasts. The soul thereby comes to know the truth of Isaias’ words: You shall be carried at the breast of God and upon His knees you will be caressed [Isaias 66:12]

- St. John of the Cross, Collected Works: Spiritual Canticle, Stanza 27, 1