"St John of the Cross, in Book I of The Ascent of Mount Carmel, tells us that "Divine Wisdom speaks to all those that set their hearts and affections upon anything of the world. That the great riches and the glory that they love are with her and in her, and not where they think. And that high riches and justice dwell in her; for, although they think the things of this world to be all this, she tells them to take note that her things are better, saying that the fruit that they will find in them will be better for them than gold and precious stones; and that which she engenders in souls is better than the choice silver which they love; by which is understood any kind of affection that can be possessed in this life."(Ascent. Bk I, Ch.4)

For this world's wisdom is "foolishness" in God's sight; for it is written, "He snares the wise with their own cunning." (1 Corinthians 3:19) Such worldly wisdom shines forth in the "profound truths" uttered by the proud, sarcastic spirits which come to teach those who seek esoteric knowledge, secret wisdom, and who attend seances:

THE SEANCE
by Andrew Richards

They sat in the darkness, a circle of hands,
They were tense with anticipation,
The medium spoke in the voice of a man,
Who was Chief of the Indian nation

The group holding hands, welcomed the Chief,
Each member gave him his greeting,
"Silence!" roared the Chief, or you'all come to grief,
What purpose this spiritual meeting?

Then in the darkness, one brave voice did sound,
"Oh Chief, how's my husband, he recently died?
He promised he'd contact me, once in the ground,
And though John wasn't much, he never did lie.

No-one spoke, amongst the seance folk,
As they awaited their stern Indian Guide,
The Chief he did sneer, and made a lewd joke,
And all laughed, though one quietly cried.

Then another spoke up, "Oh please tell me, Chief,"
"Am I punished forever in hell?"
I murdered my husband, and married the priest,
And we're here seeking wisdom as well.

The Chief he did growl, the Chief he did shriek!
"Where comes such a stupid opinion?"
"God's all about love, He cares not for rules,"
"All things are within His dominion."

The group did applaud, they did praise the stern Chief,
For his "wisdom" was deep as the sea,
The lady did cry, "Oh thank you, dear Chief,"
"Now our marriage in peace it shall be."

Then a man, he spoke out, he spoke to the Chief
"Tell me of Jesus the Word?"
"What of His suffering, what of His grief,"
"Was He God, or just something absurd?"

In words most profane the Chief did reply,
Why make you a man of the Word?
For Christ was of earth, and God of the sky,
I find Christians are most absurd!

The seance did cheer, the group did applaud,
For "wisdom" they wanted to hear,
"Oh thank you, brave Guide, Oh thank you dear Chief,"
"For telling us truths so dear!"

End

God created a world in which to manifest His Mysterious Wisdom through His Son, Jesus Christ, a world in which He permitted freedom in man's struggle to choose Goodness in the face of "temptations" to false doctrine, spiritual pride, and the resulting malice and affliction ever thriving from unreleased attachments to self-importance, as found in the spirit of the world, the flesh, and the devil. In other words, God created a world in which individual choice, and individual effort are necessary ingredients to one's spiritual quest for transformation in that same Love. There is no transformation based on membership in a group, by itself, even when that group is the human race. Those who speak of a new era of evolutionary transformation based on some sort of group psychic process affecting the whole human race, with or without the individual's choice and effort, are dealing in cosmic illusions. Transformation is necessarily an individual process, just as sin and evil are individual acts, and membership in the group won't change us one whit unless we voluntarily make the effort to love others. The spiritual transformation to which we are called as individual human beings is the tranformation of "Love." Without the exercise of one's freedom, and individual effort, group transformation is just group brain-washing, even at the cosmic level.

The Christian must stand firm in Jesus Christ, and in the doctrine He teaches through the Holy Spirit in the Church, in order not to fall victim to the many dead-end imitations of spirituality going forth in the world today. These gurus of cosmic wonder are even seducing the faithful who have been warned and should know better, by their presentation of doctrine in spiritually cool, pseudo-scientific words involving terms like "cosmic evolution," or "evolutionary transformation of human consciousness," or "a new paradigm of spirituality," or "a quantuum leap forward in evolutionary consciousness" etc. etc. These self-appointed, leading edge gurus, do not themselves particpate in organized religious worship, and so they always start discussions with an "honest" appraisal justifiying their lifestyle, and leading to the pre-determined conclusion that they are right not to worry about Church, sin, and the old morality for, they conclude: "college graduates know that tradional religion is not good enough for the modern age!"

In their "humble and honest" discussion of the truth, they always insinuate that they themselves(and some of them got high marks in psychology), and their new understanding of religion, in contrast to Church, and the "traditional" religion of the God of the Bible, are more than good enough for the modern human seeking God and transformation. They say the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the "Living God," was ok during the dark ages, or during the time when the Bible was written, and the male "patriarchs" like Moses and Jesus(both of whom, by the way, suffered from lack of a college degree), tried to interpret the truth. These religious guys who set-up organized religion in obedience to God's Commands were ok then because an exclusive male mentality walked the earth and dominated the human race, It was necessary to go to Church at that time, in contrast to day, because men had to fight wars and protect themselves from evil at that time.

But today, they say, in our advanced, "enlightened" world, we should respect the old religion and traditional spiritual efforts, while at the same time we "reject" their teaching. After all, they were just patriarchal macho-men, who didn't know any better. They existed at a time before the "Magic Force" causing all events, and running all things in the Universe was discovered by the "missing link": Charles Darwin. He was, of course, the leading edge of this impersonal cosmic evolution of blind determinism, which we college graduates now recognize causes the future to happen in an ever progressive, advanced way. Since his appearance on the world stage, the "Magic Force" really began to "come out," and show what it could do in the spiritual area, as it brought the world of spirituality to the New Age of cosmic spiritual understanding, and group transformation, with no further need for individuals to do things they don't like, i.e., struggle personally against evil and their own attachments ro sin.

Scientific definition of ""Magic Force" behind creation of the Universe: "Random processes, imbued with intelligence and wisdom by modern man, used to explain supernatural processes formerly attributed to Almighty God. At the zenith of its power it is called "cosmic evolution," and gradually takes nothing and makes it into everything. Its mysterious power takes "less" and turns it into "more" in contradicion of the very logic which posits its existence. It takes simplicity and turns it into intelligently organized complexity. But this is acceptable because we say that its orderly magic is somehow built into the, otherwise chaotic, universe and supported by the process of "natural selection." We don't know who started it in the beginning, or how it got here in the first place, but we do now know that anything will be believed as being scientifically possible as long as we say that it takes hundreds of billions of years, or a very long, long, long, long, long time! This omnipotent, orderly force takes simple forms, and chance events arising from chaotic, random processes and produces sophisticated, complex organisms, life, intelligence, the universe, and the clarity of the very mind with which you're reading this page. But Nobody knows where this "order out of chaos," Magic Force comes from, or in which dimension it now exists, since it obviously existed before and above the chaos, and everything it directs and forms in the natural world. So we don't look at it too closely because it is contradictory to simple logic and good sense, and, if we did, we might have to admit that we are just playing "psuedo-scientific mumbo-jumbo" so as to not lose scientific face, and to commit scientific heresy by admitting there's something that exists beyond human understanding, and the reach of the scientific method! This could lead to the humiliation of the modern "God is Dead" fundamentalist scientific outlook, and to the embarassed confession that: "Sorry, perhaps God's still Alive after all!"

We who live in this world which gives credence to all manner of sin and spiritual illusion have no chance of understanding it, and overcoming it, unless we share in God's own "Wisdom," Jesus Christ. We must renew our choice to "lock on" to Him if we are to remain standing in a world hell-bent on destroying itself through the subtlety of human reason, false doctrine, and overt spiritual lies. For only Jesus Christ among all the religious teachers of the world points to the fullness of Truth, and the "Perfect Way" to achieve and sustain spiritual transformation. Some of the other famous religious gurus, with their human faults, managed to get part of the spiritual picture right, but, being human, they corrupted the overall spiritual vision with a good deal of error.

So before bailing out on the Wisdom of the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, the God of Moses, the "I AM," Who is the Living God of Truth, we should remember that His Promised Messiah, Jesus Christ, has come among us, and is far more profound than any cosmic doctrine devised by the egocentric schemes of the human mind. And for the humble, and those who really know what loving transformation is all about,e.g., the fully transformed saints of God, Jesus will alwalys be the "safe harbor" in the malestrom of worldly deceit which parades itself as truth.

For God created a world in which He permitted "sin" and the errors of human subtlety to abound, so that, due to the victory of Jesus Christ, all men would know that "where sin and error did abound,now greater good does abound." For where the malice of man brought torture, suffering, and hate to Christ on the Cross, He responded with Overcoming Forgiveness and Goodness, rather than hatred and the desire for revenge, and thereby turned the sin and malice of man into occasions of grace and supernatural Love for all generations. And this is no fairy tale. We are well aware from experience of life on earth that men are born with an inclination to selfishness and evil, and yet we have seen the Holy Spirit transform the lives of indivual Christians. We have seen this victory of grace repeated over and over in the lives of countless numbers of saints and redeemed souls since the very beginning of Biblical History.

At the same time, throughout the pages of history we have seen a world in which brother tortures and slays brother, by the hundreds of thousands, and by the millions, as in atheist Communist killing fields, gulags, and prison camps. Then we can never forget the Godless, "Nazi Supermen" whose "Thousand Year Reich" produced the mass murder of the "Jewish Holocaust," And each time the world witnesses such horrors, the cry goes out, "Where is God?" How could a Good God let such "evil" things happen? And without the gift of Wisdom, what we forget, in our discouragement and despair, is that the mass murders are carried out by the pride and "malice of man," under the influence of evil principalities and powers, and in opposition to the Will of God as revealed through the Holy Spirit in His Church. And without Wisdom, we forget, or fail to appreciate "The Lamb of God," who by His Life, Death, and Resurrection permanently overcame evil, and, placing it under His feet, used it to pave the Way of the Cross, the "Highway to Heaven" for all humanity.

Fr. Jordan Aumann speaks of wisdom:

"The Gift of Wisdom is given that we may judge and order all things in accord with God's commands. It is the ability to have the Holy Spirit "see in us" as God sees. This is the highest of the gifts as it gives a quasi-experimental knowledge of God and thus directs the other gifts. The gift of wisdom elevates the virtue of charity to heroism and causes the person to live the mysteries of faith in an entirely divine manner. This gift corresponds to the beatitude of the peacemakers as it gives peace and allows the person who has this gift active in them to bring peace to others in time of trouble. ("Spiritual Theology," Fr Jordan Aumann)

"By reason of its elevation and grandeur and by reason of the sublimity of the virtue it perfects, the effects produced by the gift of wisdom are truly remarkable. The following are the principal effects of this gift:(Ibid)

1. "It gives to the saints a divine sense by which they judge all things. This is the most impressive of all the effects of the gift of wisdom so far as they are manifested externally. One would say that the saints have completely lost the human manner of judgment and that it has been replaced by a divine instinct by which they judge all things. They see everything from God's point of view, whether the commonplace episodes of daily life or the great events of life. They never fix their attention on secondary causes but pass them by, to arrive immediately at the Supreme Cause, who governs and rules them from above.

2. "It makes saints live the mysteries of faith in an entirely divine manner. Introduced by charity into the intimacy of the divine Persons, the divinized soul, under the impulse of the Spirit of love, contemplates all things from this center. God is present to the soul in all his divine attributes and in all his great mysteries. In the measure in which it is possible for a simple creature, the gaze of the soul resembles the vision God has of himself and of the entire universe. It is a godlike type of contemplation experienced in the light of the Deity, and in it the soul experiences ineffable sweetness.

3. "It makes them live in union with the three divine Persons through an ineffable participation in their trinitarian life. The gift of knowledge acts by an ascending movement, raising the soul from creatures to God; the gift of understanding penetrates God's mysteries from without and within by a simple loving gaze; the gift of wisdom penetrates the very life of the Trinity. Thus the soul sees things only from their highest and most divine cause.

"The soul that has reached these heights can give itself to all types of work, even the most absorbing, but in the center of the soul it experiences the divine company of the Three. Martha and Mary have been joined in an ineffable manner, so that the prodigious activity of Martha in no way compromises the peace and tranquillity of Mary, who remains at the feet of the divine Master.

4. "It raises the virtue of charity to heroism. This is precisely the purpose of the gift of wisdom. Freed from human limitations, charity reaches tremendous proportions. It is incredible what the love of God can do in souls that are under the operations of the gift of wisdom. Such souls love God with a pure love only for his infinite goodness and without the mixture of any human motives or self-interest. True, they do not renounce their hope for heaven; they desire it more than ever, but they desire it primarily because there they shall be able to love God with even greater intensity and without any interruption.

"Love of neighbor also reaches a sublime perfection through the gift of wisdom. Accustomed to see God in all things, even in the most minute details of daily life, the saints see him in a special way in their neighbor. They love their neighbor with a tenderness that is completely supernatural. They serve their neighbor with heroic abnegation. Seeing Christ in the poor, in those who suffer, in the heart of all their brothers and sisters, they hasten to serve all with a soul filled with love. They are happy to deprive themselves of even the necessities of life in order to give them to their neighbor, whose interest they place and prefer before their own, as they would put the interests of Christ before their own.

5. "It gives to all the virtues their ultimate perfection and makes them truly divine. Perfected by the gift of wisdom, charity extends the divine influence to all the other virtues, because charity is the form of all the virtues. The whole supernatural organism experiences the divine influence of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. All the Christian virtues acquire a godlike modality that admits of countless shades and manifestations. Having died definitively to self, being perfect in every type of virtue, the soul has arrived at the summit of the mount of sanctity, where it reads the inscription written by St. John of the Cross: "Here on this mountain dwell only the honor and glory of God."

"Apart from the general means such as recollection, a life of prayer, fidelity to grace, and humility, one can dispose oneself for the actuation of the gift of wisdom by using the following means, which are within the workings of ordinary grace:

1. "By seeing and evaluating all things from God's point of view. How many souls, even among those who are consecrated to God, fall into the habit of judging things from a purely natural and human point of view! If things do not go their way, they accuse others of all sorts of imperfections and even malice; but when things proceed according to their personal good and pleasure, they attribute everything to God. Actually, they are willing to do God's will whenever it happens to coincide with their own interests. Truly spiritual persons accept all things, whether pleasant or painful, with a spirit of equanimity, and if things are painful or even unjust, they can still see the spiritual value of such experiences, if only as a means of purification and penance. Even the smallest works are seen in the light of supernatural value and merit and, although they are conscious of the defects of others, they are even more aware of their own imperfections.

2. "By combatting the wisdom of the world, which is foolishness in the eyes of God. St. Paul speaks frequently in this manner, but the greater percentage of us rely on this world's wisdom. Yet Christ constantly warns us in his teaching that we should expect to be a contradiction and a paradox to the world. This does not mean that the world as such is evil, but it does mean that those who live and act for worldly goals and according to worldly standards will inevitably have to jettison the standards of God. The lives of the saints are replete with instances in which the gift of wisdom caused them to perform actions that were foolish in the eyes of the worldly but were divine and prudent from a supernatural point of view.

3. "By detaching oneself from things of this world, however good and useful. Everything in its proper place. Even the holiest and most beneficial created goods can become a source of temptation and sin if we are too attached to them. As soon as anything outside of God becomes a goal or end in itself rather than a means to God, the soul is diverted from its proper orientation to God. This applies not only to the obvious dangers, such as wealth and pleasure and ambition, but also to things good in themselves, such as the study of theology, the liturgy, private devotions, penitential practices -- even to the use of the means to sanctity itself. All of these, if exaggerated or sought after with a selfish spirit, can become obstacles to union with God and the operation of the gift of wisdom that flows from that union.

4. "By cultivating indifference to spiritual consolations. It is God's way to lead a soul to him by conferring spiritual consolations, but the time comes when these consolations are removed and the soul is tested, purified, and made strong in love. One must strive diligently to cultivate true devotion, which implies a resolute will to serve God at any cost. We naturally are drawn to those things that give us pleasure, whether spiritual or sensual; hence all the more reason for detachment and self-denial. The common error is to love the gift rather than the giver, and for that reason God withdraws consolations .when the soul is ready to pass on to another phase of its spiritual development. To love and serve God in darkness and privation is by far a greater proof of one's fidelity than to love him in periods of delight and consolation. (Fr Jordan Aumann, "Spiritual Theology" Part I, Ch.10 'Wisdom')

St John of the Cross speaks of the wisdom of "The Incarnation":

"One of the reasons which most influence the soul to desire to enter into the "thicket" of the wisdom of God, and to have a more intimate knowledge of the beauty of the divine wisdom, is, as I have said, that it may unite the understanding with God in the knowledge of the mysteries of the Incarnation, as of all His works the highest and most full of sweetness, and the most delicious knowledge. (And it is through contemplative prayer that one enters into the thicket of such wisdom. For contemplation takes place through the actuation of the gifts of "wisdom" and understanding.) And here the bride therefore says, that after she has entered in within the divine wisdom -- that is, the spiritual marriage, which is now and will be in glory, seeing God face to face -- her soul united with the divine wisdom, the Son of God, she will then understand the deep mysteries of God and Man, which are the highest wisdom hidden in God. They, that is, the bride and the Bridegroom, will enter in -- the soul engulfed and absorbed -- and both together will have the fruition of the joy which springs from the knowledge of mysteries, and attributes and power of God which are revealed in those mysteries, such as His justice, His mercy, wisdom, power, and love."

"We shall go at once to the deep caverns of the rock."
"This rock is Christ," as we learn from St. Paul. The deep caverns of the rock are the deep mysteries of the wisdom of God in Christ, in the hypostatical union of the human nature with the Divine Word, and in the correspondence with it of the union of man with God, and in the agreement of God's justice and mercy in the salvation of mankind, in the manifestation of His judgments. And because His judgments are so high and so deep, they are here fittingly called "deep caverns"; deep because of the depth of His mysteries, and caverns because of the depth of His wisdom in them. For as caverns are deep, with many windings, so each mystery of Christ is of deepest wisdom, and has many windings of His secret judgments of predestination and foreknowledge with respect to men.

"Notwithstanding the marvelous mysteries which holy doctors have discovered, and holy souls have understood in this life, many more remain behind. There are in Christ great depths to be fathomed, for He is a rich mine, with many recesses full of treasures, and however deeply we may descend we shall never reach the end, for in every recess new veins of new treasures abound in all directions: "In Whom," according to the Apostle, "are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." But the soul cannot reach these hidden treasures unless it first passes through the thicket of interior and exterior suffering: for even such knowledge of the mysteries of Christ as is possible in this life cannot be had without great sufferings, and without many intellectual and moral gifts, and without previous spiritual exercises; for all these gifts are far inferior to this knowledge of the mysteries of Christ, being only a preparation for it.

"Thus God said to Moses, when he asked to see His glory, "Man shall not see Me and live." God, however, said that He would show him all that could be revealed in this life; and so He set Moses "in a hole of the rock," which is Christ, where he might see His "back parts"; that is, He made him understand the mysteries of the Sacred Humanity.

"The soul longs to enter in earnest into these caverns of Christ, that it may be absorbed, transformed, and inebriated in the love and knowledge of His mysteries, hiding itself in the bosom of the Beloved. It is into these caverns that He invites the bride, in the Canticle, to enter, saying: "Arise, My love, My beautiful one, and come; My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow places of the wall." These clefts of the rock are the caverns of which we are here speaking, and to which the bride refers, saying:

"And there we shall enter in."
"That is, in the knowledge of the divine mysteries. The bride does not say "I will enter" alone, which seems the most fitting -- seeing that the Bridegroom has no need to enter in again -- but "we will enter," that is, the Bridegroom and the bride, to show that this is not the work of the bride, but of the Bridegroom with her. Moreover, inasmuch as God and the soul are now united in the state of spiritual marriage, the soul does nothing of itself without God. To say "we will enter," is as much as to say, "there shall we transform ourselves" -- that is, "I shall be transformed in You through the love of Your divine and sweet judgments": for in the knowledge of the predestination of the just and in the foresight of the wicked, wherein the Father prevented the just in the benedictions of His sweetness in Jesus Christ His Son, the soul is transformed in a most exalted and perfect way in the love of God according to this knowledge, giving thanks to the Father, and loving Him again and again with great sweetness and delight, for the sake of Jesus Christ His Son. This the soul does in union with Christ and together with Him. The delight flowing from this act of praise is ineffably sweet, and the soul speaks of it in the words that follow:

"And taste of the new wine of the pomegranates."
The pomegranates here are the mysteries of Christ and the judgments of the wisdom of God; His power and attributes, the knowledge of which we have from these mysteries; and they are infinite. For as pomegranates have many grains in their round orb, so in each one of the attributes and judgments and power of God is a multitude of admirable arrangements and marvelous works contained within the sphere of power and mystery, appertaining to those works. Consider the round form of the pomegranate; for each pomegranate signifies some one power and attribute of God, which power or attribute is God Himself, symbolized here by the circular figure, which has neither beginning not end. It was in the contemplation of the judgments and mysteries of the wisdom of God, which are infinite, that the bride said, "His belly is of ivory set with sapphires." The sapphires are the mysteries and judgments of the divine Wisdom, which is here signified by the "belly" -- the sapphire being a precious stone of the color of the heavens when clear and serene.

"The wine of the pomegranates which the bride says that she and the Bridegroom will taste is the fruition and joy of the love of God which overflows the soul in the understanding and knowledge of His mysteries. For as the many grains of the pomegranate pressed together give forth but one wine, so all the marvels and magnificence of God, infused into the soul, issue in but one fruition and joy of love, which is the drink of the Holy Spirit, and which the soul offers at once to God the Word, its Bridegroom, with great tenderness of love.

"This divine drink the bride promised to the Bridegroom if He would lead her into this deep knowledge: "There You shall teach me," says the bride, "and I will give You a cup of spiced wine, and new wine of my pomegranates." The soul calls them "my pomegranates," though they are God's Who had given them to it, and the soul offers them to God as if they were its own, saying, "We will taste of the wine of the pomegranates"; for when He states it He gives it to the soul to taste, and when the soul tastes it, the soul gives it back to Him, and thus it is that both taste it together.(St John of the Cross, "Spiritual Canticle.")

CONCLUSION
Regis Jordan, O.C.D.

"John of the Cross speaks to us from the summit of the mountain, as one who has experienced the most intimate union of love with God possible in this life. He himself has tasted and come to the knowledge of the mysteries of God, especially those of Christ's Incarna tion and Passion. He has explored the deep caverns of Christ described in the Spiritual Canticle. The infinite mysteries of Christ have been revealed to him from within the life of the Trinity itself. He sees all things now, not from a merely human point of view, but from God's own point of view. He comes to see that in the divine plan, Christ is, indeed, the only way to the Father. Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

"In speaking of Christ the Way, John speaks in terms of imitation. We are to imitate Christ in all things, but especially in emptying ourselves as he did. As Christ accepted the Father's will that the way to life was through the cross, through annihilation and death, so too must we imitate Christ in this, the surest and safest way to union with God in this life and the next.

"Christ is the Truth, because in him the Father has spoken his unique Word, his only begotten Son. Out of love he has sent his Son to reveal everything he, the Father, desires us to know, everything that we need know to come to him. We have no need for any other extraordinary revelations. In Christ, the Father has given us the Truth.

"By uniting ourselves to Christ, through imitation, through listening and accepting his revelation, his truth, we already possess divine Life. This life, which we now possess through grace and adhere to in faith, will be the same life we will enjoy when we see God face-to- face. And one of the greatest joys of this face-to-face encounter with God will be the satisfaction of knowing and experiencing the deep mysteries of the Incarnation and Passion.

"We see, therefore, that the entire doctrine of St. John of the Cross rests on Jesus Christ, the Word-made-flesh. Whatever John asks of us, as we journey toward union, no matter how difficult, has but one purpose: to bring us to this union of love with God through Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life. ( Regis Jordan, O.C.D., Regis Jordan is publisher of ICS Publications, chair of the Institute of Carmelite Studies, and superior of the community of Discalced Carmelites in Washington, DC.)