Ascent of Mt. Carmel - St. Patrick's Basilica

definite as can be.
In his third book St. John of the Cross goes on to describe the obstacles to union
which come from the memory and the will. Unlike St. Thomas, he considered the
memory as a distinct and separate faculty of the soul. Having written, however, at such
length of the understanding, he found it possible to treat more briefly of that other
faculty, which is so closely related to it. 60 Fourteen chapters (ii-xv) describe the dark
night to be traversed by the memory; thirty (xvi-xlv) the passage of the will, impelled by
love. 61 The latter part is the more strikingly developed. Four passions -- joy, hope,
sorrow and fear -- invade the will, and may either encompass the soul's perdition, or, if
rightly directed, lead it to virtue and union. Once more St. John of the Cross employs his
profound familiarity with the human soul to turn it away from peril and guide it into the
path of safety. Much that he says, in dealing with passions so familiar to us all, is not
only purely ascetic, but is even commonplace to the instructed Christian. Yet these are
but parts of a greater whole.
Of particular interest, both intrinsically and as giving a picture of the Saint's own
times, are the chapters on ceremonies and aids to devotion -- the use of rosaries,
medals, pilgrimages, etc. It must be remembered, of course, that he spent most of his
active life in the South of Spain, where exaggerations of all kinds, even to-day, are more
frequent than in the more sober north. In any case there is less need, in this lukewarm
age, to warn Christians against the abuse of these means of grace, and more need,
perhaps, to urge them to employ aids that will stimulate and quicken their devotion.
In the seventeenth chapter of this third book, St. John of the Cross enumerates
the 'six kinds of good' which can give rise to rejoicing and sets down his intention of
treating each of them in turn. He carries out his purpose, but, on entering his last
division, subdivides it at considerable length and subsequently breaks off with some
brusqueness while dealing with one of these sub-heads, just as he is introducing
another subject of particular interest historically -- namely, pulpit methods considered
from the standpoint of the preacher. In all probability we shall never know what he had
to say about the hearers of sermons, or what were his considered judgments on
confessors and penitents -- though of these judgments he has left us examples
elsewhere in this treatise, as well as in others.
We cannot estimate of how much the sudden curtailment of the Ascent of Mount
Carmel has robbed us. 62 Orderly as was the mind of St. John of the Cross, he was
easily carried away in his expositions, which are apt to be unequal. No one would have
suspected, for example, that, after going into such length in treating the first line of his
first stanza, he would make such short work of the remaining four. Nor can we disregard
the significance of his warning that much of what he had written on the understanding
was applicable also to the memory and the will. He may, therefore, have been nearer
the end of his theme than is generally supposed. Yet it is equally possible that much
more of his subtle analysis was in store for his readers. Any truncation, when the author
is a St. John of the Cross, must be considered irreparable.
THE MANUSCRIPTS 63
60Ascent, Bk. III, Chap. iii, ¤ 1.
61Cf. Ascent, Bk. III, Chap. xvi, ¤¤ 1-2.
62 [On the question of the curtailment of the Ascent, see Sobrino, pp. 159-66.]
63 [On MSS. not described by P. Silverio, see Ephemerides Carmeliticae, Florence, 1950, IV, 95-148, and
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