John Paul II: God is our Spouse

Today in the meditation section of the Magnificat there is a passage from our beloved, late Pope John Paul II from the book Memory and Identity, Conversations at the Dawn of a Millennium, pp29-30. I will quote the passage that was given in the Magnificat here:

“With the passage of time, if we persevere in following Christ our Teacher, we feel less and less burdened by the struggle against sin, and we enjoy more and more the divine light which pervades all creation. This is important, because it allows us to escape from a situation of constant inner exposure to the risk of sin—even though, on this earth, the risk always remains present to some degree—so as to move with ever greater freedom within the whole of the created world. This same freedom and simplicity characterizes our relations with other human beings, including those of the opposite sex. Interior light illumines our actions and shows us all the good in the created world as coming from the hand of God. Thus the purgative way and then the illuminative way form the organic introduction to what is known as the unitive way. This is the final stage of the interior journey, when the soul experiences a special union with God. This union is realized in contemplation of the divine being and in the experience of love which flows from it with growing intensity. In this way we somehow anticipate what is destined to be ours in eternity, beyond death and the grave. Christ, supreme teacher of the spiritual life, together with all those who have been formed in his school, teaches that even in this life we can enter onto the path of union with God….

“If the kingly way, indicated by Christ, leads definitively to the state in which ‘God will be all in all,’ the union with God that can be experienced on earth is attained in just the same way. We can find God in everything, we can commune with him in and through all things. Created things cease to be a danger for us as once they were, particularly while we were still at the purgative stage of our journey. Creation, and other people in particular, not only regain their true light, given to them by God the Creator, but, so to speak, they lead us to God himself, in the way that he willed to reveal himself to us; as Father, Redeemer, and Spouse.”

John Paul II did his doctoral dissertation on Saint John of the Cross, a doctor of the Church and a master of the spiritual life. Saint John delineated these three levels of prayer: the purgative, illuminative, and the unitive. The endpoint of prayer is deep union with God also known as mystical marriage or the prayer of union. One of the main points that I am promoting in my writings here is that what God wants for all of us is to reach this highest level of prayer. He made us for Himself to be His spouse. I am not arguing from my own experience of deep mystical prayer as Saint John of the Cross did; rather, I am arguing it from the Bible, in particular from the first few chapters of Genesis.

When one reaches unitive prayer, he is not so easily tempted to sin and to be inordinately attached to any object other than God. This person is united to God and is daily being filled more and more with God’s love and life. All other attachments pale in comparison. Thus, not only is one less likely to sin, but one is also more likely to truly and fully appreciate all created realities, and those very realities, because they remind one of God, become a vehicle through which one draws even closer to God. This is why someone like Saint Francis of Assisi could have such a love of creation and animals without falling into the trap of a false worship of them; he saw them as a beacon which revealed God and His goodness and beauty. Creation leads us “to God himself, in the way that he willed to reveal himself to us: as Father, Redeemer, and Spouse.” God is meant to be our Spouse, and He asks you, “Will you marry me?”

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
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