Detachment

Saint John of the Cross (with Teresa of Jesus, founder of the Discalced Carmelite Reform), a revered Doctor of the Church, wrote much on the topic of detachment. That is, that we as Christians should be detached from all temporal things, even those which are themselves good or profitable, such as our human relationships.

We may understand well enough why Saint John would counsel us in detachment from something like wealth, status or power. We need only look around and see how money is often the cause of much anxiety, the enemy of inner peace; the poor break laws to get money, the rich break laws to keep it, and both break more than laws in this plutonian pursuit, leaving in their wake a litter of broken hearts and broken homes. Such is the result when people try to fill with riches the void that only God can fill. And if any suffer more than these two extremes of the economic strata, it is those in the middle who from below and from above are subjected to the perennial lie: Money can indeed buy happiness. The expression "They had just enough money to make them miserable", comes readily to mind.

But what of those things which are obviously good, even of God? What of our friendships and marriages, anything that belongs to the sphere of human relationships? Yes, from these too, Saint John insists, we must be detached, good though they are and far superior to material wealth or status. As Scripture says, "Were one to offer all he owns to purchase love, he would be roundly mocked" (Song of Songs 8:7). Even these, however, can never fill the void in every human heart; loneliness, which is the human condition, can only ever be fully remedied by the indwelling of the Spirit of love and truth.

This does not mean that we must (necessarily) divest ourselves of all worldly wealth, status, power and (God forbid!) relationships, hermit-like. We need not run off to the mountain or the desert to escape temptation for, as the Gospel clearly demonstrates, even there (especially there) do we meet temptation (cf. Matthew 4:1-11). But everything must be ordered to the service of God and judged, for good or for ill, according to the extent that they serve God. If your riches empower you for the service of God, thank Him for them; if your riches are a consistent occasion of sin and grief, thank Him for them and then give them back.

Think about this the next time you get that whopping paycheck (some of which you will save, and some of which you spend on Christmas presents, a dinner out with friends and--one hopes--some charitable cause): What if God took it all away? Would it affect my relationship with my family, my friends... God Himself? Would the loss pull me down into despair? Would my ability to trust and to love be crippled? Would I have the peace of spirit to learn and grow from the experience?

Put another way, our human loves must never become possessive. (See what a difference such slight modifications of language make.) Perfect love (Latin caritas, Greek agape) is not only non-possessive, it is self-giving love... sacrificial love, for which Christ died on the Cross. And this is yet another paradox of the Cross: He loved the world too much to be bound to it.



"Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved." Saint John of the Cross

In His peace.