I once heard that Carmel can be described as a group of people in love with God. And it is true that each one of us has our own story of how we discovered this love, and how this love drew us to the land of Carmel. Yet we know that this relationship of love asks a little bit more of us each day. It is a flame of love (as we shall here form St. John of the Cross shortly) that begins as a spark which ignites the imagination of our heart. From here it burns ever more brightly until we are consumed in love.
But what about this ‘love story’? I’d like to propose that it is simply a description of a relationship with God. We read about it in our favourite books, see it in films between our favourite characters, and witness it in the families and relationships that we know, a love story that begins with a spark and slowly matures into a loving relationship. I think that it is no different with God. I say no different, but in fact, it is completely different.
As we know all too well, we are susceptible to heart break, we also know that relationships can and do end. Yet in our ‘love story’ with God this is not the case. How could it be? We long to love and to be loved. Not only this, but our hearts are also endlessly searching for that love which will complete us, that will overwhelm us, and that we will never tire of. We hear all over the psalms (themselves very often a crying out in love of the human heart to God) of a yearning heart which is ‘like the dear that yearns for running streams’ (Ps 42:1) or a heart that without the love of God ‘is like a dry weary land without water’ (Ps 63:2). These images don’t give us the impression of a passing fancy or a brief desire, but instead of something deep down, like a part of us is missing. The Carmelite taps into this desire of the heart and dedicates their life to searching for the source of this loving desire, God.
Yet, I don’t feel that we can speak of this life of searching as an easy life, it asks of us to transform and reorder our lives. We know that God will never ask something of us that is beyond our possibilities, but that we should be ready for a challenge (even if we do have to remind ourselves that ‘nothing is impossible for God’). Loving as God loves, imitating that perfect model of love that will quench our hearts desire is our greatest challenge. Maybe this is why St. John of the Cross speaks of it as a ‘tender wound’ that ‘in killing changes death to life’. For me, he speaks of a challenge that asks so much of us that it could be painful, or even feel like the end of it all. But he turns this around, reminding us of the new life of love that God offers through Jesus. The extreme love that we are asked to imitate is that of the cross. Here we see love without limits, a love that has no conditions and is freely given. Not only this, but it is also a selfless love that acts only for others. The love of the cross calls us to abandon our selfishness and worldly wants in return for an eternal life in God. It calls us to look deeply into the centre of our lives, to the very core of our beings to discover that the love that rests there is God, and that this love exists in all people. As the letter from St. John tells us ‘God is love’! How then, can I, in my desire to love as God loves, do so with conditions and limits? I can’t. Embracing this divine love is our acceptance of who we are in God. In doing so, we recognise in each other the presence of the self-same love. I believe that this is the true love story of our lives, the love story of Carmel.
Matthew Janvier O.Carm
