except in the Cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ,
through which the world has been crucified to me,
and I to the world"
(Galatians 6:14).
San Juan de la Cruz (a.k.a. "John of the Cross"). Wow, the water is really deep here. And I don't know how to swim!
Of course, it's all true. We won't reach the infinite, transcendent God until we have really endured something like these dark nights. I'm not even close. I've suffered a little and complained a lot.
I'm very small in the ways of real love, which as Father Zossima says in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov "is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams."
Jesus, I throw myself upon your infinite mercy.
