I love that quote attributed to St. John of the Cross: ‘The language that God hears best is the silent language of love.’ But love costs! Love is not some mushy ‘feel good’, short-term and emotionally laden fix. It was love that led to Jesus walking the Via Dolorosa to Calvary.

Like Elijah and John the Baptist, St John of the Cross was on fire for God’s reign of love within our world. We call John of the Cross a mystic. What is a mystic? Someone so in love with the one who is love, so wrapped in the arms of their God, so all embracing of the love journey within and around them that all is one, all is connected, all reveals the face of God.

Lord, let us see your face, and we shall be saved! I love that section from the Book of Exodus (3:7-23) where Moses would go into the ‘tent of meeting’, and there speaks to God, face to face, as a man does with his friend. This is what John of the Cross so beautifully and powerfully did. But John also knew the darkness and loneliness of the inner journey. It is not all bliss. As in all relationships centred on love, there are times of both darkness and light, closeness and distance, struggle and joy. That is the nature of the human heart that is longing for the ultimate love and lover – our God.

When such a one as John of the Cross, John the Baptist or Elijah stand among us, too often we cannot recognise them as prophets of the heart. We are looking elsewhere. We are looking for the big, bright and beautiful. Love whispers to us, in the inner urgings of the humble heart.

by Br Damien Price cfc