Spiritual Sunday
Several years ago a remarkable young student, Franz Yanagawa, gave me a collection of poems by St. John of the Cross. A biology and psychology student, Franz had just completed a senior project under my mentorship. In it, Franz charted his life through the lens of various philosophical, religious, and literary thinkers, including St. John, as he prepared to apply to medical school.
St. John coined the phrase “dark night of the soul,” and the poem below describes how he is able to push through the “darkness without light” to find God’s love. It is because of, not in spite of, the fact that he passes through “shadows” that he finds “the light of heaven.” Living with only the soul as a guide, he finds himself is consumed entirely by “the delightful flame that I feel within myself.” Unanchored to the things of the world, he must turn to a divine anchor.
Franz, incidentally, is currently a general surgery resident at Wellspan Health. Knowing Franz, he turns to St. John regularly.
Anchorless and Yet Anchored
By St. John of the Cross
Anchorless and yet anchored,
living in darkness without light,
I consume myself completely.
My soul is unattached
to any created thing,
raised above itself
in delightful life,
anchored in its God alone.
Now everyone will know
what’s most important to me:
that my soul now finds itself
anchorless and yet anchored.
And though I pass through shadows
in this mortal life
my pain is not excessive:
I may feel the lack of light
but I have life from heaven.
For when love grows this blind,
it gives us so much life
that the soul is left with
living in darkness without light.
Love has worked such things in me
since I came to know it,
that all my good and evil
it turns into my delight
making my soul like itself.
And so, in the delightful flame
that I feel within myself,
swiftly and thoroughly
I consume myself completely.