Episode 24: 24 Dying because I do not die
Catching Foxes
This was a tough one. That's all I got. Love you, Matt! I Live yet do not Live in Me I live yet do not live in me, am waiting as my life goes by, and die because I do not die. No longer do I live in me, and without God I cannot live; to him or me I cannot give my self, so what can living be? A thousand deaths my agony waiting as my life goes by, dying because I do not die. This life I live alone I view as robbery of life, and so it is a constant death — with no way out until I live with you. God, hear me, what I say is true: I do not want this life of mine, and die because I do not die. Being so removed from you I say what kind of life can I have here but death so ugly and severe and worse than any form of pain? I pity me — and yet my fate is that I must keep up this lie, and die because I do not die. The fish taken out of the sea is not without a consolation: his dying is of brief duration and ultimately brings relief. Yet what convulsive death can be as bad as my pathetic life? The more I live the more I die. When I begin to feel relief on seeing you in the sacrament, I sink in deeper discontent, deprived of your sweet company. Now everything compels my grief: I want — yet can’t — see you nearby, and die because I do not die. Although I find my pleasure, Sir, in hope of someday seeing you, I see that I can lose you too, which makes my pain doubly severe, and so I live in darkest fear, and hope, wait as life goes by, dying because I do not die. Deliver me from death, my God, and give me life; now you have wound a rope about me; harshly bound I ask you to release the cord. See how I die to see you, Lord, and I am shattered where I lie, dying because I do not die. My death will trigger tears in me, and I shall mourn my life: a day annihilated by the way I fail and sin relentlessly. O Father God, when will it be that I can say without a lie: I live because I do not die? Translated by Willis Barnstone St John of the Cross Support Catching Foxes