Closely with God

​‘John did not ask direct questions concerning God’s existence. For him, a proof of God’s existence was not nonsensical, but it did not matter, because he lived so closely with God. When we love people we do not ask whether they exist, or whether their existence can be proved, for it is their very existence, the fact that they simply are, that draws us to them. And because John did not ask whether God existed, he assumed the question in its broadest sense. In studying him, we find his basic thoughts and attitudes encompassing everything, not only so-called religious themes.
 
But John’s God was not a vague God, he was the God of Jesus Christ, hence a God who speaks, or rather a God who has spoken in a revelation. But God’s Word produces a discourse, between itself and the person who receives it. God’s Word, as revealed in the Bible and the liturgy, penetrated John and took possession of him, and he in his turn spoke’.
 
from St John of the Cross, 1979, by Alain Cugno

O God, who didst inspire thy holy Confessor Saint John with an ardent love of self-denial and of the Cross: grant that by constantly following his example, we may attain to everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Divine Worship: The Missal.