How to Enter into the Thicket of God's Wisdom

Anyone who has ever suffered greatly can recoginze himself or herself in these wise words, and take comfort therein.

From Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591), Carmelite, Doctor of the Church The Spiritual Canticle, Stanza 36, 10.13

"(The) thicket of God’s wisdom and knowledge is so deep and immense that no matter how much the soul knows, she can always enter it further; it is vast and its riches incomprehensible, as St. Paul exclaims: O height of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how incomprehensible are His judgments and unsearchable His ways. (Rom 11:33)

Yet the soul wants to enter this thicket and incomprehensibility of judgments and ways because she is dying with the desire to penetrate them deeply. Knowledge of them is an inestimable delight surpassing all understanding…

Oh! If we could but now fully understand how a soul cannot reach the thicket and wisdom of the riches of God … without entering the thicket of many kinds of suffering, finding in this her delight and consolation; and how a soul with an authentic desire for divine wisdom, wants suffering first in order to enter this wisdom by the thicket of the cross!… The gate entering into these riches of His wisdom is the cross, which is narrow, and few desire to enter by it, but many desire the delights obtained from entering there."