Today is the Feast of St John of the Cross, a man of exalted sanctity, called the "prince of mystic theology", who was the chief co-labourer of St Teresa, in the establishment of the Reform, in Spain.
He was an ardent lover of the Cross, and on one occasion, when Our Lord asked him what he desired as a reward for his labours and great austerity, he answered: "Lord, to suffer and to be despised for Thy Sake."In the Office of his feast, the Carmelites sing of Saint John of the Cross:
"Saint of the eagle eye,
Gazing enrapt on high,
Mid dread abysses of Divinity;
Martyr by heart's intent,
Virgin yet penitent;
Prophet and guide in realms of mystery!
Clearly dost thou reveal
Secrets the clouds conceal,
For thou hast steeped thy soul in rays above,
Pondering the mountain height,
Darkness of faith's long night,
And the reviving flame of mystic love."
St John of the Cross' writings rank high in literature, and the more outstanding of his work are: "Spiritual Canticle, "The Ascent of Mount Carmel", "The Living Flame of Love", "The Dark Night of the Soul", "Precautions". Saint John of the Cross knew well how to "keep festival with unleavened Bread of Sincerity and Truth" even in the midst of excruciating trials, imitating therein the meek Lamb of God in His bitter Passion. This valiant disciple of the Cross affords encouragement with this consoling truth: "When God is really loved, He bears most readily the cry of the soul that loves Him".
Father John de Yepez, youngest son of Gonzales de Yepez, was born in 1542, at Fontibera, a small town between Avila and Salamanca in Old Castile. From his earliest childhood he had a particular inclination to piety, and several times experienced the protection of Divine Providence, and the watchful care of the Blessed Virgin, for whom he ever had a marked devotion. At the age of twenty-two he entered the Carmelite Monastery of Medina del Campo, and there practiced great austerities. He studied Theology at Salamanca, and was ordained Priest at the age of twenty-four. When he met St Teresa at Medina del Campo, she immediately recognized the treasures of grace his heart possessed, and unfolded to him her plans with her usual candour and simplicity. he understood her, and promised to join the good work if he might do so promptly, for his soul was longing for a more rigid life, and he had determined to go and join Carthusians. St Teresa lost no time, and having obtained the permission of the Provincial, and of the Diocesan Bishop, she founded at once the first Monastery of the Friars, in a poor little house, which had been given her for the purpose, at Durvelo. Thus was sown the tiny mustard seed, whence was to spring the mighty tree, upon whose ever spreading branches innumerable souls would rest in contemplation throughout future ages. While Father Antonio was tall and portly, Father John of the Cross was very small of stature, and the Saint, whose sense of humour was irresistible, used to say, that God had given her a friar and a half to begin her Reform. The latter was the first professed, and the saint cut and made his habit with his own hands. The house at Durvelo was poor and very small. It belonged to a nobleman of Avila, Don Raphael, and was kept for the use of his bailiff, who received his corn rents there. Their penances and austerities were such that the saint had to urge them to use moderation, fearing they would kill themselves and thus destroy the good work they had began, but they made light of all their sufferings and God so blessed their labours, that the Order spread with a rapidity truly miraculous.
Dom Prosper Gueranger OSB, writes beautifully about the Saint in 'The Liturgical Year':
Let us go with the Church to Mount Carmel, and offer our grateful homage to John of the Cross, who following in the footsteps of Teresa of Jesus, opened a safe way to souls seeking God. The growing disinclination of the people for social prayer was threatening the irreparable destruction of piety, when in the sixteenth century the divine goodness raised up saints whose teaching and holiness responded to the needs of the new times. Doctrine does not change: the asceticism and mysticism of that age transmitted to the succeeding centuries the echo of those that had gone before. But their explanations were given in a more didactic way and analyzed more narrowly; their methods aimed at obiating the risk of illusion to which souls were exposed by their isolated devotion. It is but just to recognize that under the ever-fruitful action of the Holy Ghost the psychology of supernatural states became more extended and more precise.
The early Christians, praying with the Church, living daily and hourly the life of her liturgy, kept her stamp upon them in their personal relations with God. Thus it came about that, under the persevering and transforming influence of the Church, and participating in the graces of light and union, and in all the blessing of that one beloved so pleasing to the Spouse, they assimilated her sanctity to themselves, without any further trouble but to follow their mother with docility and suffer themselves to be carried securely in her arms. Thus they applied to themselves the words of our Lord: 'Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven'. We need not be surprised that there was not then, as now, the frequent and assiduous assistance of a particular director for each soul. Special guides are not necessary to the members of a caravan or of an army; it is isolated travellers that that stand in need of them; and even with these special guides, they can never have the same security as those who follow the caravan or the army.
This was understood, in the course of the last few centuries, by the men of God who, taking their inspiration from the many different aptitudes of souls, became the leaders of schools, one, it is true, in aim, but differing in the methods they adopted for counteracting the dangers of individualism. In this campaign of restoration and salvation, where the worst enemy of all was illusion under a thousand forms, with its subtle roots and its endless wiles, John of the Cross was the living image of the Word of God, 'more piercing than any two-edged sword, reaching unto the divisions of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow'; for he read, with unfailing glance, the very thoughts and intentions of hearts. Let us listen to his words. Though he belongs to modern times, he is evidently a son of the ancients.:
'The soul' he says, 'is to attain to a certain sense, to a certain divine knowledge, most generous and full of sweetness, of all human and divine things which do not fall within the commonsense and natural perceptions of the soul; it views them with different eyes now, for the light and grace of the Holy Ghost differ from those of sense, the divine from the human. (Dark night of the soul, book 2, ch 9) The dark night through which the soul passes on its way to the divine light of the perfect union of the love of God - so far as it is in this life possible - requires for its explanation greater experience and light of knowledge than I posses. For so great are the trials, and so profound the darkness, spiritual as well as corporal, which souls must endure if they will attain to perfection, that no human knowledge can comprehend them, nor experience describe them. (The Ascend of Mount Carmel - Prologue)
The journey of the soul to the divine union is called night for three reasons. The first is derived from the point from which the soul sets out, the privation of the desire of all pleasure in all the things of the world, by every desire and sense of man. The second, from the road by which it travels - that is, faith; for faith is obscure, like night, to the intellect. The third, from the goal to which it tends, God, incomprehensible and infinite, who in this life is as night to the soul. We must pass through these three nights to attain to the divine union with God.
They are foreshadowed in holy Scripture by the three nights which were to elapse, according to the command of the angel, between the betrothal and the marriage of the younger Tobias. (Tob 6;16) On the first night he was to burn the liver of the fish in the fire, which is the heart whose affections are set on the things of this world and which if it will enter on the road that leadeth unto God, must be burned up, and purified of all created things in the fire of this love. This purgation drives away the evil spirit, who has dominion over our soul because of our attachments to those pleasures which flow from temporal and corporal things.
'The second night, said the angel, thou shalt be admitted into the society of the holy patriarchs, the fathers of the faith. The soul having passed the first night, which is the privation of all sensible things, enters immediately into the second night, alone in pure faith, and, and by it alone directed; for faith is not subject to sense.
The third night, said the angel, thou shalt obtain a blessing - that is, God, who in the second night of faith communicates Himself so secretly and so intimately to the soul. This is another night, inasmuch as this communication is more obscure that the others. When this night is over, which is the accomplishments of the communication of God in spirit, ordinarily effected when the soul is the Wisdom of God, immediately ensues. ('The Ascent of Mt Carmel' Book I, Ch 2)
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