John de Yepes was born in 1542 at Fontiveros, Spain, and entered the Carmelite Order in 1563. In 1568 he became, at St Teresa’s suggestion, one of the first two friars of the Discalced reform, taking the name of John of the Cross. He was an heroic defender of the reform for the rest of his life. He died at Ubeda in 1591, and from that time he has enjoyed great esteem for sanctity and for the spiritual wisdom to which his writings testify.
He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together (Col 1:16)
Traces of divine beauty in creation.
...God created all things with remarkable ease and brevity, and in them he left some trace of who he is, not only in giving all things being from nothing, but even by endowing them with innumerable graces and qualities, making them beautiful in a wonderful order and unfailing dependence on one another. All od this he did through hisown Wisdon, the Word, hos only begotten Son by whom he created them. St Paul says, ‘The Son of God is the splendour of his glory and the countenance of his substance.’ It should be known that only with this countenance, his Son, did God look at all things, that is he communicated to them their natural being and many natural graces and gifts, and made them complete and perfect, as is said in Genesis: ‘God looked at all things that he made, and they were very good’. To look and behold that they were very good was to make them very good in the Word, his Son. Not only by looking at them he communicate natural being and graces, as we said, but also with this cointenance of his Son alone, he clothed them in beauty by imparting to them supernatural being. This he did when he became man and elevated human nature into the beauty of God and consequently all creatures, since in human nature he was united with them all. Accordingly, the Son of God proclaimed: ‘If I be lifted up from the earth, I will elevate all things to me’. And in this elevation of all things through the incarnation of his Son and through the glory of his resurrection according to the flesh, the Father did not merely beautify creatures partially, but rather can we say, clothed them wholly in beauty and dignity. (A reading from ‘The Spritual Canticle’ by St John of the Cross)
After Discalced Carmelite Proper Offices.
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