St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)
From Darkness to Light

Q U I C K S C A N

John joins the Carmelites and meets Teresa of Avila
John is imprisoned
John sees brighter days, then more darkness
Visiting the shrine of St. John of the Cross
A footnote on our pilgrimage tour from Lisbon to Lourdes (May 15-26, 2006)

Though he faced intense suffering during his life, St. John of the Cross ultimately found esteem as a great spiritual writer and a Doctor of the Church. (photo by Jack Wintz, O.F.M.)

In last month’s column, we focused on the life of St. Teresa of Avila and spoke a little bit about our pilgrimage to her shrines at Alba de Tormes and Avila. We follow up this month with an overview of the life of St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa’s coworker in the reform of the Carmelite Order. We’ll also recall our visit to the Carmelite chapel in Segovia, where the earthly remains of St. John are venerated in a coffin above the main altar.

St. John of the Cross was born in a small town in Spain in 1542, not far from Avila. He was hardly three years old when his father died, and the family was left struggling with poverty. John moved with his mother to Medina del Campo, where he received an education in a school for poor children. Later, he found work in a hospital there and was able to enroll in a Jesuit college in the same city.

John joins the Carmelites and
meets Teresa of Avila

In 1563, John entered the Carmelite monastery in Medina and continued his studies at the Carmelite college at the University of Salamanca. He was ordained in 1567 and, while in Medina to celebrate his first Mass, he met Teresa of Avila, the great mystic and leader of the Carmelite nuns. She persuaded the young priest to join her in her efforts to reform both the Carmelite friars and nuns.

In 1568, John and four other Carmelites established the first men’s house of the reform at Duruelo near Avila, which marked the beginning of the discalced Carmelites. In 1570, he was named the confessor of the Convent of the Incarnation at Avila after Teresa became prioress there. John spent the next five years in that capacity. But storms of controversy were never far away.

John is imprisoned

Dissension was soon to grow between the calced (those with shoes) and the discalced Carmelites (who no longer wore shoes). The spiritual controversy came to a climax in 1577 when Carmelite friars opposed to reform seized John and imprisoned him in a 6- X 10-foot room in a priory in Toledo.

During his nine months in a dark prison he prayed and worked on some of his great spiritual classics—mystical writings that were eventually published with such titles as Dark Night of the Soul, The Ascent of Mount Carmel and Living Flame of Love. After nine months, he escaped by making a rope out of threads from rugs and letting himself down from a high window. Gaunt and weak, he was then sheltered by St. Teresa’s nuns in Toledo.

John sees brighter days, then more darkness

In 1579, the discalced, or reformed, Carmelites became a separate province. For a while, John met with a measure of success. He became head of a house of studies at Alcalà, then prior of various monasteries and even served as provincial for a time. But controversy and fierce resistance often followed John along the way. In 1591, at the Madrid general chapter of the Order, John was not elected to any office. Instead, he was sent to a remote monastery in southern Spain to pray.

His glowing coffin sitting high above an altar in Segovia suggests that John of the Cross has passed through darkness into the glory of God. (photo by Jack Wintz, O.F.M.)

The next year, a serious illness afflicted him and he was brought to the priory at Ubeda in southern Spain, where he died on December 14, 1591, saying aloud the words of the psalm, “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my Spirit.” In 1592, his body was transferred to the Carmelite monastery in Segovia, located some 65 miles east of Avila.

Visiting the shrine of St. John of the Cross

It was in Segovia that our pilgrimage group caught up with St. John of the Cross. Our group made a stop at the Carmelite monastery chapel in Segovia, where the body of St. John of the Cross is venerated. We celebrated Eucharist in the presence of the richly decorated coffin above the altar that contains the earthly remains of the saint.

The rich, glittering coffin stands in bright contrast to the many experiences of darkness and rejection that St. John of the Cross encountered in his lifetime. And that paradoxical contrast conveys a vital spiritual truth, a truth clearly underscored in both the writings and the life of this saint: Often it is only through darkness and purification that one advances to greater union with God and to the glory that follows.    

The Church has obviously come to believe that St. John of the Cross, indeed, entered God’s glory. John was canonized in 1726 and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XI in 1926. He is the patron saint of mystics and poets. His feast day is December 14.

A footnote on our pilgrimage tour from Lisbon to Lourdes (May 15-26, 2006)

Our pilgrimage began at the birthplace of St. Anthony of Padua in Lisbon, Portugal. We then moved by motorbus to Fatima, which was followed by a visit to Coimbra, Portugal, and to the Monastery of Santa Cruz there, where St. Anthony spent several years as an Augustinian friar. Our motorbus journey then proceeded across Spain, where we visited the shrines of four great Spanish saints in this sequence: St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Francis Xavier. Finally, we crossed the border between Spain and France and made a two-day visit to Our Lady’s Shrine in Lourdes, France.

(The tour was arranged by Pentecost Tours, Inc.)

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