John of the Cross, Presb and the doctor Eccl.
| December 14, commemoration | |
| Position: | Priest and church teacher, OCD mystic |
| Death: | 1591 |
| Attributes: | Carmelite, book, cross, pen |
CURRICULUM VITAE
He came from a poor Spanish family. At 21, he entered the Carmelite order in Medina del Campo. After meeting Teresa of Avila and with the consent of the superiors, he participated with her in spreading the reformed Carmel. He had to endure many hardships, but in suffering, he achieved a profound union with God and the pinnacle of mystical life. He held several positions, but according to his wish, he ended up freed from them and the glory associated with recognition. Likewise, he died after great suffering. The spiritual writings he left behind testify to his wisdom.
A MYSTIC THEOLOGIST ON THE JOYFUL WAY OF THE CROSS
He was born in 1542 in the small village of Fontiveros in Castile as the third son of Gonzalo de Yepes, who a family of wealthy merchants disinherited after the death of his parents. She did not like that he chose poor Catalina Alvarez, an orphan, as his wife. John’s ancestors on his father’s side were supposedly noblemen. His father died after a long illness when John was about two years old. Poverty and worries about how to provide the children with the most necessary things prompted his mother to set out with Francisco and little John (son Alois died before John was born) over a long distance to their uncle. The painful journey of begging did not fulfill expectations. When they were back in Fontiveros, five-year-old John (pronounced Spanish Juan) almost drowned in a lake. The incident is said to have been accompanied by a vision of Mother Mary, who was reaching out her hand to him, but he did not give her his out of respect for her so as not to soil it. Then, a peasant pulled him out. (He felt the protection of Mother Mary for the second time somewhat later when he fell into the well.)
In 1548, mother Catalina moved with her sons to Arévalo, but the family’s poverty did not decrease. In 1551, another move followed to the commercial town of Medina del Campo (today Valladolid). There, his mother placed John in a group for poor orphans, where he was educated for 8 years. He did well in his studies, but his attempts at tailoring, woodcarving, or painting were unsuccessful. From 17, he worked as a nurse in a hospital. He went around begging for alms for poor patients. With a desire to study, he spent several hours a day in the Jesuit college and more at night overbooks. He finished his humanistic studies with the Jesuits in 1563 when he entered the Carmelite monastery of St. Anne in Medina. After a year’s novitiate, he took vows and, under the name John of St. Methods, was sent to study at the University of Salamanca, where in 1567, he was ordained a priest. He had his primogeniture in Medina. Due to his desire for a stricter life, he considered transferring to the Cartesian order. Still, he met Teresa of Jesus, learned about her reform, and finally agreed to cooperate. He had not yet completed his studies. On August 15, 1568, he participated in founding a monastery in Valladolid, where Teresa introduced him to the life they began to live according to the original rules, including the method and meaning of their so-called recreation.
In Duruelo near Avila, he was given a house as a gift, which he repaired. Teresa called it Bethlehem and obtained permission from the provincial. John and two others, the prior of Medina, Father Anthony, and the deacon Joseph, took new vows there on the first Sunday of Advent, in the presence of the provincial, regarding the reform of the order. John’s new name was “John of the Cross,” and Anthony had “of Jesus” added. Thus, the first male community of the “Barefoot” was founded. The Reformed were called so because they walked barefoot, unlike the other Carmelites. The division into barefoot and shod took hold and persists.
John of the Cross was put in charge of the education of the novices. On 11 June 1570, the convent moved from Duruelo to Mancera de Abajo, near Salamanca. In the autumn of the same year, John went to Pastrana, where there were more novices. However, on 25 January 1571, he had already founded a monastery of Displaced Carmelites in Alba de Tormes. In April, he became rector of the College of Discalced Carmelites in Alcalá de Henares.
In the Monastery of the Incarnation in Avila, Teresa of Jesus became prioress in October and, through the visitor, requested John of the Cross as confessor and advisor for her convent for the following year. John stayed in Avila, with minor breaks, from May 1572 to the beginning of December 1577, when he was captured on the night of December 4 and secretly transported to the monastery of the Discalced Carmelites in Toledo. There, he was illegally tried as a seditionist despite all the credentials he had received from the nuncio and the apostolic visitor. They also offered him many benefits if he withdrew from the reform. In vain. Therefore, they imprisoned him in a small, windowless room with a stool and a breviary. They took away his hooded scapular so that he would suffer the cold, and they gave him only bread and water for food. They only dared to commit evil deeds after the late nuncio Ormanet was replaced by Felipe Seg, who no longer favored reform.
John endured suffering with patience and responded to evil with love. He also gave the guard a wooden cross that he wore on his heart. He filled his time with prayer and composed mystical poems. However, his body did not want to endure the conditions in prison. When John felt his life was at stake, he escaped. He did not know where his prison was located. The tied blanket with the robe, with which he lowered himself from the prison, was supposedly tied to a loop that would not usually have been able to bear the weight of it. There was more than two meters to the bottom. After jumping down, he discovered he was in greater danger in the yard. He had to get up from there to a niche behind the wall. Finally, he managed to get to the Discalced Carmelites at dawn. He was in such a state that he could only eat porridge made from boiled pears. He soon took refuge in the monastery of “El Calvario” in Andalusia in southern Spain, where he became abbot in the autumn.
He started in Baez on July 14, 1579, as rector of the college of “Our Lady of Carmel,” which he led until the beginning of 1582. In the meantime, in March 1581, he participated in the provincial chapter in Alcalá de Henares because Pope Gregory XIII had consented the previous year to establish his province of the Discalced.
From January 1582, John of the Cross was stationed in Granada, and in October 1585, he became provincial vicar in Andalusia. After two years, he returned to the priory of the Granada Convent of the Martyrs. He was a sought-after confessor and wrote about prayer and the spiritual journey. During his time in Granada, he not only rebuilt the monastery, but also managed to write the book The Ascent of Mount Carmel, considered his best work. He also made many journeys, drawing strength from prayer.
As a vicar in Andalusia, he founded other monasteries. In April 1586 in Cordoba at the chapel of St. Roch, in June another in Seville and later that year in La Manchuela. That year, a wall fell while a house was being rebuilt, crushing his room and him. Onlookers thought he had not survived, but then they saw his smile and heard him attribute protection to the Virgin Mary.
Pope Sixtus V. 10. 7. 1587 Bosý authorized a vicar general subject to the superior general. In the first chapter in Madrid on 18. 6. 1588, John of the Cross was elected the first general definitor. When the vicar general M. Doria introduced a new form of governance, he appointed John the third councilor. The council seat was in Segovia in the middle of the following year. John also became the principal of the community there.
At the extraordinary Madrid chapter in 1590, he tried to mitigate the extreme measures that Doris had begun. At the next regular chapter a year later, John was stripped of all his functions, and with humility and inner peace, he left for the Andalusian province. After a month in the hermit convent of La Peñuela, he fell ill. He suffered from inflammation of his right leg and, therefore, went to the convent in used for treatment. He arrived with a high fever and underwent a serious operation without anesthesia. From December 7, his fever rose dangerously, and on December 11, he received the sacraments for the journey to eternity. Shortly after midnight on December 14, when he kissed the cross with the words: “Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit” – he died.
He was beatified in 1675 and canonized in 1726. In 1926, he was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XI. Through his writings, he teaches the path to union with God and complete transformation into the Beloved.
In writing The Flame of Love…, he asks: “Why are you impatient, my soul, when from now on you can love God completely in your heart?”
RESOLUTION, PRAYER
