Saint John of the Cross

Saint John of the Cross was a Spanish Carmelite, priest, and mystic who, together with Saint Teresa of Jesus, renewed the Carmelite Order. He is regarded as one of the most important lyric poets of Spanish literature, and the Church honors him as a Doctor. His liturgical memorial falls on December 14.

He was born in 1542 in Fontiveros, near Ávila, as Juan de Yepes. His father, who came from a noble family of Toledo, was disinherited for marrying a poor silk weaver and died early, and the family lived in poverty. At the age of nine John moved with his mother and brother to Medina del Campo. There he went to school, worked as a nurse in a hospital, and then studied at the Jesuit college.

In 1563 he entered the Carmelites in Medina del Campo. He studied in Salamanca and was ordained a priest in 1567. That same year he met Teresa of Jesus, who laid out for him her plan for the renewal of Carmel, which also embraced the male branch of the Order, and he joined her work. In 1568 the first house of the Discalced Carmelite friars was opened at Duruelo, in the province of Ávila. Renewing his vows there according to the primitive Rule, he took the name John of the Cross.

In 1572, at Teresa’s request, he became confessor to the nuns of the Monastery of the Incarnation in Ávila, where she was prioress. The reform, however, met with resistance. In 1577 John was seized and imprisoned in the convent of the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance in Toledo. He spent nearly nine months there, enduring torments of body and spirit. In prison he composed stanzas of the “Spiritual Canticle.” In August 1578 he managed to escape and took refuge with the Discalced Carmelite nuns of that city.

He spent the next ten years in the convents of Andalusia, especially in Granada. During this time he completed his major works: “The Ascent of Mount Carmel,” “The Dark Night,” “The Spiritual Canticle,” and “The Living Flame of Love.” They are commentaries on his poems. In them John describes the path of a person to union with God in love. It leads through a purification that he calls the dark night, and the only light on it is faith.

Later he became a member of the general government of the Discalced Carmelites and was superior of the convent in Segovia. In 1591 he was removed from all his offices. At the solitary convent of La Peñuela in Andalusia he fell seriously ill. He was taken to Úbeda, where he bore great suffering with serenity and patience. He died in the night between December 13 and 14, 1591, while the friars were reciting Matins. He took leave of them with the words: “Today I am going to sing the Office in heaven.” His tomb is in Segovia.

Pope Clement X beatified him in 1675, and Benedict XIII canonized him in 1726. In 1926 Pius XI proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church; tradition calls him the Mystical Doctor. John Paul II, who in his youth wrote his doctoral dissertation on faith according to Saint John of the Cross, called him, in an apostolic letter for the fourth centenary of his death, a master in the faith and a witness to the living God.