Saint John of the Cross, OCD (1542 – 14 Dec 1591), Carmelite Mystic and Doctor of the Church
YOUTH
John was born in Fontiveros, Spain and was the son of a poor weaver. His childhood was difficult because his family was poor, his family died prematurely, and the extended family looked down upon them and refused to lend support. He went to a school for poor children and became a servant to the director of a hospital, caring for those who were dying with terrible diseases. For seven years, John worked as a servant while also studying at a Jesuit college. Even as a youth he was drawn towards penitential practices. Initially he intended to join the Carthusian order, which is one of the most rigorous and enclosed Catholic orders.
CARMELITE FRIAR
However, he met St. Teresa of Jesus and learned much about the Carmelite order from her. When he was twenty-one, his love of God prompted him to enter the Carmelite Order. In 1567 he was ordained a priest. One year later, this Carmelite friar and ten other monks founded a new monastery at Duruelo and he received the name “John of the Cross.”
With St. Teresa of Avila, St. John was chosen by God to bring a new spirit of fervor among religious. They are credited with founding the Discalced Carmelite Order.The religious reformation which he and St. Teresa spearheaded was largely responsible for why Spain never fell to the Protestant Revolution (as many other parts of Europe did). Their suffering and zeal were so great that to this day Spain has largely remained free from Protestantism.
GREAT SUFFERING
Despite this great spiritual success (much of it coming after his death), his life was full of trials. Although he succeeded in opening new monasteries, where an authentic holy religious way of life was practiced, he himself was criticized and even thrown into prison (see details below). He was beaten and made to suffer terribly by his enemies, who were lax religious Carmelites and resented his discipline and holiness. God also allowed St. John to be tried by fierce and terrible temptations. For many years it appeared to him that God had abandoned him and on that account he suffered greatly – a dark night of the soul.
GIFTS AND CHARISMS
Yet when these storms of trouble passed, the Lord rewarded his faithful servant by giving him deep peace and joy of heart. St. John was very close to God. In fact, the Blessed Mother herself showed him how to escape from his prison cell. It was also through St. John that St. Teresa was able to achieve the mystical marriage with Christ. He once only gave her a tiny fraction of the Host at Holy Communion and this forced her to detach even from pious desires not fully centered on God. Christ in turn appeared to her and wed her with a nail from His own hand; thus she too was nailed to the Cross.
St. John had a marvelous way with sinners. Once a beautiful but sinful woman from Avila tried to make him violate God’s commandment. After being spiritual directed by him, she "fell in love" with him. He however remained completely unaffected by her purposeful charms and attentions. Dismayed at being spurned she sneaked into the monastery and awaited him in his cell. When he arrived, instead of prudently running away (as other saints have prudently done), he talked to her with such piety and wisdom that she saw the fruitlessness of her passion. He helped her detach from false affection, experience true contrition, and he helped lead her to a great conversion. Another lady, who had such a sharp temper that she was nicknamed “the terrible”, was always calmed by St. John’s humble and kind manner. A confrere admitted that he never saw him moody or agitated, but always calm and recollected. One particular nun at Salamanca was considered very wise and holy by all. Even the renowned and learned faculty from the theological school there came to learn at her feet. Yet after hearing her confession and asking some questions, St. John realized she was possessed by a demon. He had to stand alone against the clergy of Salmanca but was proven true.
Every time he could, Saint John of the Cross chose what would bring him the most suffering. He prayed God to let him suffer every day for love of Jesus, and in reward, Our Lord revealed Himself to St. John in a special way. Jesus asked him, "John, what would you have Me do for you?" St. John famously responded,"To suffer and to be despised for Thee, my Lord."
St. John is famous for his spiritual books which show us how to grow and advance in a deep union with God. He is one of the greatest mystical writers of the Church. Much of his teaching focuses on how man is to detach himself from the things of this world and focus himself upon GOD ALONE. Thus, we could perhaps nickname him the Doctor of Detachment. Among his many teachings, he wrote: "Live in the world as if only God and your souls were in it, then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing."
DEATH
He died once again imprisoned in a Carmelite convent. It was the one led by the man who hated him most. In fact, he had been exiled to suffer and die in Mexico, but his emaciated and wrecked body gave out before he was transferred across the ocean. Where he found no love, he was able to put love.
He was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726, and in 1926, Pope Pius XI declared him a Doctor of the Church. Even from a purely secular perspective, he is considered one of the greatest Spanish authors and poets.
JAILBREAK
It was at Toledo that St. John went through the greatest and most dramatic crisis of his life. He underwent a severe test of his courage, endurance and faith. He was caught in the vortex of a dispute between the Carmelites of the Mitigated Observance and the Carmelites of the Reform. St. John of the Cross was taken prisoner in December, 1577, from his chaplain’s house at the Convent of the Incarnation in Avila and brought to Toledo
He was imprisoned in the monastery in Toledo in a room ten feet by six, with a very small slit high in the wall being his only source of light. The room was really nothing but a large closet. Here St. John was locked in for nine months, suffering from the cold in the winter and the stifling heat in the summer. He was not even allowed to offer Holy Mass. When he was brought out, it was to take his meal of bread and water and sometimes sardines, kneeling in the refectory, and to hear the upbraidings of the Prior. After the meal on Fridays, he had to bare his shoulders and undergo the circular discipline for the space of a Miserere. Each person present struck him in turn with a lash. St. John bore the scars of these beatings throughout his life. His captors also brutally tortured him with psychological warfare trying to break down his spirit.
A change in jailers after six months brought a more lenient friar to be his keeper. But he was torn by doubt as to what was God’s Will: Should he try to escape, or was it the will of God for him to die here? His searching prayer was answered by the conviction that he should escape. So he began to plan. While the others were at table, the more lenient young Father, Juan de Santa Maria, allowed St. John to help clean the cell. This included the liberty of walking down the corridor outside the room onto which his prison closet opened in order to empty the night pail. The jailer had also given St. John a needle and thread to mend his clothing. He tied a small stone to the thread and measured the distance to the ground from a window in the corridor. Back in his cell, he sewed his blankets together and found that they would, if used as a rope, reach to within 11 feet of the ground – close enough to permit a jump. Little by little he had also loosened the screws in the padlock outside the cell. On the night he planned to escape, two visiting friars happened to be sleeping in the room outside. They awoke when the padlock fell when St. John shook it, but they went back to sleep again, their sleepy eyes perhaps being closed by a wide-awake angel.
St. John stepped between the friars and silently let himself out through the window and down on his improvised rope. Had he landed two feet farther out from the building, he would have fallen to the rocky banks of the Tagus River below. He next found himself in a court surrounded by walls; he was almost ready to give up, but he finally succeeded in climbing one of the walls and was able to drop into an alleyway of the city. After daybreak, he found the convent of the Discalced Carmelite nuns, who sheltered him and later found a temporary refuge for him in the Hospital of Santa Cruz, very close to the monastery from which he had escaped. The friars from the monastery had come to the convent looking for him while he was there, but had been prevented from finding him (most likely through the intervention of his Guardian Angel or the Blessed Mother herself). Little did they know that the emaciated, nearly dead object of their search was being nursed back to life not a stone’s throw away from where they had held him prisoner.