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Life of Saint John of the Cross.English.20.2.23.
Life of Saint John of the Cross
He was born in Fontiveros, province of Ávila (Spain), around the year 1542. After a few years in the Carmelite Order, he was, at the request of Saint Teresa of Jesus, the first to declare himself in favor of his reform, for which he endured innumerable sufferings and works. He died in Ubeda in 1591, with a great reputation for holiness and wisdom, of which his spiritual writings bear precious witness.
Life of Poverty
Gonzalo de Yepes belonged to a good family in Toledo, but since he married a «lower» class girl, he was disinherited by his parents and had to earn a living as a silk weaver. Upon Gonzalo’s death, his wife, Catalina Alvarez, was left destitute and with three children. Jitan, who was the youngest, was born in Fontiveros, in Old Castile, in 1542.
He attended a school for poor children in Medina del Campo and began to learn the trade of weaving, but since he had no skills, he later went to work as a servant for the director of the hospital in Medina del Campo. Thus he spent seven years. At the same time that he continued his studies at the Jesuit college, he practiced rude bodily mortifications.
At the age of twenty-one, he took the habit in the convent of the Carmelites in Medina del Campo. His religious name was Juan de San Matías. After making profession, he requested and obtained permission to observe the original rule of Carmel, without making use of the mitigations (permissions to relax the rules) that various Pontiffs had approved and were then common in all convents.
San Juan would have wanted to be a lay brother, but his superiors did not allow it. After having successfully completed his theology studies, he was ordained a priest in 1567. The graces he received with the priesthood inflamed his desire for greater retirement, so that he came to think of entering the Charterhouse.
Meet Saint Teresa
Santa Teresa founded the convents of the reformed branch of the Carmelites at that time. When she heard about brother Juan, in Medina del Campo, the saint met with him, she was amazed at her religious spirit and told him that God called him to sanctify himself in the order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. She also told him that the prior general had given her permission to found two reformed convents for men and that he should be her first instrument in this great undertaking. The reform of Carmel launched by Santa Teresa and San Juan was not intended to change the order or «modernize» it, but rather to restore and revitalize its original mission, which had been greatly mitigated. At the same time that they managed to be faithful to their origins, the holiness of these reformers instilled a new richness in the Carmelites that has been reflected in their writings and in the example of their lives and continues to be a great wealth of spirituality.
FALL IN THE WELL
Father Inocencio de San Andrés declared that he had heard the saint say that
As a child, walking with other children playing around the curb of a well, getting close to the curb that was low, another boy, who was older than him, coming to want to do him harm, made him fall into the well, which had plenty of water. , and as it fell it sank to the ground; and Our Lady appeared to him and took him by the hand and raised him to the surface or top of the water, and he was in it as if he were on some board and some distance of time passed. And the children and boys who had seen him fall shouted, people came to help him and leaning out of the curb, saying he was already drowned, he replied: «I am not drowned, the Virgin has saved me, throw me a rope.» He straps himself in with her under her arms and they pulled him out without injury or damage, very happy.
All this was told to me by the same father
As Juan refused to abandon the reform, they locked him in a narrow and dark cell and mistreated him incredibly. This shows how little the spirit of Jesus Christ had penetrated into those who professed to follow him.
Suffering and union with God
San Juan’s cell was about three meters long by two meters wide. The only window was so small and so high that the saint had to stand on a bench to read the office. By order of Jerónimo Tostado, Vicar General of the Carmelites of Spain and consultant to the Inquisition, he was beaten so brutally that he kept his scars until death. What San Juan suffered then coincides exactly with the pains described by Saint Teresa in the «Sixth Mansion»: insults, slander, physical pain, spiritual anguish and temptations to give in. Later he said: «Do not be surprised that I love suffering very much. God gave me an idea of its great value when I was imprisoned in Toledo.»
The first poems of Saint John, which are like a voice crying out in the desert, reflect his state of mind:
where did you hide
Beloved, and left me moaning?
like the deer you fled,
having hurt me;
I went out after you crying, and you were gone.
On the eve of the Assumption, Prior Maldonado entered that cell that gave off a pestilential odor under the torrid summer heat and kicked the saint, who was lying down, to announce his visit. San Juan asked for his forgiveness, because his weakness had prevented him from getting up as soon as he saw him enter. «You seemed absorbed. What were you thinking about?» Maldonado told him.
«I was thinking that tomorrow is the feast of Our Lady and it would be a great happiness to be able to celebrate mass,» replied Juan.
«You won’t do it while I’m superior,» Maldonado replied.
On the night of the Assumption, the Blessed Virgin appeared to her afflicted servant, and told him: «Be patient, my son; this Test will soon end.»
A few days later she appeared to him again and showed him, in her vision, a window that overlooked the Tagus: «You will go out there and I will help you.» Indeed, after nine months in prison, the saint was granted the grace to do a few minutes of exercise. Juan went through the building looking for the window he had seen. As soon as he had recognized her, he returned to his cell. By then he had already begun to loosen the hinges on the door. That same night he managed to open the door and was lowered down by a rope that he had made with sheets and dresses. The two friars who were sleeping near the window did not see him. As the rope was too short, San Juan had to let himself fall along the wall to the river bank, although fortunately he was not hurt. Immediately, he followed a dog into a yard. In this way he managed to escape. Given the circumstances, his escape was a miracle.
Great guide and spiritual director
The saint first went to the reformed convent of Beas de Segura and then went to the nearby hermitage of Monte Calvario. In 1579, he was appointed superior of the college of Baeza and, in 1581, he was elected superior of Los Mártires, in the vicinity of Granada. Although he was the founder and spiritual head of the Discalced Carmelites, at that time he had little part in the negotiations and events that culminated in the establishment of the separate province of Los Descalzos.
The Crucified has appeared to him repeatedly,
of two of which we have concrete news. In his doctrine, the Saint considers visions, locutions and revelations as accidental elements of mystical life.
The first apparition took place in The first apparition took place in Ávila, in the Monastery of the Encarnación, where Saint Teresa had called him as confessor of the nuns in contemplation of the Passion, he was shown the Crucified, visible to the eyes of the body, body covered in sores and bathed in blood. So clear was his appearance that he was able to draw it with a pen as soon as he came to. The yellowish leaf, on which he drew it, is still preserved today in the Monastery of La Encarnación1
The second apparition took place in Segovia towards the end of his life. One afternoon after dinner he took me by the hand and led me to the garden and when we found ourselves alone I noticed: «I want to tell you something that happened to me with Our Lord. We had a crucifix in the convent2 and when I was in front of it one day, it seemed to me that I would be more decent in the Church, and wanting not only the religious to revere him, but also those outside, I did as I had thought. After having him in the church dressed as decently as I could, one day while I was in prayer before him, he told me: «Fray Juan, ask me what you want, and I will grant it to you for this service that you have done for me.» And I told him: «Lord, what I want is that you give me jobs
The second apparition took place in Segovia towards the end of his life. One afternoon after dinner he took me by the hand and led me to the garden and when we found ourselves alone I noticed: «I want to tell you something that happened to me with Our Lord. We had a crucifix in the convent2 and when I was in front of it one day, it seemed to me that I would be more decent in the Church, and wanting not only the religious to revere him, but also those outside, I did as I had thought. After having him in the church dressed as decently as I could, one day while I was in prayer before him, he told me: «Fray Juan, ask me what you want, and I will grant it to you for this service that you have done for me.» And I told him: «Lord, what I want is that you give me work to suffer for you, and that I be despised and held in little.»
miracle
The convent had a piece of orchard and olive grove surrounded not by walls, but by the same weeds of the mountain, and on the outside some bundles of sowing. Running a good wind to divert the fire, a brother wanted to burn the stubble that had remained from the mowing: using the demons of the occasion, they quickly stirred the wind against the orchard and the convent, and lit such flames that without resistance they threatened deplorable. whole site fire. Frightened, the religious called the Holy Father, who, making a brief prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, took the hyssop and holy water, and stood between the fence and the fire, whose flames, passing over the saint, were already licking the branches. from the wall, with which after a short space they lost sight of the Saint. They were all astonished, fearing him burned; but the Holy Father, fighting with God and his prayer against hell, achieved the victory that began to show itself in two unique wonders: the first, that by setting fire to the rockroses and branches that made up the fence (in the likeness of the bush of Moses), did not burn or offend them: the second, that as the flames subsided, they saw the Holy Father raised in the air in the midst of them, and that stepping on them, little by little he lowered himself without harming himself, nor smell of fire in their habits, coming joyfully towards the religious, and leaving the fire and its authors drowned in the entire place
POETRY
The poetic beauty of the work contrasts with the harshness and radicalism of the proposed path of progressive renunciation of any attachment, pleasure and commitment. Radicality raised in all its harshness in chapter 13 where we read:
“Always try to lean:
not to the easiest, but to the most difficult;
not to the tastiest, but to the most tasteless;
not to what is most tasty, but to what gives less pleasure;
not to what is rest, but to what is laborious;
not to what is consolation, but rather to grief;
not to the most, but to the least;
not to the highest and most precious, but to the lowest and most despised;
not to what it is to want something, but to want nothing;
not to go looking for the best of temporal things, but for the worst, and desire to enter into all nakedness and emptiness and poverty for Christ of all that is in the world.”
In the midst of that storm, San Juan fell ill. The provincial ordered him to leave the convent of Peñuela and gave him a choice between that of Baeza and that of Ubeda. The first of those convents was better provided and had a friend of the saint as superior. In the other, Father Francisco, whom Saint John had corrected together with Father Diego, was superior. That was the convent he chose.
The fatigue of the trip worsened his condition and made him suffer a lot. With great patience, he underwent several operations. The unworthy superior treated him inhumanly, forbade the friars to visit him, changed the nurse because he cared for him with affection, only allowed him to eat ordinary food and did not even give him what some people sent him from outside. When the provincial went to Ubeda and found out about the situation, he did everything he could for San Juan and reprimanded Fr. Francisco so severely,
DARK NIGHT OF SAN JOHN DE LA CRUZ
INTERNAL STRUCTURE. The poem is divided into three parts, corresponding to each of the three ways or paths that the soul must necessarily travel for its union with God.
The first way is purgative, also called ascetic, because in it the soul is freed from its passions and purified from its sins through the denial of the senses and the intellect. In the poem, it is circumscribed to the first two stanzas
The second path is the illuminative. Through it, the soul, with the consideration of eternal goods and the passion and redemption of Christ, is enlightened by the light of faith, which marks the safe path to God. In the poem, it corresponds to the third and fourth stanzas.
The third and definitive way is the unitive, in which what Saint John himself called spiritual marriage is achieved: the union between the soul and God (often expressed as an abandonment in the Other).
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