Saint John of the Cross
Doctor of the Church
Feast day – December 14
Saint John of the Cross was born near Avila in Spain. As a
child, he was playing near a pond one day. He slid into the depths of the
water, but came up unharmed and did not sink again. A tall and beautiful Lady
came to offer him Her hand. “No,” said the child, “You are too beautiful; my
hand will dirty Yours.” Then an elderly gentleman appeared on the shore and
extended his staff to the child to bring him to shore. These two were Mary and
Joseph. Another time he fell into a well, and it was expected he would be
retrieved lifeless. But he was seated and waiting peacefully. “A beautiful
lady,” he said, “took me into Her cloak and sheltered me.” Thus John grew up
under the gaze of Mary.
One day he was praying Our Lord to make known his vocation
to him, and an interior voice said to him: “You will enter a religious Order,
whose primitive fervor you will restore.” He was twenty-one years old when he
entered Carmel, and although he concealed his exceptional works, he outshone
all his brethren. He dwelt in an obscure corner whose window opened upon the
chapel, opposite the Most Blessed Sacrament. He wore around his waist an iron
chain full of sharp points, and over it a tight vestment made of reeds joined
by large knots. His disciplines were so cruel that his blood flowed in
abundance. The priesthood only redoubled his desire for perfection. He thought
of going to bury his existence in the Carthusian solitude, when Saint Teresa,
whom God enlightened as to his merit, made him the confidant of her projects
for the reform of Carmel and asked him to be her auxiliary.
John retired alone to a poor and inadequate dwelling and
began a new kind of life, conformed with the primitive Rules of the Order of
Carmel. Shortly afterwards two companions came to join him; the reform was
founded. It was not without storms that it developed, for hell seemed to rage
and labor against it, and if the people venerated John as a Saint, he had to
accept, from those who should have seconded him, incredible persecutions,
insults, calumnies, and even prison. When Our Lord told him He was pleased with
him, and asked him what reward he wished, the humble religious replied: “To
suffer and to be scorned for You.” His reform, though approved by the
General of the Order, was rejected by the older friars, who condemned the Saint
as a fugitive and an apostate and cast him into prison, from which he only
escaped, after nine months’ suffering, with the help of Heaven and at the risk
of his life. He took refuge with the Carmelite nuns for a time, saying his experience
in prison had been an extraordinary grace for him. Twice again, before his
death, he was shamefully persecuted by his brethren, and publicly disgraced.
When he fell ill, he was given a choice of monasteries to
which he might go; he chose the one governed by a religious whom he had once
reprimanded and who could never pardon him for it. In effect, he was left
untended most of the time, during his last illness. But at his death the room
was filled with a marvelous light, and his unhappy Prior recognized his error,
and that he had mistreated a Saint. After a first exhumation of his remains,
they were found intact; many others followed, the last one in 1955. The body
was at that time found to be entirely moist and flexible still.
Saint John wrote spiritual books of sublime elevation. A
book printed in 1923 which has now become famous, authored by a Dominican
theologian,* justly attributed to
Saint John and to Saint Thomas Aquinas, whom the Carmelite Saint followed, the
indisputable foundations for exact ascetic and mystical theology. He was
proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1926 by Pope Pius XI.
Sources for this article were taken from: http://magnificat.ca
Prayer
O God, Who didst instill into
the heart of Saint John ot the Cross, Thy Confessor and our Father, a perfect
spirit of self-abnegation, and a surpassing love of Thy Cross: grant, that
assiduously following in his footsteps, we may attain to eternal glory. Through
Christ Our Lord. Amen.
Saint John of the Cross – Pray for us
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