December 14th is the Memorial of Saint John of the Cross, O.C.D. (1542-1591), Priest and Doctor of the Catholic Church, which is superseded by the 3rd Sunday of Advent this year. Juan de Yepes y Álvarez was born in Fontiveros, near Ávila, Spain into a family who were descendents of converts Christianity from the Muslim or Jewish religion. His father, an accountant to rich relatives, but was rejected when he married Johns mother, who was an orphan of a lower social class and was forced to work with his wife as a weaver. Johns father died when John only 7 years old and his older brother died 2 years later due to their poverty. His mother continued to work as a weaver after moving to a couple of times, settling in Medina, Spain where John attended a school for poor and orphan children, where he received a basic education and Christian doctrine and food, clothing and lodging. He served as an altar server in a nearby Augustinian monastery. John later worked at a hospital and studied at the age of 17-21 in a school instructed by the recently founded Religious community Society of Jesus, Jesuits. Then in 1663 at the age of 21, John entered the Carmelite Order, adopting the name John of St. Matthias. The following year in 1564, John professed his religious vows as a Carmelite and was sent to study theology and philosophy at the University of Salamanca, one of the 4 largest universities in Europe, and at the Colegio de San Andrés, which may have influenced all his later writings, as Fray Luis de León, one of the foremost experts, taught Biblical Studies. John was ordained a priest in 1567 and desired to join the more strict Carthusian Order of solitary living and silent contemplation. However, on a journey from Salamanca to Medina del Campo he met the charismatic Carmelite nun Teresa of Jesus, who was in Medina to found the 2nd reformed monastery for women, known as the Discalsed Carmelites. She immediately talked to him about the restoring the purity of the Carmelite Order by restarting observance of its Primitive Rule of 1209, which had been relaxed by Pope Eugene IV in 1432. Under this Rule, more time both day and night was spent in the recitation of prayers as a community, study and devotional reading, the celebration of Mass and times of solitude. For the Carmelite friars, time was to be spent evangelizing the people living around the monastery. Total abstinence from meat and lengthy fasting was to be observed from September 14th, Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross until Easter. A longer period of silence was to be maintained from Night prayer until midmorning prayer. The religious clothing was to be more simple and coarse and no shoes were to be worn reflecting the vow of poverty. Thus, the reform of Sister Teresa of Avila came to known as discalced or barefoot, differentiating from the non-reformed friars and nuns. Sister Teresa asked Father John to delay his entry into the Carthusians and to follow her, which he did and after learning more about this new form of Carmelite life, Fr. John founded in 1568 a new monastery for friars following Sr. Teresas principles and Fr. John of St. Matthias changed his name to Fr. John of the Cross. After founding several other monasteries, Fr. John moved to Avila, Spain and became the spiritual director and confessor for Teresa and the other 130 nuns there, as well for as a wide range of laypeople in the city from 1571-1977. However, there was an increase in tensions among the among the Spanish Carmelite friars over the reforms of Sr. Teresa and Fr. John in 1575-77. As a result, a General Chapter of the Carmelite Order was convened at Piacenza. Italy in 1576, out of concern that events in Spain were getting out of hand, which concluded by ordering the total suppression of the Discalced houses, though it was not immediately enforced. For a time, Fr. John was protected by the papal nuncio who supported the Discalced friars, but when the papal nuncio died, Fr. John was taken prisoner in 1577 by a group of Carmelites opposed to reform and taken from Ávila to the Carmelite monastery in Toledo, where he was brought before a court of friars and accused of disobeying the ordinances of the General Chapter of Piacenza. Despite Johns argument that he had not disobeyed the ordinances, he received a punishment of imprisonment and was jailed in the monastery, which included weekly public lashing before the community and severe isolation in a 10 by 5 feet stifling cell, barely large enough for his body. The only light came to his cell was through a hole from an adjoining room, by which he could pray his prayer book. He had no change of clothing and his lived on daily ration of water, bread and scraps of salt fish. However, it was during this imprisonment, that Fr. John composed a great part of his most famous poem Spiritual Canticle and a few shorter poems on paper passed to him by the friar who guarded his cell. He managed to escape this imprisonment 9 months later, on 15 August 1578, through a small window in a room adjoining his cell by prying the cell door off its hinges. He was nursed back to health by Sr. Teresas nuns in Toledo and later, 6 weeks at the Hospital of Santa Cruz. Fr. John continued the Discalced Carmelites reform, which, in part as a result of the opposition faced from other Carmelites, they decided to demand from the Pope their formal separation from the rest of the Carmelite Order, which occurred in 1580 decree by Pope Gregory XIII, authorizing a separation between the Calced and Discalced Carmelites. Fr. John of the Cross was elected to write the constitutions for the Discalced Carmelites and by the time of the Provincial Chapter at Alcalá in 1581, there were 22 houses, some 300 friars and 200 nuns in the Discalced Carmelites. Sr. Teresa of Avila died in October 1582 while Fr. John, continued to establish monasteries. He was elected in 1588 as third Councilor to the Vicar General for the Discalced Carmelites, but disagreeing with some of Vicar Generals remodeling of the leadership of the Discalced Carmelite Order, Fr. John was removed from his assignment in Segovia, Spain and was sent in 1591 to an isolated monastery where he fell ill. He traveled to the monastery at Úbeda, Spain for treatment. bit his condition worsened and he died there at the age of 49, on 14 December 1591, of erysipelas, an acute infection typically with a skin rash, that spreads to deeper tissue. St. John of the Cross was a reformer of the Carmelite Order and is considered, along with St. Teresa of Ávila, as a founder of the Discalced Carmelites. He is also known for his writings, as both his poetry and his studies on the growth of the soul are considered the summit of mystical Spanish literature and one of the peaks of all Spanish literature. He was canonized as a Saint in 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII and declared a Doctor of Mystical Theology in the Catholic Church in 1926 by Pope Pius XI. Let us pray, O God, who gave the Priest Saint John an outstanding dedication to perfect self-denial and love of the Cross, grant that, by imitating him closely at all times, we may come to contemplate eternally your glory. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. St. John of the Cross, pray for us. From a spiritual Canticle by Saint John of the Cross, priest Though holy doctors have uncovered many mysteries and wonders, and devout souls have understood them in this earthly condition of ours, yet the greater part still remains to be unfolded by them, and even to be understood by them. We must then dig deeply in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many pockets containing treasures: however deep we dig we will never find their end or their limit. Indeed, in every pocket new seams of fresh riches are discovered on all sides. For this reason the apostle Paul said of Christ: In him are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God. The soul cannot enter into these treasures, nor attain them, unless it first crosses into and enters the thicket of suffering, enduring interior and exterior labors, and unless it first receives from God very many blessings in the intellect and in the senses, and has undergone long spiritual training. All these are lesser things, disposing the soul for the lofty sanctuary of the knowledge of the mysteries of Christ: this is the highest wisdom attainable in this life. Would that men might come at last to see that it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there its consolation and desire. The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross. Saint Paul therefore urges the Ephesians not to grow weary in the midst of tribulations, but to be steadfast and rooted and grounded in love, so that they may know with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height and the depth—to know what is beyond knowledge, the love of Christ, so as to be filled with all the fullness of God. The gate that gives entry into these riches of his wisdom is the cross; because it is a narrow gate, while many seek the joys that can be gained through it, it is given to few to desire to pass through it.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 01:28:58 +0000
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