Life of Saint John of the cross

Contents

A CHILD oF BENEDICTION

HospiraL ATTENDANT AND COLLEGE STUDENT CARMELITE FRIAR : : < ; CoOADJUTOR OF SAINT TERESA

THE First FRIARS OF THE REFORM . : THE TYPICAL CONFESSOR AND DIRECTOR THE GATHERING OF THE STORM . ; A A Victim oF DivinE Love ‘ ; ‘ A TEACHER OF MysTICAL THEOLOGY .

Introduction

A Life of St. John of the Cross has been a desideratum for many years. About the middle of the last century the Oratorian Fathers under the venerable Father Faber projected such a publication in their collection of Lives of Modern Saints. I am not sure who was entrusted with the task of writing it, or how far the preparations had progressed when it was authoritatively decided that its publication would not be opportune, and, in fact, the whole series of Lives had to be discontinued. A long time afterwards the late David Lewis, M.A., the translator of the Works of St. John of the Cross, compiled a life based upon the available Spanish, Italian and French sources, which appeared in 1888, and was also prefixed to the second edition of the Works of the Saint. This Life has long been out of print, and it does not seem advisable to reprint it, because during the last thirty years a great amount of work has been done, but still remains incomplete, bearing both on biographical and _ theological matters. In the meantime the demands for a short biography have increased. The end of last year saw the second centenary of the canonisation of the Saint, and the celebrations connected with it placed his wonderful personality vividly before the eyes of the Catholic world. Even more important was the promulgation of the Decree of the Holy See, 24 August, 1926, beginning Dze vicesima septima, whereby His Holiness Pope Pious XI declared St. John of the Cross a Doctor of the Universal church. He had always xX. INTROEUCTION been regarded as one of the great Doctors zm the Church, but now he is recognised as one of the Doctors of the Church, principally in matters connected with Mystical theology, like eg. St. Alphonsus Liguori with respect to Moral theology. In addition to these motives for the present publication there is a third one, namely the ever increasing study of the higher paths of spirituality which is carried on not only by Catholics but even by many non-Catholics throughout the English speaking world.

The Sisters of the Congregation of Notre- Dame who have already given us so many excellent short Lives of Saints decided four or five years ago to include that of St. John of the Cross among their collection, and they were fortunate enough to obtain from the Oratorian Fathers in London the loan of a large number of rare and precious books bearing on the subject. The preparations had already reached the point where the actual writing of the book could have begun when it pleased Divine Providence to remove the gifted compiler. Her mantle fell upon another not less talented Sister who, of course, had to begin again almost from the beginning. |

In presenting her work to the public a few words must be said,

First about the audience to which she addresses herself. It is neither the student of theology, nor the general reader, but first and foremost the numerous young ladies who have received their education in the establishments of the Congregation, in which a solid, all-embracing religious training is of fundamental importance. These Lives of the Saints are calculated to form a kind

INTRODUCTION Xl.

of post-scholastic course, re-asserting and enlarging by concrete examples the lessons learnt during the school days. They are, therefore, in many respects deeper than popular Lives would be ; at the same time they avoid technical matters for the mastering of which a regular theological training would be required.

Secondly, it is necessary to say that the Life of St. John of the Cross presents some peculiar difficulties. In the words of the Church he was given by God to St. Teresa as a collaborator. He it was who first carried out her wish of establishing her reform of the Carmelite Order among the friars. After the first few years he was entrusted with various offices of real importance, but not of the greatest prominence, and for the larger part of his life he worked in comparative obscurity. During the critical years 1574 to 1577 he occupied the post of confessor to a convent of nuns, and was hardly in a position, even should he have wished it, of taking a prominent share in the development which led to the bitter conflict between the Calced and the Discalced Carmelites. Nevertheless it was he, more than anyone else, who had to bear the full brunt of the storm which broke in the last named year. These matters cannot be disregarded in a biography; it is indispensable to give at least a short outline of the course of events in which St. John was concerned, although not in the active but only in the passive sense ; but it has been considered unnecessary to enter into more details than are required for the understanding of a complicated situation.

Finally, the most abiding fruit of his life are his spiritual writings. To do full justice to these it

Xl, INTRODUCTION would have been necessary to write a treatise on Mystical theology and to take cognisance of recent discussison on several difficult problems connected with his works. But this would have been out of keeping with the purpose and the whole tenor of this little book, and therefore the author has preferred merely to pass in review of his several writings and give, in the Saint’s own words, a summary of his teaching, leaving out all those questions which are discussed among theologians by profession. This plan seems eminently sober, and it is sincerely hoped that the book will prove useful and acceptable to those for whom it is intended, and will also appeal to wider circles.

BENEDICT ZIMMERMAN, O.C.D.

KENSINGTON, 1927.

SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS.

MYSTICAL DOCTOR.

Chapter. 1 A Child Of Benediction

JUAN DE YEPES was born at Hontiveros, or Fontiveros (Fons Tiberii), in Old Castile, nearly four hundred years ago. The year of his birth was 1542, the day was probably the 24th of June. The once famous city was then reduced to a mere village, whose chief claim to notice lay in the fact that it was situated on the route between Toledo and Medina del Campo, at that time one of the great trading marts for Europe and America, In Fontiveros there lived a young orphan girl, Catalina Alvarez, the adopted daughter of a respectable widow whose house offered accommodation to passing travellers. Among these, in the first half of the sixteenth century, came Gonzalo de Yepes, of noble birth, but poor. On his father’s death he had been taken into the business house of his uncle, a rich merchant of Toledo; but in the designs of Providence, he was to exchange his worldly advantages for a life of poverty and hardship, in order that he might become the husband and father of saints.

He saw in Catalina Alvarez, not only the purest type of Spanish loveliness, but also the embodiment of all that was noblest and best in the peasants of Spain in the sixteenth century. Long years of struggle against

A

2 ST, JOHN OF THE CROSS [CHAP. I.]

the Moorish invaders had given virility to their faith, and ardour to their zeal for religion. They lived in great measure the life of the early Christians after the pagan persecutions had ceased. They were poor, often ignorant of letters beyond the traditions and folk-lore of their villages; but they had glimpses of heavenly things which gave to their lives a certain austere beauty and distinction.

Gonzalo de Yepes then, at the risk of forfeiting all claim to his uncle’s wealth, asked Catalina to become his wife. She consented ; and the marriage took place without the knowledge of his uncle, who promptly disowned the pair and left them to secure a livelihood as best they could. They set themselves bravely to the task. Catalina taught her husband her own craft of weaving; and their little home was not without resemblance to the holy house of Nazareth. Poverty, silence, and hard toil, were its outward characteristics ; peace, and prayerfulness, and mutual love, its inward treasures.

At twenty-five years of age, however, Catalina was left a widow with three young children to provide for, Her spirit of faith, her unbounded trust in God, and her tender devotion to Mary, rendered her equal to the task. Francisco, her eldest-born, grew up to be the model of a Christian workman and father of a family. He even reached, as will be shown in due course, a high degree of mental prayer and union with God. Luis, the second child, was taken to heaven in his babyhood. Juan, the youngest, became one of the greatest of the Spanish mystics—Saint John of the Cross.

It was from his mother, during the impressionable years of early childhood, that the future mystic learned the relationship which exists between purity of heart

[CHAP. I.] A CHILD OF BENEDICTION 3 and peace of soul, between poverty on earth and riches in heaven, between agony in the flesh and joy in the spirit. She taught him how to find in prayer strength to fight the battle of life. She pointed out the way of the Cross, and left him to follow it as God inspired him. So it came about that, in his boyhood, he would be discovered sleeping on the bare ground with a bundle of wood for his pillow; or interrupting his night’s rest to pray or study. Deep into his child-heart sank the story of the Passion of Jesus and the sorrows of Mary; and his religious character shaped itself accordingly.

He cannot have been more than five years old when, playing with some companions at pulling out the reeds which grew along the edge of a pond, he fell into the water. Seeing him sink the other children shouted for help; but he quickly rose to the surface, where he remained seemingly quite unperturbed. A man passing by came to the rescue; he held out to the boy a long rod by means of which he drew him to land; then he went silently on his way. Juan said that, as he was sinking, a most lovely lady had come to him, holding out her hand to help him; but he (courteous little Spaniard that he was) had hesitated to touch with his dirty fingers that hand “tan hermosa y limpia,” so beautiful and pure. Then the lady had held him up herself, until the man with the rod had him safe. Commentators on this circumstance have not failed to suggest that if, as Juan believed, the lady who appeared to him was the Blessed Virgin Mary, the man must have been St. Joseph. Be that as it may, the fact remains, that the child of benediction was miraculously preserved, and that then, as in later years, he behaved as one not unaccustomed to supernatural intervention in the difficulties and dangers of life.

4 ST, JOHN OF THE CROSS [CHAP. I.]

It was probably some time after this that Catalina _ took her boys to Toledo, in the hope that one of their father’s rich relatives would undertake to provide for their education. The journey was painful and almost beyond her strength and her means; but her motherlove and her trust in Providence enabled her to accomplish it. She went first to Torrijos, in the environs of the city, where resided one of her husband’s brothers, an archdeacon and member of the Cathedral Chapter. He had no help of any sort to give her. Undaunted by this rebuff she went on to Galvez, some twenty miles from Toledo, where there was another brother—a doctor who, she had been told, was a kind man, and liberal in his dealings with the poor. He received her courteously, keeping with him her eldest boy whom he promised to provide for as ason. The good doctor’s wife, however, was not of his opinion. She looked on Francisco rather as an interloper than a son, and she treated him accordingly, making the poor boy wretched and homesick ; so that when, the following year, Catalina came to see how her child was faring, she took him back with her to Fontiveros.

The little home was growing poorer and poorer. Still the brave mother struggled on, She sent the boys to the village school, until the elder showed so little aptitude for even the simple lessons given there, that she kept him at home to help with the weaving which was to be eventually his chief means of support. As to the little Juan, he gave promise of higher things ; and in her heart of hearts his mother no doubt cherished a secret hope and conviction, that he would one day serve God as a priest or a religious. Already he was distinguished among his school-fellows by the quickness of his apprehension and the soundness of his judgment ;

[CHAP. I.] A CHILD OF BENEDICTION 5 while his tender piety touched the hearts of all who saw him serving Mass each morning in the chapel of the Augustinian nuns. On the other hand, he seemed to possess no facility whatever for the practice of any art or craft; so that it may have been in the hope of finding some means of giving him the education demanded by his natural gifts, that Catalina determined to quit Fontiveros.

Could she have done so without a pang? It was there that she had known her greatest joy, her bitterest sorrow. She would leave behind her there, the birthplace of her children and her husband’s grave. Biographers, as a rule, do not pause to make reflections such as these. They sometimes chronicle merely the incidents that can be attested, and seem to forget that these are but the outward circumstances of the real life within. Juan de Yepes was born and nurtured in extreme poverty, in order that he might grow up independent of creature comforts, and thus more surely seek and find the Creator. At his mother’s knee he learned that the touchstone of love is suffering; and he came with her to Medina del Campo at nine years of age, ready for the great adventures of life awaiting him there.

The little family halted first at Arevalo. How long they remained there is uncertain. In any case, Medina was the goal of Catalina’s heroic efforts to find employment for herself, and if possible, some higher education for Juan. Though fallen from its first estate, its feudal greatness, Medina del Campo was still a city of note. Its ferias, or fairs, rivalled those of Valladolid ; its Rua, or High Street, stretched as far as the Castello de la Mota. It was thronged, in season and out of season, by the merchants of many countries—of France, Italy

6 ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS [CHAP. 1.]

and Spain, of England and the Netherlands—with their silks of many dyes, their gold and silver tissues and embroideries, their exquisite metal work and carving, their porcelains, and pictures, and books. What a revelation of the fascinations of this world for the wondering eyes of the boy, as he passed along the Rua, or turned aside to wander among the booths and cabins contrived for the accommodation of the buyers and sellers, the money changers, the interpreters! To a mind like that of Juan, it was almost as liberal an education as a tour in foreign lands.

His mother’s trade, and her connection with the merchants of Toledo, would help her to make good her arrival at Medina, and to find means of placing Juan at school there. As she expected, his brilliant talents and remarkable piety attracted much attention, and caused him to be spoken of beyond the precincts of home or school. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that he should have come under the notice of the director of one of the hospitals, a man who had abandoned all else, to devote himself to the care of the sick and suffering, Alonso de Alvarez of Toledo. Possibly he was acquainted with the forbears of Juan in that city and was moved to compassion by Catalina’s misfortunes ; possibly he saw in the boy the promise of a great future. Motives for action are often mixed beyond our knowledge. The director of the hospital, however, offered to take Juan under his protection; and it was agreed that the boy should be employed in the service of the sick, and have time allowed to him to follow the Grammar course in the recently founded Jesuit College.

Chapter II. Hospital Attendant And College Student

OF the numerous hospitals in Medina at this time, that of the conception to which Juan was attached was one of the most important. It derived its name of “Las Bubas” from the tumours, often malignant and incurable, from which its patients suffered. For the boy of fourteen it furnished an experience of human misery and helplessness, in striking contrast with the ideas of life presented by the ferias, and the fortune-seekers that thronged the city. Moreover, it gave him an opportunity of witnessing the methods of accurate and prolonged observation practised by the doctors, and their skill in discerning physical and mental causes of disease. It enabled him to make a beginning of that study of the human soul—its lower instincts, its passions, its fancies, as distinguished from its acts of intelligence and free-will—which was to establish his mystical doctrine on so sound a philosophical basis.

The effect of his presence on the patients, and others connected with the hospital, could not fail to be singularly beneficial and agreeable. His refined and modest bearing, his sympathetic and intelligent helpfulness, his piety and regularity, all contributed to win for him universal esteem and affection. His patron, Alonso

8 ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS [CHAP. II.]

de Alvarez, already saw in him the future chaplain of the hospital, possibly his own successor as its director. He was faithful to his promise that Juan should be allowed to attend the Jesuit College, where he was to come under the influence of a teacher whose personality could not fail to impress him.

Juan Bonifacio possessed in a remarkable degree the two essentials of a good teacher—a clear and full knowledge of whatever he had to teach, and a sympathetic insight into the minds of his pupils. The Latin language and literature was to him a well-spring of intellectual life; his method of teaching it was such as to infuse into the minds and hearts of his scholars, both the love of learning and the love of virtue. He was only nineteen years of age, and had been but four months a novice in the Society of Jesus, when he was appointed professor of Latin at Medina, about the close of the year 1557.

The college was then in all the glow and energy of its opening years. It had been founded in the year 1551, the very year in which Juan de Yepes had been brought to Medina. It had passed through the usual ordeals of opposition and persecution, which are the tests of all great work for God. Its professors had begun by visiting the hospitals and prisons of the city, and offering to its youth a free course of lectures on philosophy. In 1555, they had organised their Latin classes; and two years later, as we have seen, the novice, Juan Bonifacio had begun his unique career,

It might be sufficient to register these facts with, perhaps, the additional information that the master was efficient, the pupil diligent and successful. But there is something more to be said to those who are reading this little work with a view to gaining, not merely some

[CHAP. II. ] HOSPITAL ATTENDANT 9 knowledge of the salient events in the life of Saint John of the Cross, but also a true appreciation of the depth and wisdom of God’s loving Providence in his regard. There is a life-like picture to be painted of the two young Spaniards, both exhibiting in a notable degree the dominant features of their race, both endowed with brilliant natural gifts, both irresistibly drawn to devote their lives to God’s greater glory.

Juan’s keen intellect soon recognised in the young Jesuit, a man with this single aim, whose love for his appointed task amounted almost to a passion ; and who found in the teaching of Latin, as it should be taught, his way to heaven. . So entirely did Padre Bonifacio become convinced of this, that when, some ten years later, Saint Francis Borgia offered to have him replaced in order that he might study theology, his reply, subject to. obedience, was; ‘“‘ Haec requies in aeternum mea: hic habitabo quoniam elegi eam.” “This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell for I have chosen it.” As though he would say: “In this work I wish to live and die; because in it God gives me graces so great that I hope in it to obtain my salvation.” This was the master to whom Juan de Yepes owed that mental discipline, which was to render his reasoning so right and well balanced, his language so clear and correct.

The pupil, on his side, responded without reserve or halt to the training he received. In the grammar classes which he was first licensed to attend, the lessons were of about an hour or an hour and a quarter, morning and afternoon. It must have been often difficult enough for him to arrange his work in the hospital, so as not to lose part at least of these lessons. Doubtless his intelligence and assiduity helped him to make good such loss; nevertheless, it remains a subject of wonder, that he should

ST. ALBERT’S COLLEGE LIBRARY

10 ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS [CHA?. I1.]

have managed so to combine his duties in hospital and college, as to satisfy the authorities in both places. There is no reason. to suppose that he did not pursue his studies as far as the limits of the college curriculum permitted. It is probable that after grammar and rhetoric, he followed the course in arts, applying his mind with special interest to the study of philosophy.

His bent was towards research into the nature and properties of the human soul, and the relationship between its faculties and the bodily organs by means of which they are exercised. As he sought to penetrate these problems, he gradually grew to seek their solution in prayer, rather than in study alone, becoming, to quote Padre Wenceslas: “tenacious in hospital work; tenacious in listening to lectures, in reading, and in study; but most tenacious in his interior life.’ He had, so to speak, so firm a grip on the duty of the moment, that he allowed nothing to distract him from it, or to hinder him from performing it with the utmost care; and all the while his spirit was in close communion with the world unseen. He remained, as he had been in childhood, a devout client of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Every day he recited on his knees her Rosary and her Little Office ; and whenever opportunity offered, he proclaimed her glory and defended her privileges.

So passed the years of his service in the hospital and his study in the college. The day came at last when he stood at the parting of the ways, with the chaplaincy and possible directorship on the one hand, and an uncertain future on the other. He had to make a momentous choice; but his was not the soul to be swayed by any but the highest considerations. He could never contemplate the priesthood as a means of support for himself and others. He felt in his inmost soul that God

[CHAP. II.] HOSPITAL ATTENDANT II had some special work for him todo. He paused, therefore, and prayed earnestly to know the will of God. ’ Then he respectfully but firmly declined the offer of his patron.

He did not, as yet, see clearly what it was that God wanted him to be and do. He continued, for the time being, to serve the sick in the hospital, to study and to pray. He realised to the full the sacrifices his mother had made for him ; but he knew her too well, to imagine that she could wish him to choose any path through life, but that which should be clearly pointed out by the finger of God. Moreover she was not utterly dependent on him for support. So he prayed for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and committed his cause to Our Lady.

Chapter III. The Carmelite Friar

JUAN was by this time one-and-twenty years of age. He had realised that ‘‘ Wisdom is better than strength ; ” that she “is glorious and never fadeth away ;” and that “the beginning of her is the most true desire of discipline.’ (Wisdom VI.) It was not to be wondered at, therefore, that he should long for a well-ordered life. He loved to be alone, to exercise his mind upon the highest objects of thought, and to yield himself up to the workings of the Spirit of Wisdom within him.

One day, while thus engaged, he heard in the depths of his soul the words : “‘Seras religioso en una religion antiqua, y levantaras su primera perfeccién.” (Thou shalt become a religious in an ancient order, and shalt restore its first fervour). He could not doubt but that he had heard these words; yet he feared delusion, and he shrank from the grave responsibility they implied. He did his utmost to banish them from his mind; but the longing for a religious life began to take so deep a hold upon his heart, that at last he knew but one preoccupation—how to correspond with his evident vocation.

He felt no attraction towards any particular Order ; and he was far from wishing to discover one that had fallen from its first fervour; so he again, and again,

[CHAP. III.] THE CARMELITE FRIAR 13 sought the powerful intercession of Mary. As he was praying to her in the Carmelite church of Saint Anne, he felt strongly urged to seek admission into the adjoining monastery. He obeyed the inspiration, and as his reputation for scanctity as well as for learning was well known in Medina, the friars made no difficulty about accepting him. On February 14th, 1563, he received the habit with the name of Fray Juan de San Matias.

Here, in order to gain some idea of the condition of the Order at this period, let us take a glance at the origin and traditions of Carmel, and the modifications to which its primitive rule had been subjected. The Carmelites have always looked upon the Prophet Elias as their founder, the “Sons of the Prophets” as their first brethren, and Mount Carmel, the garden-land where Elias had his vision of the little cloud rising out of the sea to bring rains to the parched earth (a type of Mary Immaculate), as the birthplace of their order. Hermits of Carmel are said to have descended from their mountain to listen to the preaching of St. John the Baptist in the desert ; and, later on, to have been among those converted by the first sermon of Saint Peter. Going back with the good tidings, they are said to have built, on the site of the vision of Elias, an oratory in honour of the Mother of God whom they had seen in Jerusalem. These glorious traditions tell us further that, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, Saint Albert, Partriarch of Jerusalem, gave a rule to the “Hermits of Our Lady of Mount ‘Carmel,” whose numbers had been considerably augmented by vocations from the West, during the Crusades.

Opposition to the growth and spread of the Order was not wanting; but the Blessed Virgin took its cause into her own hands. By an apparition to Pope

14 ST, JOHN OF THE CROSS [CHAP, III.]

Honorius III., of which the Roman Breviary makes mention on July 16th, she prevented its suppression, and secured that Pope’s approbation of the Carmelite Rule, in 1226. ;

At this period the Order undertook the practice of preaching and giving spiritual aid outside their monasteries. Such had been the custom of the Hermits of Mount Carmel, from those early days when the Prophet Elias and his followers were to be found exhorting the Jews to be faithful to the true God. Thus the Carmelites in Europe became one of the Mendicant Orders ; and the Rule of Saint Albert was modified to suit the changed conditions.

Once more the Blessed Virgin appeared as the Queen and Protectress of Carmel; this time to an Englishman who had been elected General, at the Chapter assembled at Aylesford in 1247, Saint Simon Stock. The saint was keeping his accustomed vigil, imploring a sign of benevolence from the Mother of God in the words of his own beautiful hymn, ‘‘ Flos Carmeli”’:

“ Flower of Carmel, Blossoming vine, Splendour of heaven, Mother divine,

None like to thee!

Mother of meekness, Peerless and fair,

Thy children of Carmel Save from despair,

Star of the Sea!”

The Blessed Virgin appeared to the holy old man with the scapular of the Order in her hands. She told him that it should be the privilege desired, the proof of her special protection over all associated with her beloved children of Carmel. They needed all the

[CHAP. IIT. ] THE CARMELITE FRIAR 15 strength and consolation brought to them by this vision ; for, in another forty years, after the fall of St. Jean d’Acre in 1291, the Saracens massacred the friars on the holy mount, and burned: down their convent. They died singing the Salve Regina.