The life of St. John of the Cross of the Order of our Lady of Mount Carmel

Front matter

l

NOTICE.

Iiie following Life of St. John of the Cross has been compiled from that written by Fra Joseph of Jesus and Mary, who entered the order of Carmel in 1595, three years after the death of the saint. Fra Joseph was appointed annalist, and had access to all the papers necessary for his work. But his life of the saint was not regarded with favour by his brethren, and the publication of it took place without the sanction of his superiors, who after¬ wards deprived him of his charge of annalist. The truthfulness of the chronicler is not disputed, though subsequent biographers of the saint correct him occasionally as to names of persons and dates. But these mistakes may have been made by those who had the charge of the publication.

Preface

bably more accurate. Of these the present writer has made use, as well as of the Italian life, by the Padre Marco di San Francesco of the order of Carmel. This latter life is written with the utmost care, and the author has taken pains to ascertain the dates of the events he records. It is a most reverent and clear history of the saint, and would be probably regarded by most people as far better than the more voluminous one of the French Carmelite, Dosithee de Saint Alexis.

Chapter I

pa<jb

The Order of our Lady of Mount Carmel — St. Simon Stock — The Mitigated Rule — St. Teresa — Maria de Ocampo — The Prior-General of the Carmelites — The reform of St. Teresa — Fra Antonio de Heredia — St. Teresa in Medina del Campo— Fra John of St. Mathias 1

Chapter II

Family of the Saint — Francis de Yepes — Poverty — Don Alonso Alvarez — Juan de Yepes at school — his longing for a religious life — enters the monastery of the Car¬ melites — profession — is sent to Salamanca — ordained priest— returns to Medina— intends to become a Car¬ thusian . . 13

Chapter III

St. John of the Cross persuaded by St. Teresa to become a friar of her reform— Duruelo — St. John of the Cross in Valladolid — goes to Duruelo . . . . . 36

Chapter IV

The saint in Duruelo — Beginning of the reform of the friars — Change of names— Life in Duruelo — St. Teresa visits the friars — Monastery of Pastrana — Fra Baltasar of J esus — The friars remove from Duruelo to Manzera — Novices of the saint — St. John goes to Pastrana — to Alcala de Henares — Fra Pedro Fernandez — Fra Angel of St. Gabriel — Fra Dominic Banes — Francis de Yepes ........ 43 a

VI

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER Y.

PAGE

St. Teresa sends for St. John of the Cross to Avila — Re¬ formation of the monastery — Illness of a nun — Trances — Exorcisms — A learned nun — Conversion of sinners —

The saint goes to Segovia . 65

Chapter VI

The friars of the mitigation — Fra J erome Tostado — Chap¬ ter of the mitigation — Decrees against the reform — Fra Jerome of the Mother of God — Chapter of Almodovar • — Death of the Nuncio — Troubles in the monastery of the Incarnation — St. John of the Cross made a prisoner 80

Chapter XI

Peace restored to the order — Election of Fra J erome — The saint returns to Baeza from the chapter — made Prior of Granada— his visits of ceremony — discourages beg¬ ging — his charity . 141

CONTENTS.

vn

CHAPTER, XII.

_ PAGE

Anne of Jesus — The saint founds a house m Granada — is insulted in the street — watches over the novices under Anne of Jesus . 154

Chapter XIII

Troubles in the order — Fra Nicolas of Jesus Maria — Chap¬ ter of Almodovar — The saint opposes foreign missions — Famine— Writings of the saint — Foundation in Ma¬ laga — Restoration of a nun to health — Mary of Christ. 161

Chapter XIV

The saint in the chapter of Lisbon — Election of a new pro¬ vincial— Prophecy of the saint — Mary of the Visitation — The saint made vicar of Andalucia — corrects certain abuses . 171

Chapter XV

Foundation in Segovia — The saint in Caravaca — visits Penuela — founds a monastery in Cordova — visits Seville — Miraculous escape — Fra Martin and the novices — Anne of Jesus goes to Madrid — Bujalance — Caravaca . . 181

Chapter XVI

Miraculous light— The chapter of Valladolid — Election of the saint to be prior of Granada — Picture of the saint — Foretells the canonisation of St. Teresa — Fra Jerome of the Mother of God — Division of the province — The saint elected prior of Segovia ..... 196

Chapter XVII

The first general chapter of the reform — St. John of the Cross prior of Segovia — Fra Nicolas — The discontented friar — The disobedient preacher — Francis de Urena — Death of Catherine Alvarez — Austerities and prayer of the saint 202

Ylll

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XYIII.

TAGE

Discontent of the nnns — Resolution of the friars — Fra Luis de Leon — Royal interference — St. John of the Cross neglected by his brethren — retii*es to Penuela — illness — goes to Ubeda . 216

The funeral — Sermon — Incorruption of the body — removal of it to Madrid and Segovia — contest for the possession of it — Canonisation ....... 258

LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.

Chapter I

The Order of otir Lady of Mount Carmel — St. Simon Stock — The Mitigated Rule — St. Teresa — Maria de Ocampo — The Prior-General of the Carmelites — The reform of St. Teresa — Fra Antonio de Heredia — St. Teresa in Medina del Campo — Fra John of St. Mathias.

The Order of our Lady of Mount Carmel had its beginnings in the East, where, for many genera¬ tions, it grew and flourished, unknown to the dwellers in the West. From the day of the great prophets Elias and Eliseus — so runs the venerable tradition of Carmel — the holy mountain was peo¬ pled by hermits who, by a life of prayer and penance, according to their measure, shadowed forth, from generation to generation, under the old law, the greater graces of the new. Some of those hermits, hearing the voice of the Baptist crying in the wilderness, were thereby made ready

B for the coming of our Lord ; and again in J erusalem, on the great day of Pentecost, hearing the blessed Apostles proclaim the new law, were con¬ verted to the faith of Christ. On their return to the holy mountain, they raised an oratory in Carmel to the honour of our Lady whom they had seen in Jerusalem, in the very place where Elias stood when he saw the little cloud coming up from the sea, bringing with it the long-desired rain wThich God had so long withheld from the earth.

In the beginning of the thirteenth century the Brethren of Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel began to be heard of in Europe. The troubles in the Holy Land, and the growing weakness of the Cru¬ saders, as well as the growing strength of the infidels, forced some of them to depart from Carmel of the Sea, and to seek a refuge in more quiet lands. Among these was Balph Freeborn, a Northumbrian by birth, who had gone to Pales¬ tine as a soldier of the cross to fight the Saracens, and who, in Carmel, had laid aside the armour of earthly warfare for the peaceful habit of the friar. He returned to Europe with one of his brethren, in the company, and under the protection, of two ’Englishmen, Lord Yesci and Lord Grey of Codnor. The former gave him land for a monastery, near Alnwick, where, in the year 1240, he founded the Priory of Hulne. Lord Grey gave land in Kent for the same purpose, and there the Priory of Aylesford was built at the same time. In the

LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.

latter house, five years afterwards (a.d. 1245), the first chapter of the Carmelites in Europe was held, memorable for the election of St. Simon Stock as Prior- General of the whole order.* The friars multiplied in England, and passed over into Ireland ; hut it does not appear that they ever had a house in Scotland.

Aimeri of Limoges, Patriarch of Antioch in the twelfth century, is said to have brought the hermits of Carmel together under the government of one superior, and to have given them a rule of life. Under Brocardo*, the second prior, that rule was either laid aside for another, given by Albert of Parma, Patriarch of Jerusalem, or was by that Patriarch modified, during the pontificate of In¬ nocent III.

The'rule given by Albert of Parma to the friars who dwelt by the well of Elias was confirmed by Honorius III. in the year of our Lord 1226 ; hut when the friars settled in Europe, the rule given to hermits on Mount Carmel, whose life was a life of contemplation, became difficult to keep. Two friars were therefore sent to the Holy See — proba¬ bly by the general chapter of Aylesford, in 1245 — to beg for directions. In 1248 Innocent IY. con¬ firmed the rule anew, hut with certain corrections and modifications ; and commanded the friars to * observe it. The observance of the mitigated rule in the course of time became a heavier burden than the friars were able to carry. They therefore sub- * Iteyner, Apostolat. Ben. p. 164.

LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.

mitted the rule again to the correction of the Holy See; and Eugenius IV., in 1482, at their request, and in consideration of human weakness, mitigated the severities thereof. From that time forth the friars were allowed to eat flesh, and to be out of their cells, hut still within the enclosure. The fast from September 14 to Easter in the following year was dispensed with, and the friars were hound to fast only in Advent and Lent, and on the other days observed in the Church. Other mitigations were afterwards made, which were sanctioned by Pius II. in 1459, and by Sixtus IY. in 1476. The rule was perhaps not severe now, hut the ob¬ servance of it was no doubt exact, and the friars had the sanction of the Holy See.

It was under this rule that the Carmelites, in . Spain and elsewhere, lived when St. Teresa made her profession in the Monastery of the Incarnation in Avila. She by degrees, as she was raised to higher states of prayer, longed for a stricter way of life, that she might become a more perfect sacri¬ fice to our Lord, and do something for the honour of God, and win more souls to His service. She heard, too, of the outbreak of heresy and of the flood of false opinions which had covered the earth, and in her silence her soul took fire.

In her monastery at Avila, it was difficult for her to be much alone, for enclosure was not very rigidly observed ; moreover, her superiors sent her from timo to time to the houses of people living in the world. This was a sore

LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.

distress to the saint, for she wished to keep her rule with great strictness, knowing as she did that her first duty was to follow her vocation.* Besides, such strictness as she longed for was not possible in that house, for there were more than a hun¬ dred and fifty nuns in it, all of whom could not be compelled to lead a severe life, because their profession bound them only to the mitigated rule.

The saint knew, indeed, that the rule, though not observed anywhere in its original strictness, but according to the custom of the order, sanc¬ tioned by the Pope, was a safe way of salvation. Nevertheless she longed to do more than she was bound to do by the rule under which she was liv¬ ing ; and, while pondering the matter in her heart, prepared others to enter with her upon her great work of travelling by the strait path for which the few are chosen.

One day in her cell, when, the difficulties of a life of prayer and retirement in the Monastery of the Incarnation were spoken of, her niece, Maria de Ocampo, not then a religious, in the simplicity and sincerity of innocent childhood, said that if they who were talking of such high things wished to imitate in earnest the barefooted nuns of St. Fran¬ cis, means might be found for the foundation of a monastery, and she herself would give a thousand ducats for that purpose. Maria de Ocampo was a child, and hitherto had not shown any wish to be

* Life, c. xxxii. § 2.

LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.

a nun ; on the contrary, she was fond of dress, and such amusements as she could find — honest, how¬ ever, and true. But that generous offer to help others to serve God better received the hundred¬ fold reward at once. Many years afterwards, being then a nun, she wrote thus at the com¬ mandment of her confessor : * The instant I made the offer of a thousand ducats for the foundation of a monastery, I had a vision of our Lord bound to the pillar — a most piteous and distressing sight. He thanked me for that alms and for my goodwill towards the foundation, as it was the first, and told me how greatly it would be to His honour. That vision was to me an exceeding joy, and I was so moved by it, that I made up my mind there and then to take the habit myself ; and did so within six months after the foundation of St. Joseph.’*

St. Teresa’s heart wras filled with gladness when she heard her niece make the offer ; so she began to commend the matter to our Lord, and to take counsel of holy people. The issue was the foundation in 1562, about two years later, of the first monastery of the Barefooted Nuns of Carmel in the house of St. Joseph, in the city and diocese of Avila, in the kingdom of Old Castille, and under the jurisdiction of the bishop, Don Alvaro de Mendoza.

When the first house of the reform wras founded, St. Teresa saw that only half of her T' Reforma de los Descalqos, lib. i. e. 35, § 7

LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.

work was done. It was not enough to have the primitive rule observed by nuns, friars also must be found to observe it, for the better direction of those nuns. The need of friars had been felt from the very beginning ; for when St. Peter of Alcan¬ tara, told his penitent Isabel de Ortega — after¬ wards Isabel of St. Dominic — that she was called to the new Carmel of St. Teresa, she replied that she would not belong to the new foundation, be¬ cause there were no friars observing the same rule from whom she could receive such help as she might require in the spirit of her vocation. Her confessor bade her be at ease, the friars would be found, and the reform about to be begun by St. Teresa would not be confined to nuns. Some five years afterwards, Sister Isabel made her profes¬ sion in St. Joseph’s, but the friars of the reform had not yet come. The Father-General of the order came to Spain in 1566, and the next year visited St. Teresa in her new monastery ; the house was subject to the bishop of the diocese, and its foundress had been withdrawn, but without her own knowledge and consent, from the jurisdiction of the General, to the great grief of them both. The General was a saintly man, and did not wish to lose St. Teresa, so he readmitted her into the order ; he allowed her, however, to remain in the house of St. Joseph, and to found more monasteries of nuns in which the primitive rule should be kept in all its austerity.

That was not what she wanted ; she wished

LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.

to see friars living under the same rule. The General thought he could not help her, because of the opposition in the province ; the friars were wedded to their customs, and disliked change. Her friends went to the General on her behalf, hut they could not prevail ; at last she wrote to him herself imploring him to give his consent. He was moved by her entreaties, and gave her authority to found two monasteries of friars, hut within the province of Castille only.

It is believed that more than one attempt had been made before to restore the observance of the primitive rule; be that as it may, it is certain that at this time there was not a monastery be¬ longing to the order which was not under the mitigated rule sanctioned by Eugenius IV. The decree made at the instance of Clement VII., in 1524, for the establishment of one house in each province wherein the primitive rule should be kept, was never executed.* But it is not to be supposed, however, that the order was there¬ fore corrupt, or that its members were not edifying and devout men ; the friars kept their rule, and it was very natural that their strict observance of a rule, though less severe than the one laid aside, should seem to them a good reason for persever¬ ing under the discipline which was in force when they were admitted to make their religious pro¬ fession in Carmel.

The new foundations sanctioned by the General ° Reforma cle los Descalgos, i. p. 107.

LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.

were to be known as monasteries of Contemplative Carmelites, living according to the old constitu¬ tions of the order under the obedience of the General. 'Though the friars were to spend their time chiefly in saying Mass, in singing the divine office, and in mental prayer, they were, neverthe¬ less, to serve their neighbours in their necessities whenever the occasion for doing so offered itself to them. Their wish was to advance onwards themselves in the way of perfection as Carmelites by the observance of the primitive rule, renouncing the mitigations vhich, in consideration of human weakness, the Sovereign Pontiffs had allowed.

But St. Teresa, though greatly rejoicing in the goodwill of the General, wras very far, so it seemed to her, from even a beginning of her work. She did not know of one man in the whole world who would accept the primitive rule. The friars of her order were very few in the province, and among them she saw no signs of better things, yet she did not give up her plan, and was con¬ fident that our Lord would come to her help in due time.

Her first monastery of nuns was founded in 15G2, and now in 1567 — at the very time she received the General’s permission to found. the two houses — she was in Medina del Campo, making the second foundation of her reform. She was there from the vigil of the Assumption to the end of October, busy with her own immediate work in her own monastery, but not forgetting that which

LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.

was also hers, and which seemed so hopeless.

‘ While staying there,’ she wrote in her Founda¬ tions * ‘ I was always thinking of monasteries of friars ; hnt as I had not one friar to begin with, I did not know what to do.’ In her straits she re¬ solved to speak to Fra Antonio de Heredia, the Prior of the Carmelites in Medina, in the house of St. Anne, founded a few years before — in 1560.

Fra Antonio de Heredia had not been long in Medina — he had been made prior in the chapter held this year in Avila — but St. Teresa knew him when he was prior of the Carmelites in Avila. She had made known to him her wishes and desires about houses of friars under the primi¬ tive rule, even before the General of the Order had come to Spain. When she spoke to him now on the same subject, her plans were more definite, and she had leave to do what she could formerly only wish for. Fra Ant.onio at once promised to make a beginning himself. St. Teresa thought he was jesting and told him so, but the prior was in earnest, and told her that God was calling him to a stricter life, and that he had intended to leave the order and become a Carthusian.

Fra Antonio was horn in the year 1510, five years before St. Teresa, in Eequena of New Castille, and his mother was of the family of St. Vincent Ferrer. He became a friar when only ten years of age, and in his twenty-third year was or-

LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.

dained priest. A true friar, simple and obedient, but of a delicate constitution, unused to austerities; so the saint not unreasonably had some doubts about his litness. On the other hand, he was a man of great weight in his order, and respected by seculars for his noble birth, his great prudence, and long experience.

St. Teresa, nevertheless, did not think him fitted for the work ; she required greater gifts than she was able to trace in Fra Antonio, and retained her doubts. His goodwill, however, pleased her. She would not refuse him, and asked him to wait for a year ; meanwhile he was to live in his mon¬ astery, as far as it should be possible for him, in the practice of those observances which were de¬ manded by the primitive rule. Fra Antonio ac¬ cepted the conditions and the counsel, gave him¬ self up to a more severe life, and endured much contradiction from his brethren, for they preferred the customs of the mitigation.

Soon alter this, and before she had left Medina del Campo, Fra Pedro Orozco, a grave and learned friar, one of those whom St. Teresa always saw with pleasure, called upon her, and in the course of the conversation told her of a young friar who had just been made a priest, but who wished for a more recollected life than that of the order. The account of his recollection, his humility, his devo¬ tion, and his gravity beyond his years, struck St. Teresa; so she begged him to send that friar to her. She saw that this was the man whom God had

LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.

raised up to be tire foundation of her reform and the model of the new Carmel. Fra Pedro pro¬ mised to send him, and St. Teresa betook herself to her prayers. She spent that night in earnest supplications unto our Lord to send her the young friar for the work that He had given her to do. It was the prayer of Rachel, ‘ Children, or I die.’

Fra Pedro had some difficulty in persuading the friar to visit St. Teresa, but he prevailed in the* end, and the next day the visit was unwillingly made. Then St. Teresa saw for the first time the great saint and doctor of Carmel, the poor friar, John of the Cross.

CHAPTEB II.

Family of tlie Saint — Francis do Yepes — Poverty — Don Alonso Alvarez— Juan de Yepes at school — his longlng lor a religious life— enters the monastery of the Carmelites — profession — is sent to Salamanca — or¬ dained priest— returns to Medina— intends to become a Carthusian.

St. John of the Cross was born in the year 1542, in Jlontiveros, once a flourishing city, but then fallen into decay, in Old Castille, within the dio¬ cese of Avila, the birthplace of St. Teresa. His father, Gonzalo de Yepes, of an ancient and hon¬ ourable family, and his mother, Catherine Alvarez, a poor orphan, were both natives of Toledo. Cathe¬ rine had been brought up by a devout widow, also horn Toledo, who had come to Hontiveros, where she gave herself up to good works. She watched carefully and tenderly over the friendless orphan, whom she nurtured in the fear of God and in the piactice of true devotion. Ther child grew up ac¬ cording to her education, and to her natural beauty, which was very -great, God was pleased to add the more winning beauty of modesty and grace.

Don Gonzalo had been brought up by an uncle, a merchant in Toledo, who sent him from time to time, on the business of the house, to Medina del Campo, where traders assembled from all parts of Europe. On his way to Medina, Don Gonzalo was in the habit of lodging in Hontiveros, in the house of the widow from Toledo— with whom, per¬ haps, he was already acquainted — w7ho had taken under her motherly charge the friendless orphan, Catherine Alvarez.

The nephew of the wealthy merchant, without consulting his family, or even speaking to any of his kindred, made Catherine Alvarez his wife. Thereupon his relatives, indignant, disowned him, and his uncle abandoned him to the poverty he had courted— for they regarded the marriage as unseemly ; and from that clay forth Don Gonzalo was a stranger to his brethren and an outcast, for he had brought disgrace into an honourable house.

Don Gonzalo wras now as poor as his wife, both being utterly destitute, but the keener pangs of poverty were not felt so long as the widow lived. Don Gonzalo, on his part, made efforts to gain his bread by silk-weaving, learning the art from his wife, but his gains were scanty, and poverty came in as an armed man that could not be kept at bay, and his days henceforward were days of penury and toil, unrelieved by a single gleam of worldly prosperity. Three children wrere born to him, Francis, Lewis, and John; the second died in his infancy, but the others grew up to shed a glory on the family of the De Yepes that disowned

LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.

their father, which no other member of it had done.

Francis, the eldest, was horn in 1530, and John, the youngest, in 1542. When the charit¬ able widow died, the succour they had received in their poverty ceased, and at last Don Gonzalo fell ill. . He lingered on for two years and then died, having led a good and pious life, and borne his tiiais in humility and patience, conforming him¬ self to the will of God, leaving to his children the sole inheritance of an unsullied name. The widow was destitute and had three children to maintain. In her great straits she went, by the advice of her neighbours, to implore help from her husband’s family ; perhaps the brothers still living, they said, would forgive the dead, and be generous to her and to her helpless children. She hoped it might be so, and travelled amidst great hardships and difficulties to Torrijos, where a brother of Don Gonzalo was staying at the time. He was an arch- 'deacon, a member of the great chapter of Toledo, and probably not poor. She spoke to him of her own poverty, and begged him to take one of his nephews into his house. The archdeacon could not help her ; the children wrere too young ; and

with that excuse the poor widow had to go her wray sorrowing.

In gieat distress of mind and body, she went now to Galves, about twenty miles from Toledo, where another brother was living. That brother wras a physician and a charitable man, most ready

LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.

at all times to help all around him. He received with the utmost kindness the widow of his brother, and undertook the charge of Francis, the eldest boy, promising to educate him and finally to make him his heir; he had no children himself. He had made a promise, however, which he could not keep ; but the poor widow did not know7 it, and left her boy in his house. The physician was neces- , sariiy much from home, and his wife was not, so it appeared, a woman to be trusted with the children of others. She kept the boy at home instead of sending him to school, made him her servant in many ways, and treated him with great unkind¬ ness. Not only w7as he not sent to school, but his education was neglected, and he had to bear not with ill-treatment only, but with scanty food and scanty raiment. His mother had returned to Hontiveros, where she laboured to earn bread for her¬ self and the two children, the youngest, John, still an infant. For a' whole year she knew nothing of her eldest son, Francis, and, being uneasy about him, resolved at last to make another journey to Halves, that she might see her child with her own eyes. The poor woman knew7 nothing of the hard¬ ships he had to bear ; they wrere certainly not lighter than the poverty of his mother’s house, and never relieved by the sunshine of^the mother’s love. The boy told her, with tears in his eyes, of the treatment he received ; perhaps he could not have hidden it from her; and she made up her mind to take him home, though the uncle, who,