St. John of
the Cross
Feastday:
December 14
Born: 1542
Born: 1542
Born in Spain in 1542, John
learned the importance of self-sacrificing love from his parents. His father
gave up wealth, status, and comfort when he married a weaver's daughter and was
disowned by his noble family. After his father died, his mother kept the
destitute family together as they wandered homeless in search of work.
These were the examples of sacrifice that John
followed with his own great love -- God.
When the family finally found work, John
still went hungry in the middle of the wealthiest city in Spain. At fourteen, John
took a job caring for hospital patients who suffered from incurable
diseases and madness. It was out of this poverty and suffering, that John
learned to search for beauty and happiness not in the world, but in God.
After John
joined the Carmelite order, Saint Teresa of Avila asked him to help her reform movement. John
supported her belief that the order should return to its life of prayer. But many Carmelites felt threatened by this
reform, and some members of John's own order kidnapped him. He was locked in a
cell six feet by ten feet and beaten three times a week by the monks. There was
only one tiny window high up near the ceiling. Yet in that unbearable dark,
cold, and desolation, his love and faith were like fire and light. He had nothing left but God -- and God brought John
his greatest joys in that tiny cell.
After nine
months, John escaped by unscrewing the lock on his door and creeping
past the guard. Taking only the mystical poetry he had written in his cell, he
climbed out a window using a rope made of stirps of blankets. With no idea where he was, he followed a dog to civilization. He hid
from pursuers in a convent infirmary where he read his poetry to the nuns. From
then on his life was devoted to sharing and explaining his experience of
God's love.
His life of poverty and persecution could have produced a bitter cynic. Instead it
gave birth to a compassionate mystic, who lived by the beliefs that "Who
has ever seen people persuaded to love God by harshness?" and "Where there is no love, put
love -- and you will find love."
John left us
many books of practical advice on spiritual growth and prayer that are just
as relevant today as they were then. These books include:
Ascent of
Mount Carmel
Dark Night
of the Soul
Since joy
comes only from God, John believed that someone who seeks happiness in the world is like "a famished person who opens his mouth to satisfy himself with air."
He taught that only by breaking the rope of our desires could we fly up to God.
Above all, he was concerned for those who suffered dryness or depression in
their spiritual life and offered encouragement that God loved them and was leading them deeper into faith.
"What
more do you want, o soul! And what else do you search for outside, when within
yourself you possess your riches, delights, satisfaction and kingdom -- your
beloved whom you desire and seek? Desire him there, adore him there. Do not go
in pursuit of him outside yourself. You will only become distracted and you won't find him, or enjoy
him more than by seeking him within you." -- Saint John of the Cross
In His
Footsteps:
John of the
Cross believed it was just as dangerous to get attached to spiritual delights
as worldly pleasures. Do you expect to get something -- a good feeling, a sense of God -- from prayer or worship? Do you continue to pray and worship when
you feel alone or dry?
Prayer:
Saint John
of the Cross, in the darkness of your worst moments, when you were alone and
persecuted, you found God. Help me to have faith that God is there especially in the times when God seems absent and far away. Amen
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