I'm running a little through my little book on the Doctors of the Church, and here's the great Carmelite friar, Saint John. I remember doing a whole course on Carmelite mysticism in seminary, and he was a rather large part of it. I can't remember so very much, so here's something of a refresher...
John is known to have reformed the Carmelite Order significantly, with the assistance of his friend, another great Saint, Teresa of Ávila. John is called the Mystical Doctor, because of his spiritual experiences and his ability to present those didactically to the Church. He was born in AD 1542 near Ávila to a rather poor family, for his father had been disowned for marrying a below his station. When he lost his father, he moved away to Medina del Campo, near Valladolid, where he acquired some medical skill and worked briefly as a nurse. At 18, he entered a Jesuit College and was given a classical education and discovered his vocation to the Religious life. In 1563, he began his noviciate in the Carmelite Order, becoming Fra Juan de Santo Mattía, whereupon he completed his education at Salamanca. Ordained priest in 1567, he returned to the community at Medina del Campo to celebrate his first Mass, and met his life-long friend Saint Teresa. She had a plan to reform the Order and requested his assistance. Together, in 1568, they opened the first house of the Discalced Carmelites (OCD), at Duruelo - a community of friars who lived according to the primitive rule of the Carmelites. John now took the new name, John of the Cross. In 1572, Teresa asked him to be chaplain and confessor at her own convent of Sisters in Ávila. This was a time of great friendship, and many of their greatest literary achievements date to then. Reforming an existing Order, brought great suffering to the reformers - John was at one point in 1577 imprisoned at Toledo for four months by his confreres, and he spent that time composing his best known work: the Spiritual Canticle. Finally, he made a daring escape to the nuns in that town and went to Andalusia. He rose within the Order to be vicar general and returned home as part of the government of the now well-recognised discalced Carmelites. He lived for a while in Segovia, but was later directed to the new province in Mexico. While preparing for the voyage westward, he fell ill and died AD 1591. His relics were removed to Segovia where, after several subtractions, they still remain.
John's great works are the Ascent of Mount Carmel, the Dark Night, the Spiritual Canticle and the Living Flame of Love. Like Saint Teresa, he speaks of the progressive purification of the soul in her growing possession of God, in the transforming union with her Maker. His image of the soul falling ever deeper in love with God is that of her bursting into flame as she learns to cooperation with the grace of God to ascend towards perfection. The Dark Night of the Soul presents a vision similar to the Song of Songs in the Hebrew Bible and demonstrates God's drawing the soul towards Himself, while performing the vital act of purification of the senses within her. So, then, John's constant theme is holiness. Like Saint Thomas Aquinas, he is optimistic about human nature, and he speaks therefore of the increasing perfecting of what is already in essence good (for it was created by God), by the progressive elimination of dependence on created things and so a turning towards God. In this, it is God who principally acts, although we would do well to cooperate with His grace, through living a virtuous life. And this is just where the Mystical Doctor becomes a practical theologian and a model of the Christian life, for he lived what he taught and did his greatest work while suffering terribly.
And that is Saint John of the Cross. Find the other Doctors listed on this page of the blog.
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