John of the Cross

1542-1591 · Spanish (Castilian, Fontiveros) · Mystical Theology, Carmelite Spirituality, Spanish Lyric Poetry

That thou mayest have pleasure in everything, seek pleasure in nothing.

John of the Cross (1542 – 1591) was born Juan de Yepes at Fontiveros in Old Castile, the son of a widowed weaver too poor to keep her children, and grew up at Medina del Campo nursing the sick in a hospital and learning Latin from the Jesuits. He entered the Carmelites at twenty-one, studied at Salamanca, and was thinking of leaving for the Carthusians when Teresa of Ávila, fifty-two to his twenty-five, asked him to begin her reform among the friars instead. In 1568 he took the name John of the Cross in a farmhouse at Duruelo. Nine years later friars of his own Order seized him at Ávila and…

Topics John of the Cross addresses

the nothing and the All
the dark night of sense
the dark night of the spirit
active and passive nights
faith as proximate means of union
disproportion between God and creatures
likeness through love and union
mortification of the appetites
the three theological virtues emptying the faculties
three signs for leaving discursive meditation
infused contemplation as ray of darkness
damp wood and fire
supernatural apprehensions: visions and locutions
rejecting imaginary visions and revelations
the three parts of the soul: understanding, memory, will
the soul's tripartite structure: senses, appetites, passions
spiritual betrothal and spiritual marriage
transformation in God by participation
the Spiritual Canticle's search for the hidden Beloved
wound of love
the Living Flame of Love
lamps of fire in the caverns of sense
the touch of the Word in the substance
the ladder of secret contemplation

Questions to put to John of the Cross

The Nothing and the All: Mortification and Detachment

What do you mean when you say a bird held by a thread is as bound as a bird held by a rope?
How is denying every desire for creatures not the same as despising the things God made?
Why do you say the detached soul has more joy in creatures than the soul that clings to them?
What's the difference between a voluntary desire you say must be denied and the natural desires we can't help having?
How does love make the lover like what it loves, and why does that matter for union with God?

The Dark Night of Sense and Spirit

What is the dark night, and why does God lead souls into it rather than simply drawing them closer by consolation?
How does the image of damp wood catching fire explain what the soul goes through in the passive night?
What are the three signs that tell a soul it is time to stop discursive meditation and simply rest in God?
How do you tell the dark night apart from ordinary depression or spiritual laziness from the inside?
What's the difference between the night of sense and the night of the spirit — which is harder, and why?
Why do you say the soul must be still and let God work during the passive night — what is it actually doing?

Faith, the Faculties, and the Way of Ascent

Why do you call faith darkness to the understanding rather than a kind of knowledge?
How do the three theological virtues — faith, hope, and charity — each empty a different part of the soul?
What's wrong with resting in a genuine vision or revelation even if it comes from God?
Why do you say that since God has spoken everything in His Son, asking for new revelations is to find Christ insufficient?
How does the path up Mount Carmel differ from the two wrong paths you mark on either side of it?

Visions, Locutions, and Supernatural Apprehensions

What kinds of supernatural experiences do you think the soul should refuse, and what is the reasoning behind refusing them?
If a vision truly comes from God, how can refusing it take nothing away from what God intended to give?
How do you distinguish between an apprehension that works its effect instantly and one the soul needs to dwell on?
What makes imaginary visions more dangerous than purely spiritual ones, and how should a director handle them?
Why do you think spiritual directors who encourage souls to pursue visions are doing them harm?

Spiritual Betrothal, Marriage, and Transforming Union

What is the difference between the spiritual betrothal and the spiritual marriage — what changes when the soul moves from one to the other?
When you say the soul becomes God by participation, what keeps that from meaning the soul simply dissolves into God?
How does the image of a window filled with sunlight capture what you mean by transformation in God?
What do you mean by the wound of love, and why is wounding the right word for what the soul experiences?
In the Living Flame of Love you describe the soul's faculties as lamps of fire in deep caverns — what are those caverns, and what fills them?

Poetry, Scripture, and the Role of the Spiritual Director

Why did you write your greatest teaching as poetry first and only explain it in prose afterward?
You almost never speak of your own experience in your treatises — why do you keep yourself out of them?
What harm can a spiritual director do to a soul that is being led into contemplation, and how would you recognize a blind guide?
Why do you insist on confirming everything from Scripture and the Church rather than from the experiences you are describing?
How do you want readers to use the Spiritual Canticle's image of the hidden Beloved — as a poem, a prayer, or a map?

Converse with John of the Cross on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in John of the Cross's own writing, cited to the page.