Wyatt North - The Life and Prayers of Saint John of the Cross

Thank you for downloading this Wyatt North eBook

Never miss a free book from Wyatt North, and receive FREE inspirational eBooks for your eReader!

Thousands of readers have already joined. Sign up for free today.

Click here for free eBook offers!

Wyatt North Publishing, LLC 2013

Publishing by Wyatt North Publishing, LLC. A Boutique Publishing Company.

Wyatt North and A Boutique Publishing Company are trademarks of Wyatt North Publishing, LLC.

Copyright Wyatt North Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For more information please visit http://www.WyattNorth.com .

Cover design by Wyatt North Publishing, LLC. Copyright Wyatt North Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Starting out with just one writer, Wyatt North Publishing has expanded to include writers from across the country. Our writers include college professors, religious theologians, and historians.

Wyatt North Publishing provides high quality, perfectly formatted, original books.

Send us an email and we will personally respond with 24 hours! As a boutique publishing company we put our readers first and never respond with canned or automated emails. Send us an email at .

Sublime poet, ecstatic exemplar, attentive guidethese are only three of the roles attributed to St. John of the Cross. Many consider the writings of this Carmelite priest to represent the pinnacle of Spanish poetry.

Even centuries after his death, he remains a masterful model of spiritual attainment. And for anyone seeking to undertake a personal quest for God, he remains unsurpassed as a spiritual guide, for he is the Christian mystic par excellence, teaching a complete spiritual system for living as a means of attaining union with God.

Pope John Paul II found Johns teachings about faith to be so vitally relevant and important that as a young priest he wrote his doctoral dissertation in theology on the subject. Later, when as pope he celebrated the fourth centenary of Johns death, John Paul extolled the ability of faith to re-evangelize believers and increasingly open them to Christs teachings and light.

On that occasion, John Paul expressed Johns central message in this way: living faith is the guide of the Christian, his only light in the dark nights of trial, an ardent flame fed by the Spirit.

Born:

1542, Fontiveros, vila, Spain

Died:

December 14, 1591 (aged 49), beda, Jan, Spain

Feast:

December 14

Patronage:

Contemplative life; contemplatives; mystical theology; mystics; Spanish poets

Sublime poet, ecstatic exemplar, attentive guidethese are only three of the roles attributed to St. John of the Cross. Many consider the writings of this Carmelite priest to represent the pinnacle of Spanish poetry. Even centuries after his death, he remains a masterful model of spiritual attainment. And for anyone seeking to undertake a personal quest for God, he remains unsurpassed as a spiritual guide, for he is the Christian mystic par excellence, teaching a complete spiritual system for living as a means of attaining union with God. Much of Johns continuing spiritual power comes from his having lived most devotedly the life that he preached.

Historically, we can place John within the period of the Counter Reformation. He helped to reform the Carmelite Order and together with Saint Teresa of Avila (15151582) was a founder of the Discalced (Barefoot) Carmelites. Pope Benedict XIII canonized him as a saint in 1726, and in 1926 he was named one of the Doctors of the Church, joining such luminaries as St. Augustine and St. Jerome. His associate, Saint Teresa, was among the first women to be named a Doctor of the Church.

Recreating the personality of a premodern figure is not always possible, especially when that figure has been as exalted over time as Saint John of the Cross (San Juan de la Cruz in Spanish). Although we have quite a bit of information about his life, there is scant evidence to flesh out the person. Even his personal name is very little used today, so that he appears more a paradigm than a person.

Juan de Yepes y lvarez was born the youngest of three sons in Fontiveros, between Avila and Salamanca in Old Castile. Since he was born on the feast day of John the Baptist, that may be how he received his name. Gonzalo de Yepes, his father, was a bookkeeper for wealthy relatives who were silk merchants. Many New Christians, known as Conversos, were involved in the silk trade, and the de Yepes family is believed to have had Jewish origins, which they may have been hiding to avoid the legal discrimination and attention of the Spanish Inquisition (inaugurated 1478) accompanying those without so-called limpieza de sangre, purity of blood. (Although there is no firm evidence regarding the Yepes family, Teresa of Avila, with whom John would develop a life-altering association, is known to have had Jewish ancestry on her fathers side. Any Jews who had not already converted to Catholicismeither willingly or unwillinglyby 1492 were either expelled or converted under coersion.)

In 1529, Gonzalo married a woman from a lower-class family of weavers, Catalina Alvarez. Not much is known about Catalinas family. Some have speculated that the family may have been Morisco; i.e., nominally converted ethnic Muslims continuing to live in Spain after the Reconquista. (The Moriscos were not expelled until the early 17 th century.) In any event, whether due to class differences, ethnic differences, or some other reason, Gonzalos family was displeased with the marriage and disowned him. He worked with his wife as a silk weaver, but they were extremely poor, and Gonzalo died when John was a young child. A number of commentators have suggested that the marriage of Gonzalo and Catalina may have served their son as a model for the type of selfless love that sacrifices all for its desire.

Some time after Gonzalos death, Johns brother Luis also died, possibly from malnutrition. Catalina sought financial help from Gonzalos family but was rebuffed, so she moved with her two remaining sons, John and the elder Francisco, to seek better opportunities. She went first to Arvalo and then to the bustling market town of Medina del Campo, where she found work weaving. John would remain close with his surviving brother throughout his life.

In Medina del Campo, John entered a residential school for poor children. There he received a basic education, mainly in Christian teachings, and he was selected to serve as an acolyte at a nearby Augustinian convent. At the school, John was able to try his hand at several artisanal trades, but either his inattention or lack of aptitude led him instead to work at a hospital under the patronage of the hospitals director. (The bit of bricklaying and carpentry that he learned, however, would serve him in later years as he labored to build his monasteries.) At the same time, from the age of 17 until 21, he studied the humanities at the newly established Jesuit school and showed a capacity for higher learning. The Society of Jesus had been founded (1539; and approved in 1540) only a few years earlier by Ignatius of Loyola, who was later canonized by Pope Gregory XV in 1622.