The Roots of Christian Mysticism Session 18
Summary of Peter Tyler's "St. John of the Cross" talk, The London Christian Meditation Centre, St Mark's, Clerkenwell, 07 March 2006

Introduction

John is probably one of the most misunderstood mystics of the Christian tradition. His works were not translated into English until 1864. There really isn’t any secondary literature on him until the 20th century. Along with Thomas Traherne and Julian of Norwich he began to come into his own last century. The first scholarly edition of his works was produced by E. Allison Peers in 1934. Early commentators such as Dean Inge and Robert Vaughan referred to John as gloomy and withdrawn. His doctrine challenges us on a deeper level. The Desert Fathers probably come closest to his approach.

The indiscriminate use of the term “dark night” has not helped John. He used it in a specific way of a specific task.

Early Carmelite Spirituality

The beginnings of the Carmelite Order are difficult to pin down. There is no clear founder as there is with the Benedictines, Dominicans or Franciscans. Mount Carmel is in present day Haifa. It is a venerable place for Jews and Muslims as well as Christians. Muslims associate it with Khidr or the “Green One” (Cf The Taste of Hidden Things by Sara Sviri). He becomes the Green Man. Elijah is referred to as the Green One in Islam. The cave of Elijah has always been an ecumenical meeting place. The early Carmelites called it the School of the Prophets. Carmel is mentioned in the Song of Songs 7:5. and also in 1 Kings 18 in connection with the stories of Elijah. The stripes of the original Carmel habit represent the sparks from Elijah’s fiery chariot. Legend has it that Mary and Joseph rested at Carmel during their flight to Egypt and that as a child Jesus took his holidays there.

Albert of Vercelli became Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1206. The hermits living on Mount Carmel asked him for a Rule of life. We don’t know who these hermits were. Some people think they were crusader knights who had retired. Albert gave them the Primitive Rule of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. This was sponsored by the Pope.

In 1291 the Carmelites had to leave the Holy Land. They came to Kent. Since then Great Britain has played an important role in the development of the Order. The Carmelites were given land in Aylesford. In 1297 they held a chapter in Kent. They realized they couldn’t continue living with the same austerity that they had in the Middle East so they adapted their Rule. Another chapter in the 13th century held in London decided to choose Elijah, Elisha and Mary, the Mother of Jesus as founders of the Carmelites. This was therefore quite late in its development. Elijah is a Saint in the Carmelite tradition with his own feast day. It was an English Carmelite, John Baconthorpe of Blakeney, Norfolk who interpreted 1 Kings 18 as a pre-figurement of Mary for the first time. It was also at this time that we find that the titles Rosa Mystica and Stella Maris begin to be associated with her.

In 1326 a Papal Bull extended to the Carmelites (the White Friars) the same rights and privileges as the Franciscans (the Grey Friars) and Dominicans (the Black Friars) had.

In the 14th century the Carmelites had important links to The English Mystics. It was a Carmelite, Thomas Fishlake, who translated Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection into Latin. One of the many Spiritual Directors whom Margery Kempe consulted was a Carmelite, Robert Southfield at Norwich.

It was not until the 15th century that women were authorized to belong to the Order. Like all contemplative Orders they suffered badly during the Reformation.

For Carmelite Spirituality purity of heart is their vision. There is a tension between the solitude of the desert and the following of Christ in the green places, in the world though “A desert carefully tended becomes a garden.” (John Welch, a modern Carmelite).

John’s Context

He was born in Fontiveros in Castile 24 miles north west of Avila on 24th June 1542 and died in 1591.

The two key events in Spain at this time were the expulsion of the Jews and the discovery of the Americas (Indies). These two events were to shape the history of Spain for the next hundred years. Spain had been a place of three faiths for at least 500 years and they had lived together in relative harmony. Muslims were finally expelled by the beginning of the 17th century. Most went to Morocco. Some took the keys to their castles and their families are waiting to return!

His Life

John’s father, Gonzalo de Yepes, was from a family of silk merchants in Toledo. He met John’s mother, Catalina Alvarez, on a business trip to Medina del Campo (the Market of the Field). John’s mother was a poor and humble weaver.

John’s father married in 1529 despite bitter opposition from his family. His father was disowned by his family and adopted his wife’s trade. His father died when John, his youngest son, was three years old leaving his wife to bring up her three sons in straitened circumstances. When John was eight or nine his brother Luis died probably from malnutrition.

John attended the Catechism school, an orphanage for the poorest children. There he learnt his brick making skills also tailoring, carpentry and painting which all probably accounts for his reputation as a very practical saint. He also learnt to read and write.

When he was 17 years old he began work at the hospital in Medina. This hospital was really what we would call a hospice. It served the poor who had ulcers and contagious diseases but mainly treated syphilis brought back by the soldiers from the New World (this would have been equivalent to working in the Aids hospices in the 1980’s.) So he was exposed to fairly extreme levels of suffering. He used to tell stories to the patients and sing them songs. Even at that early stage he had a strong pastoral manner.

His potential being recognised he was then sent to the Jesuit college at Medina. There he studied metaphysics, grammar, Latin, Spanish Classics, literary writing and technique. Teresa did not attend formal school like this and this is clear from her writings. John adopts a much more scholastic approach. Every single word he uses he uses for a reason
He joined the Carmelites in 1563 and took his vows the following year becoming John of St. Matthias.

It was almost certainly the same year that the hospital administrator, Don Alonso Alvarez, became his mentor and paid for him to go to university at Salamanca which was one of the four great universities of Europe at the time. We don’t know exactly what courses he followed there but probably ethics, grammar, astronomy, music and theology. The fact that he was appointed prefect of studies suggests he was one of the brighter students.

He was ordained in 1567 and it was noted that he had a great love for solitude, quiet and the ascetic life. He seriously contemplated joining the Carthusians at this time but then he met Teresa (age 52yrs.) who was on the point of arranging her second foundation. The relationship between the two of them was a loving one although they spent no more than three or four years together. All his writings date from after her death. She immediately saw in him the potential founder of the discalced male Carmelites. She took him with her to Valladolid where she intended to make her next foundation and made him confessor.

In 1568 John and Teresa renounced the mitigated rule and accepted the more primitive rule whereupon John changed his name to John of the Cross. Discalced means “Shoeless”. It was a sign of wealth to wear shoes. To say you were shoeless meant that you identified with the Poor. They were not literally shoeless. They wore a felt slipper.

After a year John moved to Pastrana where he established a novitiate and then to Alcala de Henares to set up a college for the friars to study at. He soon became the first Rector of this new college.

John returned to Pastrana to tell the novice master that the regime for novices was too strict. He didn’t want his strict practices imposed on other people.

In 1571 Teresa was elected prioress of the Convent of the Incarnation and she appointed John as her confessor. He spent the next five years in a workman’s hut in the grounds of the convent. This was an unpopular move with the Carmelites of the mitigated observance partly because this was a paid post traditionally taken by one of their friars and they could see their positions going to the discalced.

In 1572 Two Apostolic Visitors were appointed to the Carmelites by King Philip. The reformed monasteries were suppressed and Teresa was told to stay in her convent. In 1576 the discalced monks met and decided that John should relinquish his position as Confessor. However the nuns wanted him to remain so the Papal Nuncio ordered him to stay on. In 1577 the nuncio who had supported John died and a group of mitigated Carmelites seized John and took him to Toledo. Teresa felt it would have been better to have fallen into the hands of the Moors. He was taken to prison and lashed by the monks sustaining wounds he never recovered from. Perhaps that is why he died so young. Six months’ into his imprisonment a new warder gave him new clothes and paper and ink. With these he wrote his three great spiritual poems. He heard Spanish romantic songs drifting in one night from the street which inspired him

He escaped in the traditional way with knotted sheets and eventually reached the discalced in Toledo after being hidden for a time in a convent of discalced nuns. When the mitigated friars went to search for them there he was saved by a nun who said something like, “It would be very unusual for a monk to be found in a convent of ladies.”

He spent time recovering in the convent and then went to Andalucia where he wrote the full draft of the Dark Night and began the Ascent of Mount Carmel. In 1578 he was appointed vicar of El Calvario, near Beas in Andalucia. It was here in Beas that he met Ana de Jesus, a prioress. At first they did not get on but later they grew close. She used to ask him about his poems. John wrote a lot of his commentaries for her. It helps when reading them to keep this in mind. After Teresa and John’s deaths she took the Reform to France and the Netherlands.

In 1582 his mother died. He was close to his surviving brother who used to visit him.

During the 1580’s John was elected as prior, vicar-provincial and third councillor to the vicar general. At this point he went to Segovia in Castile where he was also prior.

In the early 1590’s efforts were once more being made to expel him from the discalced reform movement. At this time it became clear that a leg problem he had sought help for was cancer and when he received a letter from one of his brothers with regard to a monastery he was to set up in Mexico John replied that he was going to new and better Indies. He died on 13th December 1591 and his feast is celebrated on 14th December. He was made a saint in 1726 and a Doctor of the Church in 1926.

What is appealing about John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila and Ignatius?
They write at the advent of the modern world and speak our language. We can find out a lot about ourselves by studying their works.

His Work

His great works are the poems The Dark Night of the Soul, The Spiritual Canticle and The Living Flame and the commentaries written on these poems. He wrote two commentaries on the Dark Night of the Soul including Ascent of Mount Carmel.

His Main Idea

His main idea was the education of desire. He sees at our centre a nothingness (nada) a symbol of which is the desert. He says that faced with our nothingness or creatureliness we cannot bear it so we fill it with consumerism, sexuality, intellectual pretensions, alcohol, cigarettes, inappropriate relationships, power or social activism. We are very good at filling this void but anything we fill it with except God will not make us happy. We need to re-educate or re-orientate our desire back to God. A lot of his writing is about the difficulty of doing this. This is what Ignatius meant when he said that Man was created to praise, reverence and serve God. It all goes back to Augustine of course who said that God made us for himself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him.

God is not in competition with anything else. He is the source of all that is so John is able to fill his writing with the joys and beauties of the created world.

When God begins to communicate we are aware of the depths of our sinfulness. We see how much we fall short of God’s expectations. We long for union with God but we know we are imperfect.

The way to God is firmly based on the person of Jesus Christ. John sees Jesus Christ as the exemplar of self-emptying. John’s way is an austere apophatic way and we can only embark on the journey by experiencing the greater love of God. It is not something we can do for ourselves through our own self-mortification. It is in his work The Spiritual Canticle that he talks about this greater love.