INTRODUCTION
Today is the feast of St.
John of the Cross - Juan de Cruz.
His dates are 1542 - 1591. So, he lived in the time after
the discovery of America by
Christopher Columbus – and that burst of energy that must have erupted in Spain after the
discovering a whole new world.
But I don’t know how much that experience affected his life
– in the places in Spain
where he lived.
·
He was a delving Spanish mystic.
·
He was an intriguing Spanish poet.
·
He fits in as a December Saint.
He has been labeled a genius as a writer. More important, he is a Saint.
Fortunately, we have his 3 great books:
·
The Ascent
of Mount Carmel
·
The Dark
Night of the Soul – The Spiritual Canticles
·
The Living
Flame of Love.
To be read slowly. To be read very slowly and with
commentary. To discover, he might not be your cup of tea.
Along with St. Teresa of Avila he is considered the founder of the
Discalced Carmelites.
MESSAGE
What I take as a message from his life is the Cross and Rejection
- but not just the cross and rejection, but how he dealt with the cross and
rejection.
His father’s family had wealth, but when his father married
someone in a class much lower than his – his family rejected him.
Then after kids came, the father died. Ugh. So, the mother
was left homeless and in poverty.
At some point, John got a job as a servant in a hospital and then he entered the Carmelites. Someone spotted his talents and he ended up
receiving a good education.
He meets Teresa of Avila who is trying to reform the female
branch of the Carmelites and he joins with her in this reform of the male
branch.
He is rejected – in fact, he’s imprisoned in the Carmelite
monastery for 9 months – and is brought to the dining room at times and beaten publicly.
The Redemptorists don’t do this.
CHOICE
He could have become as someone said, “a cynic or a
compassionate mystic.” He became the mystic.
His life theme could be: seek God because God seeks us;
desire God, because God desires us, and in the pursuit, we will meet God,
often in the cross.
He is famous for his use of the theme of “The dark night” –
as in the Dark night of the senses and the dark night of the soul.
F. Scott Fitzgerald and many others used that phrase, as in
Fitzgerald’s line, “In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three
o’clock in the morning.” That was in his book, “The Crack Up” (1936), not
“Tender is the Night” (1933) or "The Great Gatsby" (1925).
2 PERSONAL STORIES
I have two personal stories concerning John of the Cross.
Years ago, I used to write a spirituality newsletter
entitled, “You” – for the Thomas More Association out of Chicago. I would write an issue, send it to Chicago, and it would be
printed.
Well, I had just finished one issue on the theme of night,
and it featured John of the Cross. Just at that time a classmate dropped in to
visit me.
I said, “Hey, Tom, read this and let me know what you think of it.”
Tom read it and said, “Where did you get this?”
I said I made
it up.
He said, “It’s not the way he put things. This is not what John of the Cross was
saying.”
I said, “Oh!” Then I added, “Why do you say that?”
He answered, “Well, down in Santo Domingo we read a section
of his writings every morning and then talked about it for reflection.”
I said, “Oh!”
The moral of the story is this. Reject everything you read.
Don’t believe it. Give it a cross examination. If Tom hadn’t shown up, it would
have been printed as is and some people who might read it, would figure it’s true, because it’s printed.
So, I am critical of what I read. It’s a good
practice. It could be mish mash, unprepared something, made up by someone who
didn’t do the research.
The second experience was a book of Night Prayers I wrote
from my encounter with John of the Cross’ stuff. I finished the book and it was
rejected. It’s sitting in my room, so I took it out last night and grabbed two
short prayer poems.
The first one is entitled, “Presence” and the central image
is bone. Did you ever have the experience of seeing someone – being with
someone and you start to meditate on their skull – thinking, “This person is
going to be dead, a skeleton, one of these years.”
I don’t do this all the time.
Presence
The bone
beneath the skin,
and You Lord,
present within me
throughout the night.
The second prayer poem is entitled, “Empty In The Night.”
The central image in this short piece is trees without leaves against a night
sky – a cold winter sky. Haven’t you ever stopped to look through empty
branches and see the moon or the stars on the other side.
Empty In The Night
Barren black branches
against a December sky,
the cold and empty arms of the
cross,
my wooden soul cries out
for You, O Lord.
CONCLUSION
It’s morning, but John of the Cross can help us get through
the night.
