Moment of Oneness, December 20, 2023

Mystic Moment:  St. John of the Cross, OCD

June 24, 1542 – December 15, 1591

Zoom Link:   https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81507551772 

Call-in Phone No.       +1 646 558 8656  

Opening Prayer:

Holy One, from our deepest heart, we ask for Your gift and blessing to understand and take to heart the teachings of St. John of the Cross, holy and blessed Carmelite mystic. We give thanks for his profoundly Christological lyric poetry, teachings on living a holy life, and encouragement on how to face and deal with the suffering and problems we encounter in daily life. Grant us patience and courage to recognize faith and prayer as essential as we daily climb the mountain on our own journey through life.

VIDEO:     https://www.youtube.com/embed/WQauCZ7GsyY 

READING 1 

St. John of the Cross had a burning desire to support and instruct his spiritual children through his writings. They didn’t have emails or amazon books; he was responding to the constant stream of requests for his spiritual guidance by writing  hundreds of pages of letters, counsels, and descriptions of each step along the way to union with God. 

We meet St. John of the Cross in 16^th century Spain, his prose and poetry shaped by the cultural context of his life and content of his experiences. We could think of St. John from our exposure to literature, paintings, statues, artistic renditions, and sermons portraying his writing as extremely deep, intellectual, and abstruse. Many scholars, Sanjuanist commentators, and biographers tend to support this rigid, austere, and pious image of a reclusive hermit. To begin understanding his teaching, it is critical to understand his mystical experiences in his cultural milieu. Let’s clear up some of the mistaken notions to start.  

He was a short fella, 4’11” tall, but as St. Teresa clearly understood, Fray Juan de la Cruz was a giant of a man in a diminutive body. His was not a life of extreme penances that a person desiring a deep spiritual life today would shy away from; there was so much more to his life than a cell and a discipline. 

His actions and writings support the mixed active and contemplative life he and St. Teresa of Jesus lived and breathed. They experienced soaring mystic ecstasies as well as daily problems, such as food and shelter for new foundations, as they furiously fought for their reformed Order. His earliest biographers estimated that he traveled nearly 18,000 miles in Spain, mainly on foot, founding 14 Carmelite monasteries. Fray Juan was an administrator, artist, spiritual director, confessor, university rector and professor, reformer, Prior of monasteries, as well as author of the summit of mystical Spanish poetry and literature. We will identify the major writings and art, and quotes written as a spiritual director for both the religious and secular people he was constantly in contact with, and that our profound mystic master bequeathed us. 

PRAYER 1

Beloved St. John of the Cross, we are grateful for your example, teaching us and sharing the immense depth of experience that a soul can aspire to in prayer. You gave us a design for the spiritual life and shared your fire for following the Way of Love. Guide us to a mighty serenity and stillness in our hearts so that we are able to hear the Word of the Holy One. Teach us to access calmness and control over our words, thoughts, and actions, for silence is the way we will meet the Beloved One. Amen

READING 2

Both St. John and St. Teresa had grandparents who were “converso,” converts from Judaism, living in Spain alongside Moorish converts, “Moriscos,” under great social duress. Conversos were marginalized, persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition, and lived in fear of being “turned in” by family or neighbors who thought they might be secretly practicing Judaism.  This sometimes terrifying, always nagging fear followed St. John of the Cross as his efforts to reform the Carmelite Order crashed into the politics of the day. In our world, refugees and tortured souls from war live this fear every day also.

The new found Carmelite houses existed because King Phillip II dearly loved and admired “Madre Teresa,” and supported her foundations with “Fray Juan” for men. The Carmelite authorities disregarded King Charles and imposed severe restrictions on the new reformers. However, they continued to write books, prose, poetry, letters, and spiritual documents, fearing the Inquisition’s persecution. Fray Juan was surely aware of the risks of having his writings censored, after seeing how his friend Fray Luis de León (1528–1591), one of the most popular professors at the University of Salamanca, was arrested and imprisoned for several years. Between 1481 and 1488, 700+ people were burned at the stake for practicing Judaism secretly. Fray Juan and Madre Teresa continued to open doors for conversos to be able to fulfil their calling to a spiritual life under the reformed Carmelite Rule. They lived by what we now say to demonstrate inclusivity; “all are welcome” for those willing to live their life within the austerities of the Carmelite Rule. 

PRAYER 2

Holy St. John of the Cross, travels across your country gave you opportunity to interact with patience and generosity, for the propagation of the holy reform of the Carmelite Order.  You endured physical and spiritual trials and heavy labor, finding great joy in service to those you met. Remind us to persevere in our charism to model compassion, wisdom, and understanding.  Astonish and awaken us to your message of never giving up seeking the Holy One in prayer. Enkindle a burning desire to serve our brothers and sisters, so that we may work toward sharing the Love of the Holy One wherever we go, with all those we meet. Amen

READING 3

St. John of the Cross wrote 4 major works and several minor works                                                                                                                                of the most profound, original prose and poetry over a period of time from about 1577 till his death in 1591. He was not a professional writer, but wrote in response to requests for clarification of the spiritual life from the persons who wrote to him, from the nuns and friars, and from the bubbling up of his own mystical experiences. 

MAJOR WORKS:  The Spiritual Canticle  

VIDEO    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ZHDI8kKhs    

Stanzas from St. John of the Cross' "Spiritual Canticle", set to the song, "May It Be" from the "Lord of the Rings" soundtrack.

On December 2, 1577, the 35-year-old Fray Juan was kidnapped by hostile, jealous, unreformed Carmelite Friars who opposed the reforms that would make their life more difficult. Held in Toledo in a tiny prison cell 6’ x 10’ for 9 months, he was starved, beaten, and humiliated in front of the other Friars each week. Writing was his mental health outlet, and gave birth to his first major work, The Spiritual Canticle. It is an allegorical poem that describes the soul’s mystical process or journey to God, using the Biblical Song of Solomon as the basis. It describes the bride groom (Christ) who fears having lost his bride, and searches longingly for her (the soul). 

In addition to the physical suffering of prison, he began to experience an inexplicable loss of connection with the Holy One, an overwhelming spiritual dryness and searing emotional pain. Trying to understand and grapple with this loss, Fray Juan wrote on scraps of paper from his jailer, 30 of 40 stanzas of the “The Dark Night,” a poem within The Spiritual Canticle. 

Fray Juan nearly died in prison. On the night of August 15, 1578, he tied strips of rags together, tucked his poetry in his belt, and lowered himself out through a tiny window, where he fled to the Carmelite Nuns of Toledo, who lovingly nursed their beloved Fray Juan back to health. 

The Dark Night

Today we understand that depressed feelings always occur after a loss, in proportion to the emotional attachment we had to the loss. We lose the capacity to care for some time while grieving. Secondly, we also know about the psychological mood disorder “depression” as a mental health issue which often responds to therapy. This clinical, meaning serious enough to need help, depression robs a person of the desire to engage in life; the joy and motivation in life are gone and replaced by feelings of worthlessness and ennui, incapable of functioning in daily life. 

These two types of depression are not what St. John experienced. What he called “The Dark Night” is an extreme spiritual suffering the soul goes through on its journey. All of us on a spiritual journey are able to experience this. He teaches us that a person experiencing a spiritual “Dark Night” loses motivation for the things of God; the spiritual life no longer is enticing and rewarding, their relationship with the Holy One suffers, but the person can go on with daily life. 

Today we have a storm of spiritual changes afoot: challenges to our cherished but antiquated or inaccurate ideas about God, beliefs we once thought immutable, changing rituals. These are overwhelming and often prompt us to experience the confusion and searing pain of having to re-think beloved ideas and behaviors; truly a spiritual Dark Night that can last in us for years in our life. 

Witness St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta who told us she experienced a “Dark Night of the Soul” for nearly 50 years. Her work with the poor and dying continued energetically, but she felt that God had abandoned her. Only through great Faith and Hope could she push through and continue her exhausting service to the poor and infirm.  

She said: “I want to love Him as he has not been loved, and yet there is that separation, that terrible emptiness, that feeling of absence of God”. 

Mirabai Starr: “When it’s all empty and dark and dry, it is not a sign of a pathology that needs to be medicated in you.” “It’s an invitation to the transformational space of radical unknowing, which is the portal to total intimacy with the sacred.”

PRAYER 3

St. John of the Cross, lover of Christ and teacher of us all, grant us love, joy, peace, and relief. Our words cannot express the fullness of love and gratitude we have for your mystical wisdom and tenderness. Help us throw flashes of light on your words that pour out from your soul, so that each of us can grasp something according to our capacity to know and love the Holy One.  We are ever your brothers and sisters in Jesus our Brother.  Amen 

THE ASCENT OF MT. CARMEL 

St. John wrote this allegorical poem to describe the steps he experienced on the way to perfect union with God. “Mt. Carmel” represents the place where God dwells, and “The Dark Night” embedded within the “Ascent” describes what the soul must endure to reach the height. 

THE LIVING FLAME OF LOVE 

This 4-stanza poem was written when St. John of the Cross was 40 years old, in 1585, and an honored, esteemed Carmelite founder. He described the stanzas of his poem, The Living Flame of Love, as the “songs of the soul in the intimate communication of the union of love with God.” The verses share the mystical vistas from the summit of his spiritual journey, the experience of divine transformation as the soul encounters and unites with the pure love of God.

ARTWORK   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfN67C9XLCM

VIDEO          Story of Dali’s painting: Christ of St. John of the Cross

How St. John of the Cross is influencing all the world today.

MINOR WORKS

“Minor” here indicates shorter, not less spiritual, works of St. John of the Cross. True, he experienced mystical gifts in prayer, but he is not to be relegated to the monastery and untouchable for all of us on the spiritual journey. As Carmelite Lawrence S. Cunningham said: 

Fray Juan believed in the utterance of God’s Word in eternity, creation and history. He summed up that belief in a little quatrain he wrote for Christmas, which in a few lines captures simple devotion, profound theology and the constant allure of grace:

The Virgin, weighed

With the Word of God,

Comes down the road:

if only you will shelter her!

CLOSING MEDITATION 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OVnp4uRhi0w 

References and Resources

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VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcMe2hDP6rs   In Spain with St. John of the Cross   30 minutes very good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12FaTaC5zGQ Living Flame of Love    Video