GIOVANNI DELLA CROCE, SANTO

JOHN OF THE CROSS, Saint. — “Mystical Doctor,” reformer of the Carmelites, born Juan de Yepes, in 1542 at Fontiveros in the province of Avila (Spain) to the nobleman Gonzalo and to Catalina Alvarez.

I. LIFE

John lost his father while still very young, and his family fell into poverty. He spent his youth in Medina del Campo, whither his mother had moved for work. After trying his hand at various trades, he entered service at a hospital and at the same time studied grammar under the Jesuits. At the age of twenty-one he became a Carmelite friar, taking the name John of St. Matthias. He was sent to Salamanca, where, enrolled at the university, he studied philosophy and theology. Ordained priest at twenty-five, desiring a more perfect way of life—while considering the Carthusian Order—he met St. Teresa, who won him over to the work of Carmelite reform. With Fr. Antonio of Jesus he founded the first house for the friars at Duruelo in 1568. His first office was that of “forming” the friars as master of novices, then as rector of the first house of studies at Alcalá (1571). From 1572 to 1577, at St. Teresa’s request, he served as confessor in the monastery of the Saint’s origin at Avila, where she was then prioress. Owing to jurisdictional disputes, sharp conflicts arose between the reforming and non-reforming Carmelites, and for more than eight months he was imprisoned in the convent at Toledo.

and no longer by his own interest. Such a soul will live only for the honor and glory of God.” In a consistent manner the “structure” of union is indicated by the Saint as the meeting of two elements: the first, on the part of the soul, consists in “keeping the will perfectly united to that of God” (ibid., II, 5, 7); the second, on the part of God, consists in the “communication of supernatural being” (ibid., nn. 4 and 7), to the point that the soul appears divinized and lives a divine life, moved as it is by God, in general, in all that it does.

IV. THE PATH THAT LEADS TO UNION

Since union presupposes total detachment as a fundamental condition and is realized in the soul’s being moved by God almost continually, the path toward union must procure for the soul a complete purity of affection and at the same time place it ever more under the divine influence. It will therefore be a path of total stripping accompanied by a progressive taking possession by God.

The stripping or purification (q.v.) of the soul must be accomplished both in its sensitive part (“night of sense”) and in its spiritual part (“night of spirit”), and is not effected solely by the soul’s personal exertion (“active night”), but requires divine intervention (“passive night”). The soul begins with energetic mortification of its senses and sensitive appetites; but to purify it better the Lord ordinarily sends the trial of aridity. This in turn usually contains the Lord’s invitation to leave meditation in order to pass to a new form of prayer: loving attention to God, the first form of contemplation (q.v.), in which God already acts secretly within the soul. Once its sensitive part is mastered, the soul applies itself to purifying its spirit through an eminent exercise of the theological virtues, which also removes it from the search for extraordinary heavenly favors, such as visions and revelations, so as to enter ever more deeply into contemplation of pure faith (ibid., II and III); and here too the Lord comes to its aid, passively covering over in it, making it aware, in the light of contemplation, of its still profound impurity, yet drawing it to Himself with infused love. The soul suffers terribly in this state, seeing all its ugliness, but its love for God intensifies, so that at the end of the trial that thus purifies it to the depths (“passive night of the spirit”), it is enabled to be introduced into the state of union.

V. DEGREES AND PHASES OF UNION

In the state of union St. John distinguishes two degrees: the first, in the metaphorical language of the mystics, is called “spiritual espousal,” the second “spiritual marriage.” In both, moreover, one must distinguish the habitual state of the soul from the moments in which it receives from God particular contemplative graces. In “spiritual espousal” the habitual state consists, on the part of the soul, in having given to God the perfect “yes” of total conformity of its will to His, to which corresponds on God’s part the true and complete “yes” of His grace (Flame, III, n. 24). In this state the soul receives, with greater or lesser frequency, the “visitations” of God, i.e., it enjoys from time to time the unitive contemplation that had been wrought in the soul during the darkness of the night of spirit. Yet the soul in this state is still subject to temptations and reluctances of the senses and still suffers moments of “absence of God.” It is in “spiritual marriage” that the soul feels God continually within itself moving it in all that it does and maintaining the ensemble of its faculties in an admirable harmony by which all are employed in divine service. In this state of habitual union with God (union according to substance), the spiritual faculties are several times rapt in God (union according to the faculties), and here the soul enjoys the loftiest unitive contemplations, arriving at a certain participation in the divine Trinitarian life.

The first and fundamental controversy surrounding the Saint’s doctrine concerns the notion of union that underlies the doctrinal exposition. Under the influence of recent discussions about the ascetical or mystical nature of union with God, some have thought it necessary to make a dissection, distinguishing an ascetical union to which the doctrine of The Ascent of Mount Carmel would lead, and a mystical union that would be attained at the end of The Dark Night. But the text of The Ascent (III, 2) most formally opposes such a distinction; it explicitly declares that the union in question is attained only through the “passive night” (n. 14).

It must not be thought, however, that the Saint believes all souls must arrive in the same way at the enjoyment of the contemplative graces that, in his descriptions, accompany the soul’s progress toward union. Speaking directly to contemplative souls, he describes the development of union in the way it ordinarily takes place in contemplative souls; but he also knows that “God does not lead all those who purposefully exercise themselves on the spiritual path to contemplation—indeed, not even half of them; the reason He knows!” (Dark Night, I, 9, 9). To give an exposition of St. John’s doctrine that all may use, it must be noted that union as such is not strictly conjoined with contemplative states.

Another controversy, or rather, an error into which Baruzi has fallen with his rationalistic interpretation of the Saint’s doctrine, consists in having transferred the purification of the soul, preparatory to union, from the fundamentally volitional plane to a fundamentally intellectual plane.

In recent times there has also been discussion as to whether, in the descriptions that the Saint’s works give of initial contemplation (v.), two forms of it should be distinguished—one acquired and the other infused—or only one. Those who have distinguished the two forms have done so following a dissection of the concept of union. St. John of the Cross, however, speaks only of one form of initial contemplation, and it is that which Carmelite theologians later termed “acquired,” precisely because, although it results from a hidden influence of the Holy Spirit, “practically” it is acquired by the soul that properly prepares itself for the contemplative life.

A final discussion concerns the nature of unitive contemplation, which some have thought should be attributed to the intervention of charisms, whereas it is evident, according to St. John of the Cross, that it must be attributed to the intervention of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the soul that nonetheless enjoys those “acts of union” which in mystical theology are called “substantial.” For a more detailed exposition of this problem, as well as of the more general one of contemplation, V. MISTICA (teologia).