Quote of the day, 9 April: St. John of the Cross

Lest his disciples go without merit by having sensible proof of his resurrection, he did many things to further their belief before they saw him.

Mary Magdalene was first shown the empty sepulcher, and afterward, the angels told her about the resurrection so she would, by hearing, believe before seeing. As St. Paul says: Faith comes through hearing (Romans 10:17). And though she beheld him, he seemed only an ordinary man, so by the warmth of his presence, he could finish instructing her in the belief she was lacking (Matthew 28:1–6; Luke 24:4–10; John 20:11–18).

And the women were sent to tell the disciples first; then these disciples set out to see the sepulcher (Matthew 28:7–8).

And journeying incognito to Emmaus with two of his followers, he inflamed their hearts in faith before allowing them to see (Luke 24:15–32).

Finally, he reproved all his disciples for refusing to believe those who had told them of his resurrection (Mark 16:14).

And announcing to St. Thomas that they are blessed who believe without seeing, he reprimanded him for desiring to experience the sight and touch of his wounds (John 20:25, 29).

Thus, God is not inclined to work miracles. When he works them, he does so, as they say, out of necessity.

Saint John of the Cross

The Ascent of Mount Carmel, III.31.8–9

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Op weg naar Emmaüs (Journey to Emmaus) is an ink and chalk drawing on paper by Harmen ter Borch, after Gerard ter Borch the Elder, his father. Harmen Ter Borch executed this drawing in Zwolle, Netherlands on 10 November 1650. Scholars at the Rijksmuseum explain that “despite Gerard the Elder’s inscription that Harmen is author of this drawing, Harmen may still have been inspired by one of his father’s Biblical drawings.” Image credit: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (Public domain).

Quote of the day, 6 April: St. John of the Cross

Where signs and testimonies abound, there is less merit in believing.

God never works these marvels except when they are a necessity for believing. Lest his disciples go without merit by having sensible proof of his resurrection, he did many things to further their belief before they saw him.

Mary Magdalene was first shown the empty sepulcher, and afterward the angels told her about the resurrection so she would, by hearing, believe before seeing. As St. Paul says: Faith comes through hearing [Rom. 10:17]. And though she beheld him, he seemed only an ordinary man, so by the warmth of his presence, he could finish instructing her in the belief she was lacking [Mt. 28:1-6; Lk. 24:4-10; Jn. 20:11-18].

And the women were sent to tell the disciples first; then these disciples set out to see the sepulcher [Mt. 28:7-8]. And journeying incognito to Emmaus with two of his followers, he inflamed their hearts in faith before allowing them to see [Lk. 24:15-32].

Finally, he reproved all his disciples for refusing to believe those who had told them of his resurrection [Mk. 16:14]. And announcing to St. Thomas that they are blessed who believe without seeing, he reprimanded him for desiring to experience the sight and touch of his wounds [Jn. 20:25, 29].

Thus, God is not inclined to work miracles. When he works them, he does so, as they say, out of necessity. He consequently reprimanded the Pharisees because they would not give assent without signs: If you do not see signs and wonders, you do not believe [Jn. 4:48]. Those, then, who love to rejoice in these supernatural works suffer a great loss in faith.

Saint John of the Cross

The Ascent of Mount Carmel, III, ch. 31, nos. 8–9

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Ushered in a Tearful Joy, Vasily Polenov (Russian, 1844–1927). Oil on canvas, c. 1900. Polenov captures the moment when Resurrection light breaks into the house of mourning. A woman—probably Mary Magdalene—stands in the doorway, clothed in blue, announcing news that will change everything. Seated in the shadows, one veiled figure turns to listen; another sits with head in hands, still bowed in grief. The painting evokes the Easter Monday Gospel (Matthew 28:8–10), in which the women, “fearful yet overjoyed,” run from the tomb to tell the disciples—and meet the Risen Lord along the way.

Quote of the day, 27 March: José Vicente Rodríguez, ocd

Among the laypeople who followed John of the Cross, one stands out in a particular way: Doña Ana de Mercado y Peñalosa. She left Granada and returned to her native city of Segovia, where she took up residence in small houses purchased and made ready beside the convent of the Discalced Carmelite friars, so as to remain close to her spiritual father, Fray John of the Cross, and to the monastery whose foundation she was helping to support.

This was not the construction of a new house, as some historians have supposed, but the purchase of two small dwellings. Gaspar de Herrera—a priest and administrator of the Mercy Hospital in Segovia—sold, with the permission of the city’s provisor, “to the prior, friars, and convent of the monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel of the Discalced, outside the city walls […] two houses and an enclosed plot with poplars and a well fed by a natural spring, which the said Hospital owned in the parish of Saint Mark.” The agreed price was “180 ducats, amounting to 67,500 maravedís,” to be paid in three installments.

The deed of sale was carried out with particular solemnity, since all the members of the Consulta and four chapter members of the Segovia convent took part in it. All the members of the Consulta signed, including John of the Cross himself. The purchase is dated August 11, 1589. A few days later, Doña Ana de Peñalosa paid the agreed sum. Shortly afterward, the two small houses were joined into a single dwelling where she could live for the rest of her life.

She still retained her palace in the city, however, and John of the Cross would often go there as well. One of the household servants, Leonor de Vitoria—who saw Fray John many times and went to confession to him—recalls how, when he came to the house, he would speak with Doña Ana and her niece, Inés de Mercado y Peñalosa. She saw him “in the presence of all the servants, speaking and conversing about holy and spiritual things, about heaven, and about how they might become saints. His words were always of this kind. At times, while speaking of these things, he would read them certain devout texts; at other times, he would leave them books in which such things were written, so that they might attend to them and serve our Lord.”

It is not clear whether Ana de Jesús was already among Doña Ana’s household servants; in her Testament, Doña Ana refers to her as “my servant… now in my service.”

Leonor also notes that Doña Ana would always invite Fray John “to sit down and not remain seated on the floor; but the saint would not agree, always seeking the humblest place in which to sit.” She adds, speaking of his modesty and bearing, that “simply by seeing him and hearing him, one was recollected and seemed moved to desire to serve our Lord. His words were holy and good, never idle. Everything that could be seen in him, whether in his words or his actions, was entirely holy, and he appeared to be very full of God and of virtues.”

Another witness, Lucas de San José, says that Fray John taught Doña Ana and her niece Doña Inés “the way of perfection,” and that “when the saint would go out to speak with them at the confessional, it was a common saying among the friars: ‘Now Saint Jerome, Saint Paula, and Eustochium are together.’”

Luis de Mercado y Peñalosa, Doña Ana’s nephew, also had much contact with John of the Cross. What he says about the saint’s virtues comes both from his own experience and from what he heard—especially about his humility and modesty—from his wife, Doña Inés de Mercado, “who for many years was in close contact with the holy father Fray John of the Cross, together with her aunt, Doña Ana de Mercado y Peñalosa.” He also recounts in detail the transfer of the saint’s remains from Úbeda and the veneration he received in Segovia.

José Vicente Rodríguez, o.c.d.

San Juan de la Cruz, ch. 27

Rodríguez, J.V. 2015, San Juan de la Cruz: la biografía, 2nd edn, San Pablo, Madrid.

Translation from the Spanish text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: This detail from an image of St. John of the Cross was engraved in 1788 by Gilles Antoine Demarteau. The technique used—of which Demarteau was a master—was crayon-manner in red and black, based on a drawing by Taillasson. The Art Institute of Chicago has a marvelous image of the tools used in crayon-manner engraving, with detailed figures of the process. Image credit: Rijksmuseum, Antwerp (Public domain)

Quote of the day, 4 March: St. John of the Cross

These stanzas, Reverend Mother [Anne of Jesus], were obviously composed with a certain burning love of God. The wisdom and charity of God is so vast, as the Book of Wisdom states, that it reaches from end to end, and the soul informed and moved by it bears in some way this very abundance and impulsiveness in her words. As a result, I do not plan to expound these stanzas in all its breadth and fullness that the fruitful spirit of love conveys to them. It would be foolish to think that expressions of love arising from mystical understanding, like these stanzas, are fully explainable.

Since these stanzas, then, were composed in a love flowing from abundant mystical understanding, I cannot explain them adequately, nor is it my intention to do so. I only wish to shed some general light on them, since Your Reverence has desired this of me. I believe such an explanation will be more suitable. It is better to explain the utterances of love in their broadest sense so that each one may derive profit from them according to the mode and capacity of one’s own spirit, rather than narrow them down to a meaning unadaptable to every palate.

As a result, though we give some explanation of these stanzas, there is no reason to be bound to this explanation. For mystical wisdom, which comes through love and is the subject of these stanzas, need not be understood distinctly in order to cause love and affection in the soul, for it is given according to the mode of faith through which we love God without understanding him.

Saint John of the Cross

Prologue to the Spiritual Canticle

Note: Anna Lobera Torres was born at Medina Del Campo (Valladolid, Spain) on 25 November 1545. She was received in 1570 into the first monastery of the Discalced Carmelites at Avila by St. Teresa herself, and later accompanied her to Salamanca and Beas. It was in returning to Granada to found a monastery, that she obtained from St. John of the Cross a commentary on the Spiritual Canticle, which he dedicated to her. After several migrations and misfortunes, in 1604, together with Blessed Anne of St. Bartholomew, she founded monasteries in France and Belgium. She died in Brussels after a few years of great interior and physical suffering, on 4 March 1621. She was beatified by Pope Francis on 29 September 2024.

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Detail of a portrait of Anne of Jesus after Hieronymus Wierix. Image credit: Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (Public domain)

Quote of the day, 15 February: St. John of the Cross

The soul at the beginning of this song has grown aware of her obligations and observed that life is short, the path leading to eternal life constricted, the just one scarcely saved, the things of the world vain and deceitful, that all comes to an end and fails like falling water, and that the time is uncertain, the accounting strict, perdition very easy, and salvation very difficult.

She knows on the other hand of her immense indebtedness to God for having created her solely for himself, and that for this she owes him the service of her whole life; and because he redeemed her solely for himself she owes him every response of love.

She knows, too, of the thousand other benefits by which she has been obligated to God from before the time of her birth, and that a good part of her life has vanished, that she must render an account of everything — of the beginning of her life as well as the later part — unto the last penny, when God will search Jerusalem with lighted candles, and that it is already late — and the day far spent — to remedy so much evil and harm.

She feels on the other hand that God is angry and hidden because she desired to forget him so in the midst of creatures. Touched with dread and interior sorrow of heart over so much loss and danger, renouncing all things, leaving aside all business, and not delaying a day or an hour, with desires and sighs pouring from her heart, wounded now with love for God, she begins to call her Beloved and say:

Where have you hidden,
Beloved, and left me moaning?
you fled like the stag
after wounding me;
I went out calling you, but you were gone.

Saint John of the Cross

The Spiritual Canticle: St. 1, no. 1

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Saint John of the Cross (detail), Abel de Jesús (21st c. Spanish), digital illustration with Photoshop. Image credit: © Abel de Jesús (All rights reserved, used by permission).

today we're diving into a topic that feels both ancient and surprisingly fresh: 'Velvet Darkness, Embracing Mystery in Christian Spirituality.'

#faithinuncertainty, #divineunknowing, #StJohnoftheCross

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Quote of the day, 15 January: St. John of the Cross

• Anyone who complains or grumbles is not perfect, nor even a good Christian.
• The humble are those who hide in their own nothingness and know how to abandon themselves to God.
• The meek are those who know how to suffer their neighbor and themselves.
• If you desire to be perfect, sell your will, give it to the poor in spirit, come to Christ in meekness and humility, and follow him to Calvary and the sepulcher.
• Those who trust in themselves are worse than the devil.
• Those who do not love their neighbor abhor God.

Saint John of the Cross

Sayings of Light and Love, nos. 162–167

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Vintage stereograph card depicting a boy and girl kneeling in prayer beside a brass bed with a red and white quilt, captioned “Now I Lay Me. At the End of Day.” Boston Public Library stereograph from the Stereograph Collection, ca. 1850-1920. Image credit: Boston Public Library Arts Department. No known copyright restrictions.

#charity #humility #love #Sayings #StJohnOfTheCross

Quote of the day, 31 December: St. Titus Brandsma

In his Explanation of “The Living Flame of Love”, St. John of the Cross draws the Holy Mother of God as clearly as possible into the circle of his metaphor clarifying the mystical life.

Speaking of the shining of the Lamps of God in us and our intake of the divine Light, which means as much as participating in God’s characteristics and works, he says that this bears still another name, i.e. “to overshadow”.

And in connection to this, he reminds (us) that also the Archangel Gabriel called the exquisite privilege of Mary to conceive God’s Son, an overshadowing of the Holy Spirit [Cf. Lk 1:35]. 

If one wants to understand, the Saint thus follows, what is meant by that spreading of God’s shadow or that overshadowing or that shining, for all these expressions have an equal meaning, then one should remember that every creature evokes a shadow according to its own nature and capacity. A dark opaque object gives an obscure shadow: a bright translucent object a clear and transparent shadow.

Thus, the shadow of something dark will call forth a different darkness, darker to the extent that its cause is also darker, while the shadow of something bright will be light according to the nature of the original light.

Therefore, the shadow brought forth by the lamp of God’s beauty will be a different beauty, the shadow by the lamp of strength a different strength, etc. or better said, all these shadows will be the beauty itself, the strength itself of God, but in shadow, because the soul here on earth cannot perfectly understand or take God into itself.

Over Mary, the Holy Spirit came in all his fullness, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her in the most perfect way [Cf. The Living Flame of Love, III, 12].

Saint Titus Brandsma

Mary’s motherhood of God, leading idea in the mystical life (excerpt), Carmelrozen 20 (May 1931), pp. 11–15

Brandsma, T. 1931, Mary’s motherhood of God, leading idea in the mystical life (excerpt), Carmelrozen, vol. 20, May, pp. 11–15. English translation by the Titus Brandsma Instituut, Nijmegen, available at: https://www.titusbrandsmateksten.nl/marys-motherhood-of-god/

Featured image: The Virgin and Child (detail), after Raphael (1483–1520), oil on canvas. Cornwall Museum and Art Gallery (public domain).

#BlessedVirginMary #MotherOfGod #overshadow #StJohnOfTheCross #StTitusBrandsma

Quote of the day, 17 December: St. John of the Cross

This mystical wisdom occasionally so engulfs souls in its secret abyss that they have the keen awareness of being brought into a place far removed from every creature.

They accordingly feel that they have been led into a remarkably deep and vast wilderness unattainable by any human creature, into an immense, unbounded desert, the more delightful, savorous, and loving, the deeper, vaster, and more solitary it is. They are conscious of being so much more hidden, the more they are elevated above every temporal creature.

Souls are so elevated and exalted by this abyss of wisdom, which leads them into the heart of the science of love, that they realize that all the conditions of creatures in relation to this supreme knowing and divine experience are very base, and they perceive the lowliness, deficiency, and inadequacy of all the terms and words used in this life to deal with divine things.

Saint John of the Cross

The Dark Night: Book II, chap. 17, no. 6

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Photo by Walid Ahmad on Pexels.com (Stock photo)

#contemplation #love #mysticalTheology #StJohnOfTheCross #wisdom

Quote of the day, 14 December: St. John of the Cross

Jesus be in your soul, my daughter in Christ.

Thank you for your letter. And I thank God for having desired to use you in this foundation [in Córdoba], since His Majesty has done this in order to bring you greater profit. The more he wants to give, the more he makes us desire — even to the point of leaving us empty in order to fill us with goods. You will be repaid for the goods (the love of your sisters) that you leave behind in Sevilla.

Since the immense blessings of God can only enter and fit into an empty and solitary heart, the Lord wants you to be alone. For he truly loves you with the desire of being himself all your company. And Your Reverence will have to strive carefully to be content only with his companionship, so you might discover in it every happiness.

Even though the soul may be in heaven, it will not be happy if it does not conform its will to this. And we will be unhappy with God, even though he is always present with us, if our heart is not alone, but attached to something else. […]

Best regards to Sister María de la Visitación, and thank Sister Juana de San Gabriel for her greetings. May God give Your Reverence his Spirit.

From Segovia, July 8, 1589
Fray John of the Cross

Saint John of the Cross

Letter 15 to Madre Leonor de San Gabriel

Note: We rejoice with the Discalced Carmelite family as they celebrate the 300th anniversary of Saint John’s canonization and the 100th anniversary of his proclamation as a Doctor of the Church. This Centenary Year will be observed from 13 December 2025 through 26 December 2026.

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

#letters #love #solitude #spiritualDirection #stJohnOfTheCross