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Life and teaching of Saint John of the Cross

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Saint John of the Cross : Biography

Founder (with St. Teresa) of the Discalced Carmelites, doctor of mystic theology, b. at Hontoveros, Old Castile, 24 June, 1542; d. at Ubeda, Andalusia, 14 Dec., 1591. John de Yepes, youngest child of Gonzalo de Yepes and Catherine Alvarez, poor silk weavers of Toledo, knew from his earliest years the hardships of life. The father, originally of a good family but disinherited on account of his marriage below his rank, died in the prime of his youth; the widow, assisted by her eldest son, was scarcely able to provide the bare necessities. John was sent to the poor school at Medina del Campo, whither the family had gone to live, and proved an attentive and diligent pupil; but when apprenticed to an artisan, he seemed incapable of learning anything. Thereupon the governor of the hospital of Medina took him into his service, and for seven years John divided his time between waiting on the poorest of the poor, and frequenting a school established by the Jesuits. Already at that early age he treated his body with the utmost rigour; twice he was saved from certain death by the intervention of the Blessed Virgin. Anxious about his future life, he was told in prayer that he was to serve God in an order the ancient perfection of which he was to help bring back again. The Carmelites having founded a house at Medina, he there received the habit on 24 February, 1563, and took the name of John of St. Matthias. After profession he obtained leave from his superiors to follow to the letter the original Carmelite rule without the mitigations granted by various popes. He was sent to Salamanca for the higher studies, and was ordained priest in 1567; at his first Mass he received the assurance that he should preserve his baptismal innocence. But, shrinking from the responsibilities of the priesthood, he determined to join the Carthusians.

  
  
  



Saint John of the Cross : Bibliography

- John of the Cross, Selected Writings, Classics of Western Spirituality, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh (New York: Paulist Press, 1987) paperback. John is perhaps the greatest and most austere analyst of mysticism in the Catholic tradition. His paradoxical language can be baffling and easily misunderstood by one unfamiliar with the tradition of ‘negative theology.’ This is a better translation than the widely used one by E. Allison Peers.
- John of the Cross, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross, rev. Ed., trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1991) paperback

Saint John of the Cross : Portraits

Saint John of the Cross
Saint John of the Cross
Saint Jean de la Croix
Saint John of the Cross
Saint Jean de la Croix
Saint John of the Cross
Saint John of the Cross
Saint John of the Cross
Saint John of the Cross
Saint John of the Cross

Saint John of the Cross : Links


Christianity, Angela of Foligno, Dante Alighieri, Fénélon, François De Sales, Henri Le Saux, Jean Pierre de Caussade, Mother Teresa, Nicholas of Cusa, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint John of the Cross, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Thomas Aquinas, etc.


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