This great mystic, whose feast falls today, overcame not only family poverty, but also the indifference and even brutality of his own beloved church. Born as Juan de Yepes y Alvarez in 1542, his ancestors included both Moors and Jews. The relationship between his parents was a love match, but his father was disinherited for having married beneath his station. John's father died when he was only nine, and the family's economic situation became dire. Somehow he managed to get a good classical education at a Jesuit school and was accepted into the Carmelite order at age twenty. He earned a theology degree from the famed University of Salamanca and was ordained to the priesthood. But the Carmelites of that time had grown lax, and John, strongly drawn to a life of austerity and contemplative prayer, considered transferring to the Carthusians. At this juncture he met Teresa of Avila, who had recently begun the reform movement known as the Discalced Carmelites. He immediately came under her sway and became leader of the male reformed Carmelites. However, the reform met stiff resistance from both the "business as usual" Carmelites and the larger Roman Catholic church in Spain. It took many years of conflict for the Discalced order to gain official ecclesiastical recognition. At one point, John was imprisoned for ten months in an unreformed Carmelite monastery. He was kept in a windowless closet measuring six by ten feet, and ritually flogged in the refectory in the presence of the other monks three times a week. He did have access to pen and paper and wrote down the lyrical poems for which he is famous; he had originally composed them in his head as a way of enduring his torture. The drawing of Jesus crucified (shown above), which would eventually inspire Dali's famous painting, is somewhat later but was clearly inspired by this very literal "dark night" in John's life.
I wish to share one of his poems, "Dark Night". It is found on pp 711-712 of what is possibly still the definitive English edition of his writings, The Collected Works of St John of the Cross, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD, and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD (Washington DC, Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1979).
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Dark Night
One dark night,
Fired with love's urgent longings
--Ah, the sheer grace!--
I went out unseen,
My house being now all stilled;
In darkness, and secure,
By the secret ladder, disguised,
--Ah, the sheer grace!--
In darkness and concealment,
My house being now all stilled;
On that glad night,
In secret, for no one saw me,
Nor did I look at anything,
With no other light or guide,
Than the one that burned in my heart;
This guided me
More surely than the light of noon
To where he waited for me
--Him I knew so well--
In a place where no one else appeared.
O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
The Lover with His beloved,
Transforming the beloved in her Lover.
Upon my flowering breast
Which I kept wholly for Him alone,
There He lay sleeping,
And I caressing Him
There in a breeze from the fanning cedars.
When the breeze blew from the turret
Parting His hair,
He wounded my neck
With his gentle hand,
Suspending all my senses.
I abandoned and forgot myself,
Laying my face on my Beloved;
All things ceased; I went out from myself,
Leaving my cares
Forgotten among the lilies.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, December 14, 2010
at Tuesday, December 14, 2010
and is filed under
mysticism
. You can follow any responses to this entry through the
comments feed
.
Contributors
- Joe Rawls
- I'm an Anglican layperson with a great fondness for contemplative prayer and coffeehouses. My spirituality is shaped by Benedictine monasticism, high-church Anglicanism, and the hesychast tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy. I've been married to my wife Nancy for 38 years.
Archives
Categories
- theosis
- eucharist
- Resurrection
- Benedictines
- Judaism
- Trinity
- liturgy
- Anglicanism
- Christmas
- Transfiguration
- baptism
- monasticism
- Andrewes
- Ascension
- Irenaeus
- Jesus Prayer
- Kallistos Ware
- Rowan Williams
- creed
- icons
- universalism
- Book of Common Prayer
- Climacus
- Easter
- Merton
- Rublev
- Teresa of Avila
- Underhill
- desert fathers
- incarnation
- mysticism
- repentance
- science
- Aquinas
- Athanasius
- Athos
- Cabasilas
- Clement
- Daily Office
- Gregory the Great
- Isaac of Nineveh
- Jesus seminar
- Julian
- Lossky
- Luther
- Pachomius
- Pentecost
- Ramsey
- Rule
- Wright
- angels
- christology
- ecology
- eschatology
- evangelicals
- hesychasm
- kenosis
- lectio divina
- litany
- nativity
Older Posts
- "A Great Understanding"
- A Jew on the Resurrection
- A Wild and Crazy God
- Advent Repentance
- All Saints
- Amen, Brother, and Pax Vobiscum!
- Anglican Hermits in the Big Apple
- Anglican Theology: Follow the Bouncing Balls
- Anglican Values
- Anglo-Catholic Identity
- Animal Saints
- Anthony Bloom on the Transfiguration
- Ascension and the Sanctification of Matter
- Ascesis and Theosis
- Athanasius on the Trinity
- Athonite Benedictines
- Augustine on the Ascension
- Authentic Mysticism
- Baptism and Kenosis
- Bede on the Transfiguration
- Begging for Mercy in the Jesus Prayer
- Being About My Father's Busy-ness
- Benedict and the East
- Benedict on Humility in Christ
- Benedictine Stability
- Bishop Andrewes' Chapel
- Bishop Hilarion on Prayer and Silence
- Blessed John Henry Newman
- Booknote: In the Heat of the Desert
- Booknote: Short Trip to the Edge
- Booknote: The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism
- Booknote: The Uncreated Light
- Boredom Eternal?
- Born-again Sacramentalism
- Bulgakov on the Incarnation
- Camaldoli's Eastern Roots
- Chalcedon and the Real World
- Chittister on Benedictine Prayer
- Christmas Foreshadows Easter
- Clairvaux Quotes
- Climacus Condensed
- Cloister of the Heart
- Colliander on the Jesus Prayer
- Communion After Baptism
- Communion Prayers
- Creeping Up the Ladder
- Daily Readings from the Rule of Benedict
- Darwin and the Rabbi
- Dueling Worldviews
- Ephrem the Syrian
- Esoteric and Exoteric
- Essence, Energies, Theosis
- Eucharist and Creed
- Eucharist and Ecology
- Eucharistic Quotes: Anglican
- Eucharistic Quotes: Patristic
- Eucharistic Quotes: Roman Catholic
- Evagrius on Prayer
- Exaltation of the Holy Cross
- George Herbert
- Getting Our Priorities Straight
- God in Creation
- Great O Antiphons
- Gregory of Nazianzus on Baptism
- Gregory on Michael
- Gregory the Great on Angels
- Healing Words
- Heschel on Prayer
- Hildegard on the Trinity
- Holy Fear(s)
- Incarnation and Theosis
- Irenaeus and the Atonement
- Irenaeus on Pentecost
- Irenaeus on the Trinity
- Jewish Figures in the Eastern Liturgy
- John Donne
- John of the Cross
- Julian and the Motherhood of God
- Kallistos Ware on the Jesus Prayer
- Lancelot Andrewes on the Resurrection
- Lancelot Andrewes on Theosis and Eucharist
- Latin Strikes Back
- Lectio Divina Resources
- Liber Precum Publicarum
- Litany of St Benedict
- Living in the Present Moment
- Lossky on the Transfiguration
- Luther and Theosis
- Marilyn Adams on the Resurrection
- Merton and Sophia
- Monk-animals
- Monks on Silence
- Monks, in a Nutshell
- Monstrance as Mandala
- Moralistic Therapeutic Deism
- More on Green Orthodoxy
- Myrrh-bearing Witnesses
- Mystical Tofu
- Newark's mea culpa
- Nicholas Ferrar
- No Free Passes for Skeptics
- Of Limited Pastoral Use
- Old Rites, Young Bodies
- Olivier Clement on the Eucharist
- Orthodox Thought Control
- Pachomius
- Papal Fashion Statements
- Paschal Proclamation
- Passover and Eucharist
- Patriarch's Paschal Proclamation
- Poetry by Herbert
- Polkinghorne on Creationism
- Polkinghorne on the Resurrection
- Prayers to St Benedict
- Praying With the Trinity Icon
- Priorities
- Ramsey on Anglican Theology
- RB and BCP
- Recovering Secularists
- Reinventing the Monastic Wheel
- Rescuing Darwin
- Resurrection in Judaism and Christianity
- Roman Christmas Proclamation
- Rowan on Wisdom, Science, and Faith
- Rowan Williams on Teresa of Avila
- Rowan Williams on the Resurrection
- Rublev's Circle of Love
- Rublev's Sacred Geometry
- Salvation for All Revisited
- Salvation for Everyone?
- Seraphim of Sarov
- Seven Lenten Theses
- Shell Games
- Sinai Pantocrator
- Spiritual and Religious
- St Benedict the Bridge Builder
- St Ignatius Brianchaninov on the Jesus Prayer
- St John Cassian on Prayer
- St John of Damascus
- St Joseph's Womb
- St Padraig's Creed
- Sweetman on Faith and Reason
- Symeon on the Eucharist
- Sympathy for the Devil?
- Teresa of Avila
- The Anglican Great Litany
- The Dormition of the Theotokos...
- The Green Patriarch
- The Jesus Prayer
- The Mystery of Holy Saturday
- The Resurrection is Not a Bludgeon
- Theology Isn't a Head Trip
- Theology Lite?
- Theosis and Eucharist
- Theosis and the Name of Jesus
- Theosis for Everyone
- Theosis in the Catholic Catechism
- Theosis: What it's all about
- Thomas Merton on the Jesus Prayer
- Three Faces of CS Lewis
- Transfiguration and Suffering
- Transfiguration Quotes
- Trinitarian Dance
- Two Sides of the Same Coin
- Underhill on Theosis
- Underhill on Worship
- Victory in Christ
- Virgin of the Sign
- What's Really Important?
- Why the Creed Matters
- Wright on the Resurrection
- Young Geezers and the Liturgy
- Zizioulas on Baptism and Eucharist
Anglicans
- A Desert Father
- A Red State Mystic
- Affirming Catholicism
- All Things Necessary
- Anglican Communion
- Anglican Eucharistic Theology
- Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals
- Anglo-Orthodoxy
- Catholicity and Covenant
- Celtic-Orthodox Connections
- Chantblog
- Chicago Consultation
- Creedal Christian
- Don't Shoot the Prophet
- Episcopal Cafe
- Episcopal News Service
- Evelyn Underhill
- Faith in the 21st Century
- For All the Saints
- In a Godward Direction
- Inclusive Orthodoxy
- Interrupting the Silence
- Into the Expectation
- N. T. Wright
- Nicholas Ferrar and Little Gidding
- Preces Privatae
- Project Canterbury
- Society for Eastern Rite Anglicanism
- Society of Catholic Priests
- St Bede's Breviary
- Taize Community
- The Anglo-Catholic Vision
- The Benedictine Spirit in Anglicanism
- The Conciliar Anglican
- The Daily Office
- The Hackney Hub
- The Jesus Prayer (Anglican perspectives)
- The St Bede Blog
- Thinking Anglicans
Eastern Christians
- A Spoken Silence
- A Vow of Conversation
- Ancient Christian Defense
- Ancient Faith Radio
- Antiochian Orthodox Church
- Coptic Church
- East Meets East
- Eclectic Orthodoxy
- Ecumenical Patriarchate
- Glory to God for All Things
- Hesychasm
- Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism
- Malankara Syriac Church
- Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar
- Monachos
- Mount Athos
- Mystagogy
- Nestorian Church
- Occidentalis
- Orthodox Arts Journal
- Orthodox Links
- Orthodox Peace Fellowship
- Orthodox Way of Life
- Orthodox Western Rite
- OrthodoxWiki
- Pravoslavie
- Public Orthodoxy
- Salt of the Earth
- The Jesus Prayer