Our Lady And Saint John Of The Cross
by
Thomas Moore, OCDS
Carmelites are especially known for a very strong devotion to Our Lady. The origins of this tradition are not known with authenticity. Nevertheless, it is recorded that shortly after St. Albert of Jerusalem conveyed the Rule to Brother "B", of the Hermit-Brothers of St. Mary of Mount Carmel, the order was being called Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.1 The Order of Discalced2 Carmelites of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (OCD) resulted from 16th century reforms by St. Teresa of Jesus and St. John of the Cross. The Discalced mode of life was a return from a Calced mitigated observance to that primitive Rule given by St. Albert.
As with all Carmelites, St. John of the Cross (+1591), a holy founding father of the Discalced, and Doctor of the Church, whose 4th centenary is being celebrated in 1991, had special devotion to Our Lady, and not without good reason as we shall see. It wasn't merely the result of being a religious and priest.
Our saint was born, probably on the 24th of June, in Fontiveros, Old Castile Spain, in 1542. He was Baptized Juan de Yepes y Alvarez being the last of three children born to Catalina Alvarez and Gonzalo de Yepes. In 1544 his mother was widowed and left penniless. Abandoned by all other family__it was a matter of Catalina's lack of social lineage__he was raised by his mother and older brother, Francisco. John was what we would call today "a street waif." He was of the poorest of the poor. Catalina, however, was very devout. We know, from her own testimony, that it was on her knees, near an altar with a statue of Our Blessed Lady in their humble home, that little Juan like all Castilians, was instructed in love of Mary, the Morning Star.3
Our Blessed Lady's presence and intercession in our saints life began at a tender age. Juan, when about five years old, was playing with companions where there were ponds. He was throwing sticks into the water amusing himself by catching them as they surfaced again. Suddenly, he lost his balance and fell into water, probably of a depth to about his neck line. The muddy bottom was sticky, and he nearly drowned from struggling, when a most beautiful lady appeared above him. John knew instinctively that it was the Queen of Heaven. Mary lovingly said to him "Give me your hand child, and I will take you out." John recalled with fondness throughout his life that he instantly made up his mind not to give such a beautiful resplendent lady, with such wonderfully lovely hands, his own grubby little hands. Meanwhile, his playmates collared a passing workman urging him to pull out the drowning boy. The workman, obliging, ran up and stuck out his prod shouting to Juan "Catch hold of it Boy." He did not hesitate for even a moment, and seizing the goad struggled out of the pond. When our little saint looked for the beautiful lady whose shapely hands he had so admired, she had disappeared.4
St. John of the Cross didn't write much of Mary. However, if we miss what he wrote about Mary we miss the role of Mary for Carmelites. It is the necessity to be receptive. Mary is the model for passive receptivity! In The Collected Works Of St. John Of The Cross, there are a mere nine indexed references, eight under Mary, Virgin and one more under Mother, of God.5 It isn't what he wrote about Our Lady that interests us here. Rather, it is the direct interventions of the Blessed Mother of God into the saint's life, and the affects this had upon him.
In his general introduction to the saint's writings, Fr. Kavanaugh writes:
Among his favorite feasts, besides those of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Trinity, were the feasts of the Blessed Virgin. In his prison cell, on the Vigil of the Assumption, after nine months of bitter privation, he was asked what he was thinking of, and he replied: "I was thinking that tomorrow is the feast of our Lady and that it would give me great joy to say Mass." The countless favors which the Mother of God bestowed on him were such that the mere sight of her image gave him new life and brought love and brightness to his soul. Once upon seeing an image of our Lady while he was preaching to the nuns in Caravaca, he could not conceal his love for her and exclaimed: "How happy I would be to live alone in a desert with that image."6
In a short article, such as this, trying to present all that is known or has been written of St. John of the Cross and the Blessed Virgin Mary in his life, is an unmanageable task. What follows is the most fascinating story recorded in biographical, historical and traditional sources regarding Our Lady and the saint.7
Without delving deeply into the details as to why, St. John of the Cross, a Discalced friar, was captured and imprisoned by Calced friars during the night of December 2, 1577, because of complicated jurisdictional conflicts.8 They took him to the ancient Calced monastery at Toledo for incarceration. Its easier to understand what happened to him if we consider legal codes that were then in force and try to imagine Spanish life in the sixteenth century. Auto-da-fés and brutality were a norm. From 1575 to 1610 the Inquisition at Toledo held twelve general courts trying 366 cases in which a death sentence was imposed.
John, a member of the new reform which was not yet completely free of Calced authority, was considered to be both disobedient and rebellious in the eyes of his captors for what were, in their opinions, very great crimes. They considered him excommunicated and they began to punish him in accordance with existing Carmelite constitutions dealing with cases of rebellion. Refused the privilege of celebrating the Mass, or participation in any sacraments, during the entire term of imprisonment, he was continually ordered to recant of the reformed Rule. Silence, if it be one, was his only answer. John was rigorously imprisoned in the monastery. His cell was a narrow cavity in a wall of the stone edifice. It was about six feet in width by ten feet in length. The only opening in this closet-hole-in-the-wall for light and air was a small dormer like slit high up on the wall in one corner. Light only reached this cavity when the sun shown into a gallery out of which a long hall-like room led towards the slit.
At first every evening, later three times a week, and finally, towards the end, when his captors grew bored of it, on Fridays and other special occasions, St. John of the Cross was brought down to the refectory for his meal. Bread, sardines and water eaten on the floor. Public discipline was administered. Kneeling and half naked, each of the friars, whip in hand, walked in a circle and scourged him. He infuriated his captors when, in silence, he endured all with patience and love. The strength and courage he exhibited under such punishment was no less irksome to his captors. He made them mad with rage by his habit of remaining perfectly silent and still while the most eloquent of the Calced friars urged him to renounce the reform's primitive Rule and adopt the mitigated Rule. They even went so far as to promise him the priorship of a Calced monastery, all to no avail. Afterwards, John pulled his tunic over shoulders that were to bear marks of these blows the remainder of his life, and returned to his cell. The wool cloth became clotted, crusty and dirty with his blood. With the onset of Toledo's summer heat__which can be infernal__this "purple rag," which he wore unwashed all but the last three days of imprisonment, became an increasing torment and burden.
Fray Juan refused to break his silence. He spoke only with God. During this period he composed, in his head, many of the poems for which he is so famous.9 Accents of words composed by this saint to his God continue to ring down through the centuries for us:
Where have You hidden,
Beloved, and left me moaning?
You fled like the stag
After wounding me;
I went out calling You, and You were gone.
. . .
All wound me more
And leave me dying
Of, ah, I-don't-know-what behind their stammering.
O spring like crystal!
If only, on your silvered-over face,
You would suddenly form
The eyes I have desired,
Which I bear sketched deep within my heart.10
The jewel in the crown of St. John of the Cross' poetic works, nine poems, Romances: On the Gospel, were composed in his mind during this brutal period. Romances 8. and 9., respectively, The Incarnation and The Birth, are of special interest here:
8.
1. Then He called
The Angel Gabriel
And sent him to
The Virgin Mary,
2. At whose consent
The mystery was wrought,
In whom the Trinity
Clothed the Word with flesh.
3. And though Three work this,
It is wrought in the One:
And the Word lived incarnate
In the womb of Mary.
4. And He who had only a Father
Now had a Mother too,
But she was not like others
Who conceive by man.
5. From her own flesh
He received His flesh,
So He is called
Son of God and of man.
9.
1. When the time had come
For Him to be born
He went forth like the bridegroom
From his bridal chamber,
2. Embracing His bride,
Holding her in His arms,
Whom the gracious Mother
Laid in a manger
3. Among some animals
That were there at that time.
Men sang songs
And angels melodies
4. Celebrating the marriage
Of Two such as these.
But God there in the manger
Cried and moaned;
5. And these tears were jewels
The bride brought to the wedding.
The Mother gazed in sheer wonder
On such an exchange:
6. In God, man's weeping,
And in man, gladness,
To the one and the other
Things usually so strange.
Finis.11
The very root of our life in the Trinity is given to us in the Romances; especially in the sixth and final verse of Romance 9.
Had God abandoned our saint? Was He hiding Himself? There is an axiom which states "Where there is no love, put love and you will find love." Amor saca amor, "Love calls forth love" is the succinct way St. Teresa of Jesus stated it. Fray John had become love and began to call forth love out of the severity and hatred surrounding him. A new warder and the subprior began to show him some kindness and love him. The warder allowed John more freedom for air and exercise. The subprior even gave him another tunic to replace the tattered blood soaked rag his own had become.
St. John of the Cross had no real thought of escape: in his prison cell, literally a dungeon, he had suffering, pain, silence and that interior activity which is a tremendous adventure in and of itself. It was our saint's Blessed Mother who prepared his escape and showed him how to flee.
On the 14th of August, 1578, while outside cathedral bells had recently tolled, the jailing monastery's prior and two religious entered his cell. John was so weak he could hardly stir and he remained motionless. The prior gave him a poke with his foot and asked why he didn't stand in his presence. Poor John replied by begging pardon, and stating that he had not recognized the prior, and could not readily rise because of wounds. "What were you thinking about, since you were so absorbed?" asked the prior. "I was thinking that tomorrow is the feast of Our Lady, and how it would be so great a consolation for me if I could say Mass," replied John. "Not in my time!" retorted the prior as he and the religious stormed out of the dungeon of a closet.
The following night, John was asking himself how Heaven would ever get him out, when Our Lady came to him and spoke these words: "Have patience, my son, for your trials will soon cease, you shall leave this prison, say Mass and be consoled."12 In spirit, she let him see a window, high up in the gallery, which overlooked the Tagus River. She told him she would help him to escape through it. She also placed into his mind a method to unscrew and disable his prison locks, the one at the dungeon itself and the other of the room next door.
He took advantage of a quarter of an hour allowed him by his new warder to go to 'the humble office,' while other friars were in the refectory, to identify and locate the window she had shown him. That same evening he managed to complete disabling of the locks.
On August 16, 1578, he made good his escape. Waiting until everyone was asleep he tried the first door and it yielded; but, two visiting friars were sleeping in the next room. He hesitated, but could not resist the Mother of God's urging; she ordered him straight ahead, assuring him of her help. As he pulled the door towards himself to fully open it, staples from the lock dropped to the floor. The noise partially aroused the sleepers in the next room who were near the outer door which had been left open so as to catch whatever cooling breezes the night air would give. One called out "Who's there?" John froze, remained still, and waited. The ensuing silence reassured the sleepers, they returned to deep slumber, probably with stopped ears and lulled senses, as a result of the Virgin's actions. John passed quickly and silently between the prone sleepers and exiting out the door made straight for the escape window.
Out of two old blankets and a strip of the newly acquired tunic he had received from the subprior, John had already made himself a makeshift rope. Guided by the interior voice of Our Lady he made it fast to a wooden joist that rested on the brick wall and proceeded to let himself down into the empty darkness and void below. It was about two in the morning. He arrived at the end of his makeshift rope, and found himself to be some nine or ten feet shy of the ground below. Urged on by Our Blessed Mother's interior prompting, he jumped the remaining distance of the rampart and rolled down the steep river embankment. He observed a dog close at hand devouring offal that had been thrown from the refectory; and he thought the animal might show him the way, so he threatened it. The dog leaped into a lower courtyard and disappeared. John, now quite exhausted, spurred on by Our Mother, mustered his remaining courage and jumped down also. He found himself in an irregular enclosure between the monastery and an adjoining Franciscan convent enclosure wall. Moving in agony of mind, he saw a glorious nimbus of light and heard a voice saying to him: "Follow me." John, his courage now nearly dissipated, was leaning against the high wall when he felt himself suddenly taken up and lifted over the wall.
The prior, and some others, later traced out St. John of the Cross' path. They could scarcely believe what they saw. The coverlets and tunic fashioned into the rope were mere thin strips. They were even more astonished when they observed that the wooden joist to which it had been attached was not secured at either end. They were surprised that the weight was not enough to pull away the loose joist. They considered it a difficult route for a man in good physical condition to negotiate, leave alone the distress and woundedness they knew their prisoner to have. His warder, Juan de Santa-Maria, summed the matter up:
As I am certain he could not escape by any other way, I regard his flight as miraculous, and ordained by Our Lord, in order that he might help the reform of the Discalced. And, although I was deprived of my rights and privileges for some days, still, in spite of all, I was glad that he had escaped, and so were some other religious, because we had compassion on him, seeing him suffer with so much courage.13
Once away, John hid himself in a darkened entrance way to avoid the attention of passersby. He rested and then slowly made his way to the convent of St. Joseph of Carmel; a convent of St. Teresa of Jesus' Discalced nuns. At five o'clock, when the Angelus rang, he knocked on the door. Asking for help and to be hidden, the extern sister, Leonor de Jesús, found him. Mother Ana de los Angeles was attending the very ill Sister Ana de la Madre de Dios when she was notified by the extern who was seeking help at the convent door. The ill one was quickly inspired to say "Mother, I feel so ill that I cannot take my purge without going to confession first. . . ." A friar was not permitted to enter the enclosure except to administer absolution to a nun who was too ill to go to the confessional.
St. John of the Cross was taken in and successfully hidden from search parties, escorted by constables, that soon materialized. They searched parlour, chapel and sacristy to no avail. Finally, at about ten o'clock, when all the Masses were over and the church doors were bolted, they were able to shut him in there dressed in a priest's gown. All the nuns wanted to see and talk with him. That evening the nuns took their spinning and needlework to Vespers choir while Friar Juan talked to them. While he did not talk to them specifically of his sufferings and the dangers, but rather of God and the Mitigated friars whom he spoke of as benefactors, much of what is known resulted from this evening conference with the sisters.
He recited in a gentle voice the poems he had composed while incarcerated and some of the sisters wrote them down. He talked at length of his imprisonment, his escape, about Our Blessed Lady who had set him free, and of the delicious fruits of divine love he had acquired in the solitude of his cell. He professed to them that never in his life had he felt such contentment or enjoyed such an abundance of supernatural light and consolations as during his incarceration. When darkness fell a canon came at the Mother prioress' request and transported him out of danger to a hospital in Santa Cruz.
Not all have considered St. John of the Cross' escape as miraculous. Brother Martin of the Assumption and another faithful companion, Juan Evangelista, both stated they had learned from him personally that he was Devotisimo de Nuestra Señora; that St. John of the Cross always spoke of her with the greatest tenderness; that they always observed him reciting her office on his knees; and that, above all, whenever tired or distraught, he refreshed himself with thoughts of Mary, or chanted a hymn to her.14
Father Alonso de la Madre de Dios, in his deposition at the Apostolic process of Segovia, stated that Fray Juan de la Cruz was frequently visited in his dungeon by Our Lord and the Most Blessed Virgin.15 Perhaps we can never know with certainty; yet, we can be sure that Our Blessed Lady of Mount Carmel knows.
The End
1. Tradition holds this to have been Brother Brocard. This occurred some time between 1206-14 and is thought to be about 1209. See Historical Notes on the Carmelite Order, by Fr. Gabriel Barry, OCD, no date, printed at Darlington Carmel, p. 39.
2. Meaning unshod or shoeless.
3. Fr. Bruno of Jesus and Mary, ODC, St. John of the Cross (Saint Jean de la Croix, Paris, 1929), Sheed & Ward, New York, 1936, p. 3 and n. 1 and 10, pp. 386-87; cited hereinafter as Bruno.
4. Bruno, p. 4 and n. 13, pp. 387-88.
5. Kavanaugh, Kieran, OCD and Rodriguez, Otilio, OCD, The Collected Works Of St. John Of The Cross, 2nd Edition, 1979, Institute of Carmelite Studies, Washington, D.C., pp. 756-57; hereinafter cited as ICS. The American English Language reader of the saint's works, including his poetry, is advised to consult this translation (a 3rd Edition may publish during the year 1991).
6. ICS, p. 32; we will take up more of the story of the saint's imprisonment.
7. The interested reader who wants to pursue more is invited to obtain both of the better English language translations of biographies of St. John of the Cross: Bruno (already cited in n. 3. above) and Fr. Crisógono de Jesús Sacramentado, CD, The Life of St. John of the Cross (Vida y obras de San Juan de la Cruz, Avila, 1929), tr. K. Pond, New York, 1958. Both Fr. Bruno and Fr. Crisógono refer frequently to three earlier biographies which were published as a result of the saint's Beatification process. (Clement X Beatified John of the Cross on January 25th, 1675. The process of Beatification was begun in 1614, and results of the process were never published. Benedict XIII canonized him on December 26th, 1726. Pius XI declared him Doctor of the Universal Church on August 24th, 1926.) These three, which probably have never been translated into English language, are:
Fr. Joseph of Jesus Mary (Quiroga), Historia de la Vida y Virtudes del V.P.F. Juan de la Cruz, Brussels, 1628.
Fr. Jeronimo of St. Joseph, Historia del V.P.F. Juan de la Cruz, Madrid, 1641.
Fr. Gerado of St. John of the Cross, Ed., Obras del mistico Doctor San Juan de la Cruz, 3 vols., Toledo, 1912-14.
For the observant questioning reader, biographer Cardinal Quiroga is the Quiroga of Spanish Inquisition fame.
8. Primary sources utilized for the detailing of this story here were Bruno, pp. 161-85 and Auclair, Marcelle, Saint Teresa of Avila, (La Vie de Sainte Thérèse d'Avila, Paris, 1950.) pp. 337-43.
9. Even today, some 400 years after his death, St. John of the Cross is recognized as the national poet laureate of Spain.
10. Stanzas 1, 7 and 11 of The Spiritual Canticle, ICS, pp. 712-13.
11. ICS, pp. 731-32.
12. Brother Martin of the Assumption personally heard this from St. John of the Cross on an occasion when the saint wished to excite his devotion to Our Blessed Lady. See Bruno, p. 179.
13. Deposition of Juan de Santa-Maria. See Bruno, pp. 183-84 and n. 150 on p. 429.
14. Bruno, p. 179 and n. 129 on p. 427.
15. Ibid.
Thomas Moore, OCDS