Feast Day of St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)
December 14

Spanish mystic, spiritual director, rector, reformer, prior, and poet; patron of diocesan priests. We read with gratefulness these words of St. John's, "In the evening of life, we will be judged on love."

The spiritual classics of St. John of the Cross include Dark Night of the Soul, Living Flame of Love, Spiritual Canticle, and Ascent of Mt. Carmel. Thomas Merton, in Saints for Now, translates a bit of the Spiritual Canticle:

My Beloved is like the mountains,
Like the lonely valleyes full of woods
The strange islands
The rivers with their sound
The whisper of the lovely air!

The night, appeased and hushed
About the rising of the dawn,
The music stilled
The sounding solitude
The supper that rebuilds my life
And brings me love.

St. John of the Cross endured suffering and imprisonment for advocating church reform. To read more about his life and explore his writings, see the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Also, Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M. has written a book of great interest to those wanting to delve deeply into the spirituality of two Carmelite Doctors of the Church: Fire Within: St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and the Gospel -- on Prayer.

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