Sacred Calendar

Fourth Lesson - The Primitive Rule and War against Self

John of the Cross was born of godly parents at Fontibere, near Avila, in Spain, in the year of our Lord 1542. It began soon to appear that he was foreordained to be an acceptable servant unto the Virgin Mother of God. At five years of age he fell into a well, but the hand of the Mother of God took him up, and saved him from all hurt. So burning was his desire to suffer that when he was nine years old he gave up any softer bed, and used to lie on potsherds. In his youth he devoted himself as a servant in the hospital for the sick poor at Medina del Campo, and embraced with eager charity the meanest offices there, his readiness likewise exciting others to imitate him. In 1563 he obeyed the call to higher things, and entered the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, wherein, by command of his Superiors, he received Priest's Orders. By their leave and his own strong desire for the sternest discipline and the strictest life, he adopted the primitive Rule. Full of the memory of what our Lord suffered, he declared war against himself as his own worst enemy, and carried it on by depriving himself of sleep and food, by iron chains, by whips, and by every kind of self-torture. And in a little while he had crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts thereof. He was indeed worthy that holy Theresa should say of him that he was one of the purest and holiest souls by whom God was then enlightening His Church.

Fifth Lesson - Reform through Toil and Sacramental Zeal

The strange hardness of his life, and the might of his graces, joined to the unceasing concentration of his mind on God, had the effect of oftentimes subjecting him to daily and extraordinary trances. So burning was his love of God that the fire sometimes could not be kept bound within, and brake forth, so that his face shone. The salvation of his neighbours was one of his dearest longings, and he was unwearied in preaching the Word of God, and in administering the Sacraments. As strong in so many good works, and glowing with zeal to make discipline harder, he was given by God to be an helpmeet to holy Theresa, and he aided her to set up again the primitive observance among the brethren of the Order of Mount Carmel, as she had already done among the sisters. In doing God's work, he and God's handmaid together went through toils that cannot be numbered. No discomforts or dangers held him back from going throughout all Spain to visit all and each of the convents which the care of that holy Virgin had founded, and in them, and in very many others erected by her means for spreading the renewed observance, he strengthened it by his word and ensample. He is indeed worthy to be reckoned second only to the holy Theresa as a professor and founder of the Order of bare-footed Carmelites.

Sixth Lesson - To Suffer and Be Disesteemed for Christ

He remained throughout all his life a clean maid, and when some shameless women tried to beguile his modesty, he not only foiled them, but gained them for Christ. In the judgment of the Apostolic See he was as much taught of God as was holy Theresa, for explaining God's hidden mysteries, and he wrote books of mystical theology filled with heavenly wisdom. Christ once asked him what reward he would have for so much work; whereto he answered: "Lord, that I may suffer, and be disesteemed for Thy sake." He was very famous for his power over devils, whom he oftentimes scared out of men's bodies, for discerning of spirits, for the gift of prophecy, and for eminent miracles. He was extraordinarily lowly, and oftentimes entreated of the Lord that he might die in some place where he was unknown. In accordance with his prayer, he was sent to Ubeda, where for three months the Prior imprisoned and cruelly ill-used him during his last sickness. To crown his love of suffering, he bore uncomplainingly five open sores in his leg, running with water. At last, upon the 14th day of December, in the year 1591, being the day, and at the hour foretold by himself, after having in godly and holy wise received the Sacraments of the Church, hugging the image of that crucified Saviour of Whom his heart and his mouth had been used to be full, he uttered the words: "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit," and fell asleep in the Lord. As his soul passed away it was received into a glorious cloud of fire. His body yielded a right sweet savour, and is still uncorrupt where it lieth, held in great honour, at Segovia. He was famous for very many miracles both before and since his death, and Pope Benedict XIII numbered his name among those of the Saints.