The writings of St. John of the Cross

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel with Saint Theresa and Saint John of the Cross by Juarez (Wikimedia Commons).

Now that we have finished our series on Interior Castle, I’d like to begin looking at the teaching of St. John of the Cross. This will be an occasional series, planned to be posted over the next year. Sometimes I will post on other subjects that inspire me.

Let’s begin with an introduction to St. John’s works and a few good books written about them.

John is most famous for his poems The Dark Night (of the Soul) and The Ascent of Mt. Carmel. But he wrote two other major works also, The Spiritual Canticle and The Living Flame of Love. He wrote many one-sentence maxims that are grouped differently depending on which editor or translator you read. I will be using the standard English version of his works, The Collected Works if St. John of the Cross translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez. Kavanaugh and Rodriguez group all John’s maxims as The Sayings of Light and Love. There are also short works of counsels and letters. And let’s not forget his shorter poems.

A difficult spirituality?

We know that Teresa of Avila’s work are sometimes misconstrued to promote unorthodox spiritualities such as Centering Prayer. This is true of John of the Cross’s works as well. John’s writing is more obscure than Teresa’s. Some find it frightening.

Fr. Jordan Aumann, O.P. Writes:

One cannot discuss Teresa of Avila without thinking of her great collaborator, St. John of the Cross. They are so closely related in their life and work and doctrine that they are like two pillars on which is constructed the Carmelite school of spirituality. St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) is not as widely known and read as he deserves, and there are several reasons for this: he wrote primarily for souls that are already advanced on the path of perfection; his teaching on detachment and purgation is too demanding for some Christians; his language is often too subtle and mystical to suit the taste of modern readers. Yet, his writings and those of St. Teresa compliment each other so perfectly that one of the best ways to understand either one is to study the works of the other.” (