Saint John Of The Cross (Season 4 Episode 7)

We start half-awake on coffee and end up talking about why the “same weeds” keep coming back in our spiritual life. We use Saint John of the Cross to make sense of confession, suffering, purification, and what union with God actually asks of us.

• a garden as an image for recurring sin and lingering roots 
• temptation as the same weakness rather than the same act 
• confession of devotion as real healing grace 
• prudence and temperance against scrupulosity and spiritual gluttony 
• why we’re drawn to Saint John of the Cross and how he hits you with truth 
• Spain’s Catholic reform climate and Teresa’s role in reforming Carmel 
• John’s poverty, family love, and the roots of resilience 
• the Discalced reform and the conflict that leads to his kidnapping 
• Toledo imprisonment, flogging, and the birth of his greatest poetry 
• Dark Night of the Soul as purification of desires and identity beyond consumerism 
• how to read John without drowning, starting with biography and poetry 

Transcript

Welcome And Subscribe

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the My Friend the Friar podcast, and thanks for listening. If you like My Friend the Friar and want to support us, please consider subscribing or following us if you haven't already done so. And if you found us on YouTube, then don't forget to click the notification bell when you subscribe so you'll be notified of new episodes when they release. Thanks again, and God bless. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me and my friend the Friar, Father Stephen Sanchez, a discalst Carmelite priest. Good morning, Father. Good morning, John. How are you? Oh, I'm sleepy. I did not sleep well. I only got like five hours of sleep last night. And that time of year.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Everything's changing.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Spring, daylight savings time. Circadian rhythms are off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

We have a special guest. Bertha is joining us again. Oh. Bertha. Thank you. What's funny is she was sleeping in the living room. All the pets are asleep. Everyone's sleeping. And as soon as I close the door, don't step on the keyboard and oh my gosh. It's the last thing I need is for her to step on the keyboard and cancel the recording or whatever. Um, yes, as soon as I close the door, it's like her radar went off that there was a door closed between myself and her, and she had to come to me. And so here she is. Thank you, kitty. Okay. Um goodness. Yeah, so hopefully, on little sleep and lots of coffee, we can have an interesting conversation this morning. Four cups. And before are you on your fourth?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

I finished my fourth.

Weeds As A Confession Metaphor

SPEAKER_00 1:55

I've been up since 3 30. So I'm like, uh Oh gosh. Yeah, I slept till six, but it's because I couldn't fall asleep till after midnight. So I was just like wired for some reason. I don't know. But I'm only on my second. Well, we'll see how it goes. Um, yeah. This might be a little bit of a loopy episode. Yeah. Um Manic. Okay. Yeah. We uh so the other day we were talking about um how our Christian anthropology influenced or um um I don't know if influence is the right word, but how it uh has an effect on worship. Yeah, right. Liturgy, yes. We speak. Um yeah, when we were talking about um sacrifice a lot, and you know, when we were done recording, I went out and I was working in our our garden kind of thing. And I was weeding, and I it it came to mind I don't know, years ago, one of our episodes, probably in season one. Um I feel like I had this metaphor about gardening and God that I talked to you about. And I don't know, it's like it's kind of fuzzy because uh it was it was a while ago. Um but anyway, what's funny is is it came back to me and I'm I'm weeding and preparing this this garden bed. The only thing I could think of um was kind of how I guess wretched of a sinner I am. Like how badly I need um a savior. And like, because these the the the grass I'm trying to pull out, I should have showed you pictures, right? There's like roots everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

You don't have a yard, you have you have uh Bermuda grassroots or Johnson grassroots, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Whatever they are, yeah. So I'm thinking like, oh my gosh, everyone, like you can't get the whole thing. You you can get like the main part, and then it leaves all these little bits, like little root bits back, you know, in the soil and stuff like that, and you just hope they don't come back because if any little bit happens to have enough energy in it, it'll just start a whole new thing, right? Yeah, and so I'm I'm pulling these things out and I'm struggling and I'm you know half killing myself, you know, from exhaustion or exertion out there, and I'm just thinking, like, how much that's like going to confession and pulling out the weeds, how often, yeah, well, like, and it's like, oh my gosh, I have I have been here before for this sin. Why is it still here? And it's not that I'm not forgiven, and it's not that I'm not healed, it's that for some reason, I guess, you know, be it God's providence or my uh the participation on my part, right? The faith on my part that some little bit gets left behind. And it's like, how do you how do you get all the way, how do you get all that out, you know, and and because I'm putting a lot of effort in getting these dang weeds out of the ground or the grassroots out of the ground, and all I can think of is is God does a way better job than I do, and yet the little root bits remain. You know what I'm saying? Anyway, just something that popped in my head.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Well, part of it too is um it's not so much repeating the same sin, it's it's being um it's stumbling over the same type of sin, the same temptation, right? So whatever it is that we're striving for, we're always looking for a good, and so sometimes the sin is our way of trying to uh reach the good or striving for a good, but in a misplaced way, and so that's when we choose badly, which winds up being sin. So it's never so much the same sin as much as it is the same weakness or the same area of weakness or the same area where the enemy continues to tempt me or to um uh talk me into uh seeking a shortcut to the good through this particular way.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

So yeah.

Confession Of Devotion And Balance

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Yeah, yeah, it's like um yeah there's there's nothing I can do now about the things I did in my growing up which like deeply embedded these kind of mannerisms or behaviors or mentalities, right? And so it's these things are so ingrained where I guess thankfully, at least now in my life, I can recognize them, you know, and go, yeah, that's that's not helpful at all, kind of thing, you know. And and I think the I would gladly go to and here's maybe a confession question for you. I would gladly go to confession every day for the same thing, then not be able to see that I'm sinful in this way. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, which I guess to my uh confession question that popped in my head. Is it wrong to just want to go and say like, Jesus, I love you? Like I I just I need you. And um it's not that like let's say like pride is because uh you don't want to abuse the sacrament, right? No, you don't like let's say you know you're prideful and um you know you went yesterday and it's not you might take off the priest you're going to every day. Yeah. But you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 7:53

It's like it's not that I it's just that there is such a thing, there is such a thing as for closeness confession of devotion, that is, because the sacrament of reconciliation is a healing sacrament. There is such a thing as sacram uh uh uh reconciliation of devotion, that is, because you want to go because you want to receive this healing grace. Um But again, it's uh the the other the other question to bring it into balance is uh prudence, temperance, right? You don't want to be scrupulous about it, but you also don't want to be um you don't want to you don't want to suffer from spiritual gluttony, like yeah, I want more and more and more and more. So you don't want to do that either. So uh yeah. Interesting question.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Yeah, because uh like you can't um you can receive the Eucharist daily, right? So if you want that communion daily, why wouldn't you just want all of Jesus all the time? You know what I'm saying? I guess if you feel that way, you should probably just go become a Carmelite friar. There you go. Or stop sinning, one and two.

SPEAKER_03 9:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Well, speaking of of Carmelite friars, um, the whole point of our conversation today is I had stumbled across something about um Saint John of the Cross the once upon a time. Like I know the guy is, and you know how we're the guy we should write. The guy did you just say the guy? Yeah. Who the guy is? That dude. Um but anyway, so I I literally wrote it down and I finally did it and said, let's put something down. But I don't remember exactly what the trigger was. So I know that I wanted to talk about him, and I did a little like a little bit of research kind of thing, just kind of see if I could put together a framework. But this guy is kind of a big deal to you. So I was wondering if maybe you yeah, could you give us some kind of like primer on because I think it might come up when we're doing when we were doing the introduction to Carmodic Spirituality, that probably that probably was where that mean it, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I've I've heard you say and I've heard other people say that he can be very um challenging, yes, is the way to say it. Very much because he's very um he's very intellectual, he's he's contemplative, but he wrote poetry apparently too and and stuff like that, right? So anyway, I just figured if somebody can can kind of ease me into St. John of the Cross, it'd be you. So anyway, who is this guy? Um you know, he when when did he live? Um, you know, all that. Like let's just start at the beginning, kind of thing. In the beginning. Wait, wait, hold on. Yeah, what why why do you like him so much? Why do I like him so much? Yeah, because don't you have a relic, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yes. Because when you read John of the Cross, um, it's like hitting you with a two by four of truth, and it's shocking, it's very frank, um scary, but also very attractive because you know he's speaking the truth. So yeah, there's a lot. There's there's a lot about John. A lot.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Did you know about him before? So when you just when you were were discerning, uh discerning to even become a priest, right? You were you didn't were at the time did you go not just I want to be a priest, I want to be a Carmelite priest? Or were you just thinking priest first and then I was thinking religious first?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Right. Priest was sort of a secondary thing, was also there. I didn't really know that you could be a religious priest, uh but anyway, as I was doing making my discernment, I finally I did run across towards uh almost towards the at the bottom of the list of orders that I was considering. Maybe it was Carmel, because I I just sort of providentially uh ran across uh some literature uh on Carmelite spirituality, the scapular Trisa and John. And so that's how I became interested and then became very um very interested and did this more reading uh on both Trisa and John and Carmelite spirituality. It all goes back to uh in a very weird way, El Greco, because I was very fascinated and still I am fascinated by El Greco and El Greco's paintings. And so that's how I I ran across uh Carmelite spirituality. It's a long story, I don't have time for that right now. So anyway, uh yeah, you need at least six cup of cups ago for that. Yeah, yeah. Maybe in the afternoon when I'm really awake.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Um, but anyway, yeah, and so okay, so so you kind of stumbled across him on your in your interest for Carmel, and that's kind of where you fell in love, so to speak.

Spain’s Reform Era And Teresa

SPEAKER_01 13:05

So both Teresa and John, when we talked about introduction to Carmelic spirituality, we talked about the beginnings of the order, the 1200s in the East, uh on Mount Carmel, Crusaders, we did all that. So if you're interested, you can find that episode and download that. Um But as the church was going through Reformation coming out of the what we used to call the Dark Ages, uh coming out of the Dark Ages, and society was trying to climb out of the pits after different plagues, black plagues and hundreds of years of war and famine and pestilence and everything that came from the wars, all that stuff. As as it was climbing out of that, there began this um reform. Um and so Teresa and John, they're from what they call the the Golden Age of Spain, which is mid-1500s to mid-1600s.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

And so there was And this is right after all the sorry, this is right after all the we have I don't know, 137 competing popes at the same time, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

After the the great the the the one of the schisms and yeah, all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Um right, yeah. So this is all right after that. I think that there's kind of this mentality of okay, let's step back and get it. Yeah, let's start.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Let's catch a breath and start again. Uh yeah. So in in at this point in Spain, at this time in history, there there were there was already a movement of reformation that had taken root um due to the insistence of Ferdinand and Isabel of Spain, uh, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile. And under their influence, uh and under the influence and brilliance of Cardinal uh Cisneros, who happened to be uh uh Franciscan, um they began this reformation. The the idea of reformation was something that was going around the church several places, different times in history, but it never really took root because the papacy wasn't that centralized yet. Uh there wasn't that and communication, again, a difficulty in communication, uh that was part of the problem as well. So Ferdinand and Isabella decided that they were going to reform the church in Spain with the permission of the Pope, and they began this reformation with Cardinal Cisneros, who put together a polyglot Bible, uh one of the great things that he did. Um, but also began the reform of the church with the bishops, started with the bishops reforming the bishops, and their idea was by reforming the clergy, the presbyterate, then the reformation will trickle down towards the people. We need to reform the clergy first. So that's where all that started, right? And so it was established by these Catholic monarchs, right? And so there you have the reform. You also had the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition that was started by the Catholic monarchs, and it was mostly a concern that uh a lot of the conversos, the conver the converts were converts in name only. Because if you remember. Um Ferdinand and Isabel, they they they they wanted to unify the kingdom under the faith, and so they conquered the Muslims and they had the Jews also expelled, and so if you wanted to stay in Spain, you had to be Catholic, and so people were converting to Catholicism in name only, just so they didn't have to move, but they they weren't really, they weren't really practicing. Yeah. So that was part of that understanding of sort of that that was the spur of that Inquisition. So anyway, all of this is happening. Uh, there's this whole sp the spirit is moving, uh, and there's this reformation spirit going on. And then we have Teresa begin the reformation of the nuns, and then also with John, she begins the reformation of the friars. And that's a little complicated story. So one of these days we'll we'll just do a dive into just the reformation itself of the the order, the discalced reformation. Also, when Teresa Jesus, uh she had already begun the reform of the nuns um with the establishment of San José de Avila with her nuns in a small monastery. Uh so when Teresa meets John, she meets John in Medina del Campo. He was already a Carmelite friar. Uh he had gone to Medina del Campo to sing his first mass in 1567. And so this is when they meet. And so also at this time, uh the Council of Trent, the Reformation Council of Trent had was already reverberating through Europe. The Council of Trent was from 1545 to 1563. So this air, this air of reformation and and this uh ardor to to recommit and to relive um this Catholic faith, right? So this is where then Teresa and John meet, and then um John tells Teresa that he's not happy with uh the religious life as a Carmelite. Uh this is before the Reformation, before the Discounts Reform. And he's not happy in that he's going to join the Carthusians. He's thinking of joining the Carthusians. And Teresa asks him to wait because she has in mind not just the reformation of the nuns, but also the reformation of the friars. And John says he'll wait as long as she doesn't take too long. So he was like, he wanted he wanted to get going. So impatient much? Yeah. He learns patience, he learns. Um, but he was really about he really wanted to live a life uh offer his life to the Lord in that complete gift, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Um, I think it's really cool here though, is that um there's time and time again throughout church history where it is a woman who has such a powerful effect on the church and the faithful, you know.

John’s Poverty And Family Resilience

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Yeah. She was she was a powerhouse to say the least. Uh yeah. Yeah. And so anyway, we were talking about talking about suffering and John's understanding of suffering. Um this is an interesting question. Uh something that I always wrestle with. So the understanding of John's suffering for me raises the question of resilience in an individual's understanding of the world that surrounds them, right? And for me, I'm always puzzled by families, right, and siblings, right? And how some are more resilient than others, they're raised in the same family, some are really traumatized, others escape with scars, but escape and much more resilient and are not as weighed down by things, right? So this is the whole question that always pops up in my head. So John is born into a situation of poverty. Uh again, as I said, the society is climbing out of poverty, out of wars. And so John was born into a situation of poverty. And so in Spain, you have the very rich and the very poor, and you have class entitlement, right? And so this class entitlement, the aristocracy, and this poverty, there's this spirituality there, right? There's also this Catholic Christian spirituality that kind of hovers over the situation, right? And it's as it is today, in a continuum. Some people really got Catholicism and spirituality, and others didn't. Some were uh as there are today, some were culturally Catholic Christian, and some understood the radical nature of the gospel. So during this time of Spain, uh during this golden age of Spain, there were many, many, many saints that came out of Spain, uh, as well as many criminals that oppressed and exploited the poor and the helpless. So again, this is a very complicated question. Uh, it's hard to paint in broad uh brush strokes without calling to mind, like, yeah, well, not everybody was a thousand percent uh into the gospel. So uh, and this is the situation that John finds himself in. And going back to this whole idea of resiliency, I would posit that John's understanding of suffering and faith came largely by what was modeled. For him, by his family life, largely his mother and older brother Francisco. For John, the foundation of life and his world perspective was based on the love he himself experienced and witnessed in his family. His dad died when he was very young. His dad came from a very wealthy family, but his dad fell in love with a poor weaver, silk weaver, and we also now believe that she was not uh of full blood, uh in other words, she she was part Muslim. Uh she had some some Arabic blood in her. And so in those days, the leading uh the leading science was that you had this in your blood. So if you were of Christian blood, you had Christianity, but if you were of mixed blood, then either your Jewish blood or your Arabic blood or your whatever blood would rise up, right? And you it'd be sort of like a natural inclination you would have. So anyway, because she was not full-blooded, and because she was of a lower class, um his father disowned him.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

So there's yeah, I was gonna say so his dad get lost everything that he was his father, his father was his father was disowned.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Uh uh they had nothing to do with him, they would they wouldn't help nothing, nothing, nothing. And so John's dad had to learn how to beg, how to weave. His his uh his wife, Catalina, taught him how to weave silk. But what happens is after they get married and they have this, you know, they're in love, and it's this it is a marriage of love, and you know, nothing, you know, there's no class distinction or anything because he's so in love with Catalina, they're so in love with each other. Anyway, what happens is he falls ill and he dies after a couple of years, and it sort of devastates the family, trying to keep him healthy, trying to keep him alive, and so then all of a sudden they find themselves begging out in the streets. Yeah. And so Catalina has to walk with um walking because there's no buses, there's no, there's no uh there's no uh mass transit, right? There's no there's no public transit. So they have to walk uh to different places begging for money. They get turned away by uh John, John, uh John of the Cross's dad's family. I forgot uh John of the Cross's name. I want to say Diego, but I'm not sure if it is. Uh anyway, his family turns them away, rejects them, and so they're begging, they're they're just begging, right? And so eventually they wind up going to Medina del Campo, which was a very uh bustling commercial place. And so uh Catalina finds a job there. Francisco, the eldest brother, is there. The brother born between Francisco and John dies from malnutrition. Um, so this is all part of this. This is what John sees. But John sees mostly the love that his mom has for him and for his brother, the love that his mom and his dad had for each other, that love made everything fine. Uh yeah, they were poor, they were destitute, but love made everything fine. And so this is where I think John's understanding of suffering comes in. They he sees everything then through this uh love, right? This is the experience that he had. So I think this is where a lot of that understanding of commitment is, you know, are you we we would say today, uh, all in, right? He just all in uh to this relationship and this commitment.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

So does he does he tie that suffering um and that poverty and then the love he experienced from his parents and and and witnessed in his parents somehow to Jesus?

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Or well yeah, because again, it was a very again, it was a very Catholic culture, right? It was a very Catholic family. Um John of the Cross used to introduce his older brother Francisco as the greatest treasure God had ever given him. Francisco was a very good, pious man. He was married to a very holy woman. And uh Francisco and his wife would spend their days looking and going around, finding abandoned children because of the poverty. People would just abandon their children and they would claim all these abandoned children and find families for them. And so, I mean, they're like godparents for like hundreds and hundreds of children in the registers because they're finding all these families, right? So they're very committed, uh, the social aspect of Catholicism. And so this is what John is living. And so John sees this, and John this is being modeled by his brother and by his mom, this concern, this love, this this that even in poverty and suffering, that that it's all about living out our our our faith, living out our commitment to to the gospel and the gospel way of life.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Is is that what makes him want to join the religious life? I know a lot of people, it was like your your choices were you go be a soldier, or you can go be a priest, or you can go be a farmer. You know what I mean? Pretty much, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Back in that in those days, there's very little in terms of I mean, if you weren't in the middle class, then uh it was hard for you to do anything if you weren't in the middle class uh or the mercantile class. So John, because he's poor, he winds up getting a free education, but as this free education, Coleco della Doctorina, getting this free education, he has to go beg for this institute that is an institute of learning for the poor. Uh, he learns this, he he's uh altar boy at I think it's the a monastery of poor Claire's or Augustinian nuns, I forget now. He also assists at the Mass for the Jesuit house because this is where uh he's learning his his education. The Jesuits are running the school. Uh time he goes and helps also at a hospital for uh people that are suffering from syphilis, late stages of syphilis. So he goes and tends them to care for the sick and the dying and to beg for that sort of hospital clinic thing. So there is all this, he's surrounded by all these different needs and different religious institutes. But it's really interesting that we never really know why he picked Carmel. We have absolutely no idea. All we know is that when he was 20, 21, he just went to the monastery uh at St. Anne's uh monastery of uh the Carmel and asked to enter. And so he enters. So like it was sort of like that's interesting. We don't have any idea as to why, but this is where he went.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

So a word on the street is he gets himself in a little bit of trouble with his his brothers after he joins. So, like, how long like kind of frame that up for us and then tell us what happened.

Discalced Reform And Rising Tensions

Kidnapped And Imprisoned In Toledo

SPEAKER_01 29:36

So Teresa began the reform of the friars in 1568, and John was part of that. He was the first. Um and Antonio de Hereda and one other brother were the first uh friars of the reform. Um, and so they begin to live in Duruelo uh in 1568, in November of 1568. So uh a year after he meets Teresa, right? And then they begin the reform, they're living the reform, uh they're they're living outside in the out in the in the country, in the very poor, poor place, an old barn that somebody had given them, uh, and so it was very austere, very poor. So they begin to live the reform, and all of a sudden, because there's this again, this air of reform in the church, in the culture, everywhere, the this whole idea of Trent and everything, everybody's excited about the religious reform, and so people start joining the reform. And as people start joining the reform, it becomes much more popular, and as it becomes much more popular, uh the friars of the ancient observance, so the the friars that John leaves, the uh uh the ancient observance is the title, and John joins the Discalst. So then the friars of the ancient observance were offended that John felt that there needed to be refor reformation, and so of course there's all this sibling rivalry and and and tension and and you know fighting as only brothers can fight. And so what happens then is one night uh while John is um confessor to the nuns of the incarnation in I think it's in 77, 1577, um the friars of the ancient observance, uh, what they do is they go and they kidnap him. They break into his they break him into his little hut where he's living, and they kidnap him, they blindfold him, they throw him in a carriage, and he's off into the night. He has absolutely no idea where he is, and so what happens is that these uh friars take him to Toledo, uh, and he's thrown into a pris prison cell in a little 10 by six foot prison cell. And he was a prisoner for nine months. Uh nobody knew where he was. Teresa was frantic, she couldn't find him. She was writing letters to the king, she was writing letters to bishop, she was writing letters to Pope. She was she was just absolutely frantic about what happened to John. And of course, the the friars of the ancient observance weren't saying anything. Like, yeah, we took him. Like, no, they didn't say anything like that. So they had him in Toledo, yeah, where he suffered for nine months. Uh, he would be taken out and he would be flogged in the refractory. Uh he was not allowed to celebrate Mass, he was not allowed to pray his bravery, which back then was considered a mortal sin. So he he suffered a great deal. And they're trying to convince him to give up the reform. Uh so they're trying to convince him to give up the reform. They would speak outside of the cell, talking about how everybody had given up the reform, and friars were leaving the reform, and the nuns were leaving the reform to make him sort of despair and sort of himself also gave up the reform. So this was part of his suffering. There's this suffering in this dark cell in this prison, abandoned, not being able to celebrate the Mass, not being able to pray the liturgy, uh, being out and being flogged by the community every day. Uh, this was, yeah, this was this was a very, very, very dark time for him. But he didn't fall into despair. Uh so this is interesting in that it is during his uh imprisonment in Toledo that he begins to compose some poems, which he later writes down. He began to write some of them down. One of the prison guards, one of the friars, one of the guards, uh, felt very sorry for him and actually gave him paper and something to write with, and I think maybe even a candle so he wouldn't be sitting in the dark forever. And so he began to write some of these poems. Uh so uh the most popular uh poems in Catholicism are The Dark Night of the Soul, The Spiritual Canticle, and the Living Flame of Love. But they're popular because he wrote commentaries on them. He wrote prose commentaries on these poems. But his poem, How Will I Know the Font, which is a reflection on the Eucharist, and the poem The Little Shepherd, which is Reflection on the Good Shepherd, are just as deep and important, right? So there's this spirituality of He is committed to his relationship to the Lord. He's committed to this reformation of religious life, and it doesn't matter what he suffers because he feels that this is what God is asking of him, and he's committed to this service, uh, the service to the order and the service to the Lord. And so this is part of this whole understanding of suffering, is that it is a purification from our inclinations, a purification from our appetites, our preferences. And so since he was stripped of everything, he began to be more objective about these things that he saw and was able to be reflective about it. But again, it has to do with the fact that his domestic church uh was taught him to trust in God and to love God. And so he was able to see it through that lens instead of despairing, because other people would have become bitter and despaired and and would have glad gladly given up everything to be able to uh take a shower and celebrate mass and whatever. So uh yeah, that's yeah, that's kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Yeah, that's it. I can see that it's like, well, it's it's like well, life sucks anyway, so that being kidnapped by my brothers and thrown in jail is just kind of par for the course, you know. So it's like let me reflect on this instead of complaining, you know? That's funny. Um that's so funny. So what which is uh of his writings? What's the do you have a favorite or one that really speaks to you most, or is a little bit here, a little bit there?

Poetry Born From The Prison Cell

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Yeah, I would say um it's like the it's it's like the Second Vatican Council documents, it's all context, it's all they're all written. So the Dark Knight commentary is the Dark Knight and the Spiritual Canticle and the Living Flame of Love. They're all poems that are actually connected to each other. Uh so they're all interconnected in terms of the journey of the soul towards God. So yeah, I would have to say probably the most beautiful is Living Flame of Love, which is sort of reaching the summit of union, right? The most difficult but and challenging is the dark night, which is about the purgation or the aesthetical part of the journey, right? And then uh those two are the the poles of the continuum, right? Of the difficulty of purification, but also the living flame of love where the Holy Spirit is illuminating and dwelling in the soul. Uh that is a beautiful uh point. That's the goal that we're striving for. So it's between the goal that we're striving for, the living flame of love, union with the Lord, and then the journey, the dark night of the soul is like, yeah, but I need to I need to clear clear my heart of all those things that that stand in the way of me being empty enough to receive the fullness of that love. So it's a it's it's interesting. I would say if you want to read John, first read a good biography or a couple of biographies on John, then read um his poetry, and then read his letters, the few letters that there are, so you can get an idea of of who he is and some of his themes, and and then you can start very slowly with reading some of the larger prose commentaries.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

So people say that John is hard to read, and sometimes you have older documents and it's hard to read because you're translating it from one language to another. That makes it hard to read because the translation isn't really well uh well done, or because you can you can translate for like word for word, or you can translate for meaning, right? And so sometimes the translation isn't very helpful, or maybe it's the their writing style is kind of difficult for our modern reader to understand. So or to to follow along with. So is he difficult because it's something like that, or is he difficult because it's the kind of thing you can only read so much, and then you have to sit back and think about what's going on.

The Dark Night And Union With God

SPEAKER_01 39:06

Well, yeah, it's it's very dense. It's it's difficulty because it's dense. There's a lot of um theological suppositions that he's making. Um, again, because it's a Catholic culture. So he's assuming a lot of things. He's assuming that you're living a spiritual life, he's living your he's assuming you're living a sacramental life, he's assuming you're you're studying scripture, reading scripture, praying scripture. There's a lot of things that he's pres presupposing. And so the the he's not writing for beginners either. He was like, if you want to, you know, there's lots of books on the beginning of prayer, but this is for those that have already committed to that life, committed to that discipleship. And so there's a lot of things that he presupposes, but also he's very dense uh in terms of his the theological uh presentation is something that that needs to sort of you need time to sort of sit with and um chew, right, and ponder. For example, the whole idea of the dark night, he says it's one night, it's one long night, but there are different parts of the night, which is the purgation, the the emptying of the heart uh to be able to receive the Lord in his fullness. And so there is the purgation of the senses, there is the purgation of the spirit, and in the purgation of the senses, there is the passive purgation, but there's also an active purgation. In the purgation of the spirit, uh, the soul, there's also an active purgation and a passive purgation. For some people talk about the four nights, but it's actually one night. So yeah, it gets yeah, it gets complicated. So then the dark night um of the soul, right? Is this understanding of so there's the ascent of Mount Carmel, which is the first part, and then there's the dark night of the soul, which is the second part, then there's the spiritual canticle, and then the living flame of love. So they're all the continuum, the very beginning part, the very first part is the ascent of Mount Carmel, which is the purgation of the senses and the beginning, both active and passive, and a little bit of spiritual purgation. Then Dark Knight of the Soul is about the purgation of the spiritual person. This is where he talks about spiritual gluttony, spiritual pride, spiritual envy, and the the seven capital sins, but on the spiritual level. So it can get overwhelming. So you do need somebody to guide you through, and somebody that can talk, help you maneuver your way through through through the the work.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Yeah, it sounds like the kind of thing where um I used to kind of chuckle at people who let's say you're a um some kind of literature um you know major at university, and it's like, oh well, my my area of focus is JR Tolkien, right? And so it's like, wait, you get a degree in a like one guy, you know? So I used to chuckle at that, but now the older um and and the older I've gotten and the more, I guess, exposure I've gotten to certain things, you start to realize, oh wow, because you could spend forever trying to understand everything. And and it seems like John is probably one of those guys you could probably go get a th theology degree with an area of focus of John of the Cross. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Yeah. Uh Saint John Paul II wrote his uh discourse on faith in John of the Cross.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Maybe that'll be something. We should write that down. Go look that up.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

And forget about it. Fift 15 episodes on on John Paul's dissertation on faith in John of the Cross. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Have you read it? No. I struggle with John of the Cross.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

It's too hard. Um that's funny. So from from uh uh because Dark Knight's not you know, like you're saying, he wrote a lot. Um is there any kind of big takeaway from, or I don't know, like big takeaway, but his Dark Knight of the Soul, is there anything today that like just kind of uh how do I say it? Something that maybe is stands out or is relevant or encouraging to us, or maybe something we can focus on nowadays? Yeah.

How To Read John Without Drowning

SPEAKER_01 43:43

I think um encouragement would be maybe for those who already feel that there is something wrong with the culture and the society. So I would say encouragement is a strong word for just. The culture in general. I would say that the idea of purgation, the idea of the dark night, can be a lesson to our culture that is so focused on materialism and consumerism, and that is that is not where our value is, and that's not where identity is. So the dark night addresses a more fundamental question of self-awareness. Remember, we're talking about Imaju Dei. We are made in the image and likeness of God. So this is part of that understanding, the capacity of the soul to have God, but also it is necessary to have self-objectivity and self-correction. So these are the things that our dominant culture is in need of, our present-day Catholics, right? We tend to get caught up in doing and action and the immediate results, right? That's what we want. We want to go out and slay the dragon, and I want to be able to see the dragon and the dragon's blood on my sword. Like, well, it's not so much about that. But that has its place, but that's not everything.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Yeah, and in our culture too, we're very um how do I say it? Maybe like hedonistic, the the pursuit of happiness, right? We're very focused on the pursuit of pleasure on that.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

Yeah. And so he sort of focuses on on being able to be aware of that and incline yourself to not allow yourself to be mastered by pleasure and your pursuit of pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Yeah. So he he wrote some other things though, too. Um just briefly since we've been talking for for a little bit. Um see I looked up he the spiritual canticle. Is that that's different than this collection?

SPEAKER_01 46:00

And then I guess it's part of the spiritual canticle would be Yeah, the spiritual canticle would be after The Dark Knight. So it's the Ascent of Mont Carmel, then the Dark Knight of the Soul, then the Spiritual Canticle, then the Living Flame of Love. Those are the four main works. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

Um d did he write anything outside of those?

SPEAKER_01 46:29

He wrote lots of poetry. There's there's a romance, there's poetry, small poems. Uh he wrote um there's collections of his sayings, uh sayings, uh sayings of light and love, uh, Maxims and Councils, there's uh Some Advice to Religious, uh there's there's some minor works uh poetry that he didn't write any commentary on, and that's why they're not popular, because the big the four big uh popular works are his commentary on those poems, right? So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:06

Why do you think he chose why do you think he chose poetry?

SPEAKER_01 47:14

I think um he was trying again trying trying to name the unnamable, trying to to express the ineffable. Uh he needs he uses imagery, right? So it is the the artistic license of the poet to use um imagery trying trying to name um something beyond themselves. So yeah. So uh he uses all sorts of water, fire, forests, flowers, uh he uses all sorts of uh images in his poetry.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

Uh so I just guess we're some some Johns feel the the inclination towards apocalyptic literature, and some Johns feel the inclination to flowery poetry, huh? There you go. Yeah.

unknown 48:14

Yeah.

A Cultural Wake Up Call

SPEAKER_00 48:15

Um okay, so any final thoughts? I I have a squirrel kind of moment, but any kind of closing final thoughts that you have on John?

SPEAKER_01 48:29

Read his poetry. Find his poetry. You can find uh the poetry of John of the Cross, and just you can probably find it online and just read through that. And if you can read Spanish, read the Spanish poetry. Uh he's still considered, even to today, in today's literature of Spain, he's still considered uh one of the masters of poetry.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

Is is there anything he's like a patron saint of where people might ask his intercession if they're experiencing certain things?

SPEAKER_01 49:01

I don't know. You'd have to ask Betty. Betty's the Betty is the she would something. She's the expert on those things, right? So like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:08

Just figure maybe he's like patron saint of suffering. Dark knights. Yeah, dark knights. Patron saint of Batman. Um okay, squirrel question. Okay. Is that a reciprocating saw on the floor in your bedroom behind you?

SPEAKER_01 49:31

It's a drill, actually.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

Oh, is it a drill? I was like, what the heck do you have a saw in your bedroom for? What do you have a drill for?

SPEAKER_01 49:40

What are you doing? I am making, I am making, I'm drilling some tiny holes in art. Cement walls so I can hang some of my art.

SPEAKER_00 49:53

I guess that that makes sense. I'm just wanting to make sure you're not trying to drill like breathing holes in the wall so you guys can go kidnap one of your Carmelite brothers from San Antonio or something and throw them in jail.

SPEAKER_01 50:06

Prison cells. Yeah. We want to give we want to let him breathe.

SPEAKER_00 50:10

I mean, you know. That's so funny. Sorry, yeah, you're talking, and all of a sudden in the background, I was like, is that a saw on the floor?

SPEAKER_01 50:20

What is this? It's it's a drill, John. It's a drill. Squirrel. Um I think you need more coffee, or you've had too much coffee.

SPEAKER_00 50:30

No, I still haven't even finished my second, so that's probably what I'm gonna do is is get one more and go stand in the backyard and look at the flower bed now and try to motivate myself to get back to work. This is my dark night of the dark night of the dark night of the garden. Yeah, or the garden. Oh gosh. Okay. My goodness. Okay. Well, this is good. Thanks. Um, I feel like I actually know a little bit something about um John. Yeah, maybe and maybe next time I come out there and visit, I'll um as long as you don't throw me in the dungeon, maybe I'll see if you got a book I could borrow.

SPEAKER_01 51:08

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Or if you do throw me in the dungeon, just throw me in with the books. You'll have you'll have breathing holes, don't worry about it. All right. I love you. Thanks for thanks for playing. All right. Everybody, thanks for joining us. God bless. See you next time. Bye. Bye.