Juan de la Cruz
Saint John of the Cross, whose secular name was Juan de Yepes Álvarez and his first identification as a friar was Juan de Santo Matía (Fontiveros, June 24, 1542 - Úbeda, December 14, 1591), was a religious and mystical poet of the Spanish Renaissance. He was a reformer of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and co-founder of the Order of Discalced Carmelites with Saint Teresa of Jesus.
Along with Saint Teresa of Jesus, Saint John of the Cross is considered the pinnacle of Christian experimental mysticism. Poets of diverse extraction such as Rubén Darío, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Paul Valéry and T. S. Eliot considered the poems of John de la Cruz not only as the summit of Spanish mysticism, but of poetry in this language. Since 1952 he has been the patron of poets in the Spanish language. He is one of the 36 Doctors of the Church, and was canonized by Benedict XIII in 1726.
Biography
Family origins
The father was a descendant of Jewish converts.
According to Saint John of the Cross, his parents were poor burato weavers. The buratos were very thin and delicate silk veils or slings. In other words, they were luxury items that wealthy ladies used to wear between the 15th and 16th centuries and, although they are usually thought to be mourning, they were generally white.
The paternal family came from the town of Torrijos, where it owned land and an oil mill, although it also had ramifications in Toledo and Yepes. According to what Francisco de Yepes, the saint's older brother, declared, his father was a nobleman, therefore he must have achieved nobility, and he moved to Fontiveros, where he married Catalina Álvarez. The marriage must have been celebrated around 1527.
Early Years
He was born in 1542 in the Avila municipality of Fontiveros, located in the wide moorland delimited by Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Arévalo and Ávila, with the name of Juan de Yepes Álvarez.
He had two older brothers named Francisco and Luis. His father died around 1543, after an illness that lasted two years, which left the family in a difficult situation.
Catalina tried to leave her eldest son to one of her brothers-in-law, the cleric Diego de Yepes, without success. She then managed to leave it to another brother-in-law, Juan de Yepes, a doctor in the town of Gálvez. After this, she returned to Fontiveros where her son Luis died shortly after, when he was approximately 10 years old and Juan six, perhaps due to a poor diet.
Francisco was not able to learn to read and write normally in school but he learned the trade of burato weaving well. His mother put him under a contract with a silk master in Arévalo, with whom he lived as an apprentice. An incident led Catalina to move with her son Juan de her also to Arévalo to control the carefree character of her son Francisco de her.
When Francisco was 18 years old, his mother married him to a young woman named Ana Izquierdo, a native of Muriel de Zapardiel.
In 1551 the mother moved to live, with her son Francisco and his wife, in Medina del Campo. Back then it was a prosperous city where, for three months of the year, one of the most important trade fairs in Europe was held.
Thanks to his solemnly poor condition, Juan was able to attend the Colegio de los Niños de la Doctrina as an intern, a privilege that forced him to make certain considerations, such as attending the convent, helping at mass and the trades, the accompaniment of burials and the practice of asking for alms. They gave him clothes and food and taught him to read and write. They also tried to get the children to learn a trade, for which they were sent for a few hours to work in workshops of different kinds. For this reason, Juan was apprenticed to a carpenter, carver and printer. He was not very skilled in manual labor and was not accepted in those workshops, but he was accepted in the sacristy of a convent, where his disposition pleased the nuns.
In Medina del Campo there was a hospital where poor people were treated for syphilis (a disease then known as "bubas"). It was directed by Antonio Álvarez de Toledo. Probably due to the recommendation of the nuns, Juan was accepted as a worker in this hospital, in which his residence was also arranged. He worked with the sick and begged on the streets for the center. The director realized that Juan was fond of books and arranged for him to enter a Jesuit college that had been founded in this city in 1551 by Pedro Cuadrado.
Juan entered the Jesuit college at the age of 17, in 1559, and studies in this place lasted four years. There were three teachers, the oldest being 21 years old, and forty students. Latin, history and literature were taught. He insisted on learning from the authors Virgil, Horace, Seneca, Cicero and Tito Livio.
He combined his studies with his work at the hospital. His director, Álvarez de Toledo, offered him the position of hospital chaplain, but he did not accept as he preferred the monastic life.
In 1563 he entered the Convent of Santa Ana in Medina del Campo, of the Carmelite Order. In 1564 he professed the name of Fray Juan de Santo Matía.In his joy at being admitted to the order, he wrote a poem that has been lost.
His education was not enough to be ordained. For this reason, and thanks to his knowledge of Latin, he entered the University of Salamanca in 1564, residing in the Colegio de San Andrés de los Carmelitas. There were only nine students in the school. He remained there until 1567, spending his vacations in Medina del Campo. In Salamanca he studied the triennial courses of philosophy and letters. It is possible that he attended classes by Fray Luis de León, but he never got to know him personally. At that time, philosophy in Salamanca followed a scholastic line, based on Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, with some Plato and St. Augustine of Hippo. In the College of San Andrés there was talk of John Baconthorpe, a fourteenth-century Averroist, who, although he was of doubtful orthodoxy, had been a provincial of the Carmelites.
At this time he read and assimilated the mystical theology of Dionysus the Areopagite, as well as The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius and a treatise on the Song of Songs attributed to Saint Gregory of Nisa.
When he wasn't in class, he was at the table in his room studying books. She spent part of the night in prayer. She fasted assiduously, flogged her back until it bled, and refused to participate in the frivolous conversations of other companions.
During the third year, he was appointed prefect of students at the Colegio de San Andrés for his dialectical skills. He harshly corrected anyone who broke the rule of the order.
In Salamanca he only had one friend, Pedro de Orozco, who had come with him from Medina del Campo.
Relationship with Saint Teresa of Jesus
In September 1567, recently ordained a priest, he went to Medina del Campo to celebrate his first mass in the presence of his mother. By then, the nun Teresa de Jesús had arrived in this city to found her second convent of reformed Carmelite nuns (known as Discalced Carmelites). Teresa de Jesús's reform consisted of abandoning the relaxed Carmelite rule of 1432, approved by the Pope Eugenius IV, and adopt stricter constitutions based on the 1247 rule approved by Pope Innocent IV, generally known as the Rule of Saint Albert.
Teresa wanted to create a male branch and the Carmelite prior of Medina del Campo, Antonio de Jesús, whom she had met before in Ávila, was willing to follow her guidelines. Antonio told her that he would also count on the collaboration of the friar Juan de Santo Matía, of whose pious and ascetic life Pedro de Orozco had spoken to him with enthusiasm. Juan, for his part, was unhappy with the laxity of life of the Carmelites and was considering becoming a Carthusian. Teresa and Juan met and agreed to collaborate, although Juan asked that it not take long to found the reformed male branch.
Later, Juan returned to Salamanca to start theology studies during the academic year 1567-1568. Since he did not finish his theology studies, he was unable to obtain a bachelor's degree.
The teachings of Francisco de Vitoria still occupied a prominent place in the study program of the University of Salamanca. This humanist had given great importance to the study of the Bible and the fathers of the Church. This greatly influenced John, who quoted the Bible even more than Protestants.
In August 1568, he left Salamanca and met Teresa in the Carmelite convent of Medina del Campo. From there they marched together, with some nuns, to Valladolid, where she was going to found a new convent for women. While the masons were preparing the building and Teresa was out of the enclosure, Juan took the opportunity for several weeks to find out about the way of life of the reformed communities. It was in this city where Juan de Santo Matía put on the habit of a barefoot Carmelite and changed his name by Juan de la Cruz.
In a letter from Teresa written in September 1568 and sent to her friend Francisco de Salcedo, she says of Juan:
Speak your mercy to this father, know him, and favor him in this business, that although [the father] is a boy, I understand is great in God's eyes. Right, he must make us sick here, because he is sane and proper for our way, and so I believe he has called him Our Lord for this. Non there is friar that does not say well of him, because it has been his life of great penance, although [ha] little time. But he seems to have the lord of his hand, that although we have had here some occasions in business, and I, that I am the same occasion, that I have angry with him at a time, have never seen him a imperfection. Evening bears, more, as it is, only what Our Lord gives to Him [so that] take it so much to breasts.
Teresa, in her book Foundations, will say about those moments with Juan:
He was such a good man that at least I could have learned more from him than he from me. But I didn't, and I just showed her how the sisters live.
Juan later went to Ávila and left there with a bricklayer bound for a solitary and half-ruined house in Duruelo, on the land of Blascomillán. Teresa had chosen this place a few months before. As soon as the building was habitable, Antonio de Jesús, who became prior, and two other friars arrived. On November 28, 1598, the convent was founded. Juan de Santo Matías was renamed Juan de la Cruz and was subprior and master of novices.
Teresa visited the convent of Duruelo in the spring of 1569. She recounts this visit in her book Foundations. When she arrived, she found Prior Antonio de Jesús sweeping the entrance and told him "What is this, my father?" what has been done to honor?", to which the prior replied smiling "I curse the time I had her".
The convent of Duruelo gained great fame in the region and many people went to visit it. Among the visitors were the mother, brother, and sister-in-law of Juan de la Cruz, who came there to cook, wash, and clean for him and the other friars.
The community of Duruelo grew and on June 11, 1570 they moved to a larger house, located in Mancera de Abajo.
In June 1569 Teresa de Jesús founded the Convent of San José, with Discalced Carmelites, in a building in Pastrana and, in July, the Convent of San Pedro, with Discalced Carmelites, in a hermitage on the outskirts, all the which was donated by the prince of Éboli. Teresa discussed with the Pastrana barefoot the possibility of founding a college at the University of Alcalá de Henares due to the need to have people of letters and for the comfort of having important people.
Juan de la Cruz arrived in Pastrana in mid-October 1570 and was the first master of novices. He stayed in a cave around the convent, which is still preserved. So in the convent there were four religious and ten novices. Juan de la Cruz focused on teaching continuous mental prayer, a central component of the contemplative life for Teresa, and the practice of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, for which the prince of Éboli had left income in his will.
In Pastrana, Juan de la Cruz met the prince of Éboli and he gave him money to found a Discalced Carmelite convent-college at the University of Alcalá de Henares. The objective of this new foundation was to attract students and provide well-trained monks to the Pastrana convent. He left in mid-November of the same year.
During these years, more Discalced Carmelite convents were founded: Altomira in 1571, Casas de Benítez in 1572, San Juan del Puerto in 1572 (which is actually a transfer of the shoes for two years), Granada in 1573 (which was not settled until Juan de la Cruz arrived in 1582), La Peñuela in 1573 (in the current municipality of La Carolina) and Seville in 1574.
On November 1, 1570, the Discalced Carmelites founded a college-convent in Alcalá de Henares. In 1571 Juan de la Cruz moved to this college to be its first rector.
In the Pastrana convent, a young novice master introduced a regimen of humiliating and extravagant mortifications. Teresa commissioned Juan de la Cruz to be sent there to direct things. Between April 1571 and May or June 1572 Juan de la Cruz made a new visit to Pastrana to moderate the rigorous excesses of that novitiate. However, the master of novices was obstinate and the prior had left following the mystic Catalina de Cardona. Teresa ended up consulting with the Dominican theologian Domingo Báñez, who replied that severe or exaggerated penance was prohibited by the rule. The novice master was dismissed, and within a month everything was back to normal.
Some thought that the effort of the reform had to be applied better in disciplining the lax and unreformed Carmelites. In this line, the Carmelite provincial Ángel Salazar told the apostolic visitor Pedro Fernández that the Convent of the Incarnation of Ávila, of Calced Carmelites, needed improvements and proposed that Teresa be the prioress. Teresa arrived in La Encarnación in October 1571 and was in the position of prioress for three years, until 1574.
Teresa wanted Juan de la Cruz to be the confessor and spiritual director of the nuns of the Incarnation. With the approval of the visitor Pedro Fernández, in September 1572 Juan de la Cruz left the Alcalá de Henares school to go to serve in the Encarnación in Ávila. He was accompanied in this work by the barefoot Germán de San Matías.
At first they settled in the convent of the Calzados Carmelites, within the walls, but their relationship with these friars must have caused some friction, since shortly after Juan and Germán went to live in a small house next to the garden of the Convent of the Incarnation.
In 1574 Juan de la Cruz accompanied Teresa de Jesús to found a convent of Discalced Carmelites in Segovia.
Clash between Carmelites, imprisonment and escape
In May 1575 the general chapter of the Order of Mount Carmel, which took place in Piacenza, decided to suppress all the foundations of the Discalced Carmelites made without the authorization of the superior general, that is, those of Andalusia. They removed the barefoot Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios from his position as visitor and appointed Jerónimo Tostado general visitor of all the convents in Spain. Alcalá de Henares.
Saint John of the Cross was arrested for the footwear and taken to Medina del Campo in 1575, but was released a few days later due to the intervention of the nuncio, Nicolò Ormaneto, who was in favor of the barefoot.
On August 29, 1577, the new nuncio, Filippo Sega, who was a supporter of the footwear, arrived in Madrid. The discalced friars received orders to abandon their posts in favor of the footwear, but none of them obeyed.
The barefoot Carmelite Antonio de Jesús hid in the attic of the Hospital de Tavera in Toledo, but ended up being arrested, although he was released a short time later.
Jerónimo Tostado ordered Juan de la Cruz and his companion Germán de San Matías to leave their positions in the Convent of La Encarnación in Ávila and return to their homes. They replied that it was impossible because they had been appointed confessors of that convent by the apostolic visitor, who was still in charge of him, and they could not leave without his authorization.
In October 1577 it was time to choose a new prioress for the Convent of the Encarnación in Ávila. Among the nuns there were two groups, those who wanted Teresa's return and the lax ones who wanted a road. Jerónimo Tostado sent the provincial to the convent with instructions for the Calzada candidate to be selected. He threatened to excommunicate those who voted for Teresa. Despite these intimidations, 55 nuns who were guided by the exhortations of Juan de la Cruz declared their intention to vote for Teresa and constituted a majority. The provincial maintained his position and rebuked and excommunicated those who voted for the barefoot, while he seized and burned their ballot papers. This also did not make those nuns change their minds, after which the provincial ordered that they not be allowed to attend mass, enter the chapel or see their confessor or relatives until they had voted for the road. As these nuns continued to refuse, the provincial declared the election invalid, excommunicated them a second time, and appointed the shod nun, who had obtained fewer votes, prioress.
In December 1577 Juan de la Cruz and Germán de San Matías were arrested for the footwear with the permission of the nuncio and the collaboration of the civil authorities. Teresa was at the time in the Convent of San José de Ávila and quickly learned of the arrest of the friars. The next day Teresa recorded this before a notary.
Teresa wrote a letter to Felipe II explaining the good that Juan de la Cruz had done to the nuns of the Encarnación and how in Ávila they considered him and her as saints. She also recounted that the shoes, who did not fear God or justice, had taken over him and that she preferred to see him in the hands of Moors than shoes "because those would have more mercy." She asked the king to order Juan's release.
Weeks later, Teresa wrote to the archbishop of Évora, a very influential man, repeating what she had told the king about Juan de la Cruz and adding that he was "a fortress tower. In March 1578 she wrote to the barefoot Jerome of the Mother of God telling him:
I am very disturbed by Brother John and afraid they will present more accusations against him. God treats his friends in a terrible way, but these have no reason to complain because he did the same with his own Son.
In August 1578 he returned to Jerome from the Mother of God to tell him about Juan de la Cruz:
I don't know what a venture is that there is never one who remembers this saint.
Juan de la Cruz was first taken to the monastery of Carmelitas shoes from Ávila, where he was whipped twice. Then, to prevent them from being rescued, he was secretly transferred to the convent of Carmelitas shoes of Toledo. They introduced him In the city at night and with bandados, so that he did not know where he was, and they locked him in a cell.
In Toledo he had to attend a court formed by the vicar general, Jerónimo Tostado, Prior Maldonado and several more friars. He read the minutes of the General Chapter of the Carmelites held in Piacenza according to which the barefoot had to renounce their name and habit, not to recruit new novices and stop being a separate group. Then they reminded him of the order that had given him toas to return to the Footwear of Medina del Campo. They told him that, for having refused to fulfill that order, a superior disobedience had been made inmate, which was the worst fault that a friar could commit. They told him that if he gave up, they would forgive his fault, he would receive a higher position within the Carmelites, he would have a good room, a library and a gold crucifix. Juan de la Cruz replied that he had not obeyed the order of toasted because he had another order of someone superior, the apostolic visitor. He also said that he had voted to follow the primitive rule and that he was not free to break it. He also said that he had joined the barefoot to escape comforts and honors. Then Jerónimo Tostado sentenced that he was guilty of rebellion and contumacia and condemned him to remain in prison indefinitely.
During his first months in prison, he was in an ordinary cell in the convent. But when it was learned that his partner, Germán de San Matías, had escaped from the house where he was confined, Juan was transferred to another stay considered safer. This was a six -feet room that was used as a toilet to the attached guest room. The only lighting was a three -to -wide aspillera located at the top of a wall. In this way, I could only read the trades at noon uploading to a bank and lifting the book. His bed was a table on the ground and two blankets. He had to endure very cold during the winter and, with the arrival of summer, a suffocating heat. They did not give him any mute clothes the nine months he was captive and ended up full of lice. I ate bread beggars and some sardines. He was sometimes taken to the refectory where the friars ate, gave him bread and water and the prior admonished him. After this, each friar hit him on the back with a rod while they sang the Miserere .
<p He was not emptied of the bucket for days and the smell he gave off made him vomit. When the heat arrived, his robe hit him behind his back, with the blood of the whipping, and he could and everything was filled with worms. At six months in prison a new jailer took pity on him and gave him a clean tunic, as well as a pen and ink to write.The new jailer, with the heat, left the cell door open. He also agreed to empty the bucket when he wanted. This gave Juan to leave and explore part of the convent. The new jailer also provided him with a needle, thread and scissors to pray his mantle.
For several days, Juan de la Cruz planned his escape, loosening the door screws that held the lock, measuring with a thread and a stone the distance from a window to the ground and calculating how he should cut his blankets to manufacture a rope
On August 14, the eve of the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, the prior Maldonado went to the cell of Juan de la Cruz. He did not realize his entry because he was absorbed in prayer. Then the prior kicked him and asked why he didn't get up to receive it. Juan apologized and got up. The prior said " well, what did you think now? " and he replied " in which tomorrow is Our Lady's Day and will like to say Mass ". Then Maldonado ended the conversation saying " never in my days " and left. " never in my days ".
The night of August 14 to 15 was escaped and ended up jumping into the courtyard of a convent of Franciscan nuns of conception. Finally, he managed to climb the wall and went to the street on the opposite side. On the street, a woman told him where the convent of the barefoot Carmelites was, but she told him that he was closed until dawn. Then he arrived at the house of a gentleman who was open and asked permission to wait in the lobby until he was day. He was there until 8 in the morning. Then he left and went to the convent of the barefoot Carmelites. The prioress, Ana de los Angeles, let her pass with the excuse that there was a sick nun who needed confession.
Juan de la Cruz had managed to escape with a notebook in which he had written some stanzas of the Spiritual Canticle , to the verse " Oh, Jewish nymphs ", the poem that begins by saying " how good I know the fonte that mana and corre " and a rhymed version of the psalm Super Flumyna Babylonis .
Juan de la Cruz could not stay with the nuns and the chapel was not a safe place, because it was out of the closure. Then the prioress called the canon Pedro González de Mendoza, friend of the reform. He disguised Juan with a priest cassock and took him in carriage to the hospital of La Cruz, of which he was director. Subsequently, Juan spent a month and a half replenishing at the house of Pedro González de Mendoza.
charges in order
Juan de la Cruz was invited to a chapter of the barefoot in Almodóvar del Campo. Teresa wrote to Jerome of the Mother of God asking him that John was well attended. Juan moved in Burro, accompanied by two servants of Pedro González de Mendoza. Finally, Jerome of the Mother of God did not attend the meeting but the friars who did, seeing Juan so demacrated, put a novice to a novice Take care of it.
The chapter was held on October 9, 1578 with seven friars and agreed to establish a separate province for the barefoot and Antonio de Jesús was appointed provincial. This decision, as such, was illegal and Juan refused to vote. The legal process to establish a province was to request it to the king and the Pope. Juan, on the other hand, was appointed prior of the monastery of Our Lady of Monte Calvario, near Beas de Segura, replacing Fray Pedro de los Ángeles, sent To Rome for this chapter to defend the cause of the barefoot.
In Beas de Segura, he stopped at the convent of the barefoot Carmelites of this town, which had been founded by Teresa three years earlier. The prioress was Ana de Jesús, the most outstanding nun of the reform. She felt surprised by the appearance of Fray Juan and wrote:
He was like a dead man, just skin and bones, so rinse and exhausted he could barely speak.
The Monastery of Nuestra Señor del Monte Calvario was located two hours on horseback from the urban center of Beas and there were about thirty friars. Some were former hermits from the Sierra Morena who had joined the reform.
The Monastery of La Peñuela had been founded on June 29, 1573, but at the end of 1576 the community moved to a place known as La Corenzuela, where the Monastery of Nuestra Señora del Monte Calvario was founded. On August 15, 1577, La Peñuela was once again populated with religious, at the request of many knights from Baeza and Linares.
The simplicity of the Calvary friars must have delighted John of the Cross, whose favorite book after the Bible was Flos Sanctorum, which compiled legends of primitive monks and hermits.
Ana de Jesús had considered it inappropriate for John of the Cross to say that Teresa de Jesús was "very much his daughter. Ana wrote to Teresa to tell her about this and about how difficult it was to obtain a good confessor for her nuns. Teresa replied:
In grace I have fallen, daughter, how without reason he complains, for he has there my father Fray John of the Cross, who is a heavenly and divine man. For I tell my daughter that, after she went there, I have not found any other Castile like him, nor have he so much fervent in the way of heaven. He won't believe the loneliness that causes me his fault. See that it is a great treasure that they have there in that saint, and all those of that house treat and communicate with him their souls and see what they are exploited, and they will be found far ahead in all that is spirit and perfection; for our Lord has given him for this particular grace [...] that I esteem to have my Father Fr. John of the Cross, who really is of my soul, and one of the most profitable of him in communicating. Do it with him with all plains, which can surely have it as with myself, and which will be of great satisfaction, which is very spiritual, and great experiences, and letters. These three qualities: virtue, experience and lyrics, the Holy One desired, even though they were not so much in the Confessors; and if they lack them, they fear the direction of the souls who walk perfectly, it does not happen that they sneeze and stop, thinking that they guide them well in their short appearance. This way they miss those that were made to their doctrine. Give thanks to God who has ordered you there so close. I already write to you, and I know of your great charity that will do it in any need, that it be offered
After this, Ana asked Juan to be the convent's confessor. Every Saturday, Juan walked the ten kilometers that separated Calvary from the Discalced Carmelite convent. After confessing to the nuns, he would read them passages from the Gospels and comment on them, which filled them with enthusiasm.
Apparently, Juan wrote on Calvary the poem that begins by saying "On a dark night" and the remaining stanzas, except six, of the Spiritual Canticle. He also began writing his extensive prose work Ascent of Mount Carmel, as a commentary to his poem A dark night. He finished writing this work four or five years later. In addition, he gave the nuns his poems and they asked him to explain the Spiritual Canticle. This was the origin of the prose commentary on the poem.
Philip II was very dissatisfied with what happened to the barefoot, because he wanted the reform and did not want to intervene in the affairs of Spain. Nuncio Sega, seeing that the atmosphere at court was increasingly hostile, relented, and on April 1, 1579, he appointed an own vicar general to the Discalced Carmelites: Ángel de Salazar.
Ángel de Salazar told Juan de la Cruz to found a new college of Discalced Carmelites. In June 1579, Fray Juan de la Cruz went to found it in Baeza. This city was home to many wealthy families, who could provide sufficient income for their support, and had a university, founded in 1540 by Juan de Ávila. Juan de la Cruz settled in a house with three friars and soon four novice students joined him.
Juan de la Cruz was rector of the school, but he disliked that his work distracted him from contemplative life. A few weeks after arriving in Baeza he went to visit the Discalced Carmelite nuns of Beas de Segura. He, too, sometimes stayed overnight at a Trinitarian monastery near Iznatoraf, where the monks had adopted interior prayer.
While he was in Baeza, a priest gave the farm of Santa Ana, which was located about four kilometers south of Sorihuela, to the Carmelite school. Juan de la Cruz sometimes retired there with another friar.
In the Discalced Carmelite convent of Caravaca de la Cruz, Prioress Ana de San Alberto had written to Teresa asking for a good confessor. Teresa arranged for Juan de la Cruz to visit them. Juan went at the beginning of 1580. He had to go again in January 1581 to supervise the election of the prioress, resulting in Ana de San Alberto being elected again.
Philip II suggested, with respect to the Discalced Carmelites, the creation of a commission with the nuncio and some assistants, which concluded on July 15, 1579. This proposed as a solution that the king ask the pope for a separate province for the Discalced Carmelites. Philip II petitioned the Pope for an independent province for the Discalced Carmelites. Gregory XIII granted the independent province to the Discalced Carmelites with the Brief Pia Consideratione of June 22, 1580.
In March 1581 Juan de la Cruz attended the chapter of the barefoot held in Alcalá de Henares. In it, Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios was elected provincial. This, in turn, appointed Juan de la Cruz third definitor and prior of the Convent of the Holy Martyrs of Granada.
In November 1581, Juan de la Cruz went to Ávila to spend a few days with Teresa de Jesús.
It had been decided to found a convent of Discalced Carmelites in Granada with Ana de Jesús as prioress. Juan de la Cruz passed through Beas de Segura and met Ana and five other nuns, whom he accompanied to Granada for the foundation. Later, he settled in the Convent of the Holy Martyrs as prior.
He developed a predilection for two friars whom he encouraged and taught: Juan de Santa Ana, who had followed him from the Calvario Monastery, and Juan Evangelista, who joined as a novice in Granada at the age of 19. Juan Evangelista became his secretary and accompanied him on all his trips until a few months before his death.
Juan de la Cruz often went to the convent of the Discalced Carmelites in Granada to confess to the nuns and spoke with them in the parlor.
While in Granada he continued and finished his work Ascent of Mount Carmel and wrote The Dark Night of the Soul. He finished the first version of his commentary in prose on the Cantico espiritual and dedicated it to Ana de Jesús. He also wrote the last of his great poems, Llama de amor viva. Between August 1585 and April 1587 he wrote a commentary on this poem requested by Ana de Peñalosa, a rich and pious widow who was his spiritual direction.
About the Spiritual Canticle, which he had begun to write while in prison and which he had continued on Calvary and later, it is known that before August 1586 he changed the order of the stanzas and made a new one writing your commentary in prose.
In Granada or later, he wrote a prose work entitled Properties of the solitary bird that has been lost. Nor has any other work written later to distinguish between false and true states of mind and miracles come down to us.
There are some short writings, such as Cautions and Sayings of Light and Love, which are aphorisms for the nuns of Beas.
In May 1583 another chapter of the order took place in Almodóvar del Campo. The chapter first dealt with whether the priors should be elected in the general chapter or by elections in their communities. Juan de la Cruz took sides for the elections, but adding that no prior should continue in his position after a two-year term had expired. No one else shared this opinion. There was also a debate about whether missions should be sent to pagan Africa and John took a position against it, arguing that they were not prepared for their way of life there. Another point of debate was whether it was necessary to intensify the preaching in the churches and Juan also opposed it, alleging that the main function of the barefoot was the contemplative life. Fray Nicolás de Jesús María supported Juan's views regarding preaching and missions. In the last session of the chapter, Nicolás launched an attack against Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios for his alleged bad government and alleged that his excessive love for preaching had ruined the order. After this, Nicholas went to found a convent of Discalced Carmelites in Genoa while Jerome organized a mission to the Congo.
Juan de la Cruz participated in the founding of the Discalced Carmelite Convent of San José de Málaga on February 17, 1585.
In the spring of 1585 another chapter of the order took place in Lisbon. Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios proposed Nicolás de Jesús María to succeed him. This option he won by 26 votes in favor of the 28. Juan proposed again that the priors could not be re-elected in their positions, but he did not get supporters either. In the chapter it was agreed that Juan would continue as prior of the Convent of the Holy Martyrs of Granada and that he would also be second definitor.
In Lisbon there was the nun Maria de la Visitación, famous for her supposed miracles and for the stigmata she bore. All the barefoot priors who were in the city went to see her yagas and to take pieces of her blood-stained clothes as relics. Juan de la Cruz was the only one who refused to go, saying that he did not need to see anyone's wounds. Finally, the Inquisition opened an investigation and another nun said that she had seen María de la Visitación paint her wounds and proved that he was right washing them.
Doria returned from Italy in the summer of 1585 and called a new chapter in Pastrana in October of the same year. Juan de la Cruz, for his part, retained the positions of prior of the Convent of the Holy Martyrs of Granada and second definitor and was also appointed provincial vicar of Andalusia.
On May 18, 1586, Juan de la Cruz founded the Discalced Carmelite convent of San José (later known as San Cayetano) in the hermitage of San Roque in Córdoba. In 1613 this convent was moved to a place next to the Puerta del Colodro.
In 1586 Juan de la Cruz authorized the Sevillian merchant Pedro Cerezo Pardo, protector of the Discalced, and the prioress of the Discalced Carmelite convent of Seville to buy some houses from Pedro de Morga and move to a new headquarters in the city. The nuns moved that year. Juan de la Cruz attended the inauguration, who, in June 1586, wrote to the prioress of the convent of Caravaca de la Cruz:
I am already in Seville, in the translation of our nuns, who have bought some very main houses, which although they cost almost fourteen thousand ducats, are worth more than twenty thousand. They are already in them, and the day of Saint Bartholomew puts the Cardinal the Blessed Sacrament with great solemnity.
In 1586 Ana de Jesús left Granada to found the Convent of Santa Ana in Madrid and Juan de la Cruz accompanied her part of the way.
In 1586 Ana de Peñalosa, advised by Juan de la Cruz, bought a building in Segovia that had been a Trinitarian convent and ceded it to the Discalced Carmelites so that they could found another convent.
Juan de la Cruz sent Fray Diego de la Concepción to Caravaca de la Cruz to found a barefoot convent. The foundation took place on December 16, 1586. In February 1587, in the presence of Juan de la Cruz, the convent moved to another building in the city.
Between 1586 and 1587 Juan de la Cruz also passed through Beas de Segura, Bujalance, Baeza, La Manchuela (a municipality currently called Mancha Real), Guadalcázar and Sabiote.
In April 1587 a new chapter was held in Valladolid. Juan de la Cruz left the positions of definitor and provincial vicar, but continued in the position of prior of the Convent of the Holy Martyrs of Granada.
On July 10, 1587, the pope signed a brief recognizing the Discalced Carmelites as an autonomous congregation and approving a new constitution. The new system was devised by Nicolás de Jesús María. According to this, the congregation would be under the nominal authority of the general of the order and would be governed by a general vicar who would be elected every six years. To assist this vicar general, a body would be created, the Consultation, made up of six chaplains elected by vote who would be in permanent session. The authority that the priors had in the chapters would be held by the Consulta and the provincial vicars (hereinafter simply called provincials) would only have executive functions. It was also achieved, with papal authorization, that the vicar general had the authority to expel any stubborn friar.
In June 1588 a chapter of the congregation took place in Madrid. Nicolás de Jesús María was elected vicar general by 32 votes out of a total of 50. Juan de la Cruz was elected definitor and counselor of the Consultation. As the Consulta had its headquarters in Segovia, Juan was also chosen prior of the Discalced Carmelite convent of this city.
In Segovia, he was also a confessor to the nuns of the Discalced Carmelite convent and to various pious people.
The nuns and friars protested against the new organization imposed by Nicolás de Jesús María. Jerome of the Mother of God, who wanted to protect Teresa's reform, wrote to the king to inform him of the unrest. Nicholas found out and used his influence in the royal council to get the monarch to express his support for the new constitution. In addition, the nuns feared losing the rights proposed by Teresa, collected in a separate constitution and approved in the Alcalá chapter of 1581, such as choosing their confessors, voting for their prioress or being able to refuse to be transferred from one convent to another..
Ana de Jesús, who was then prioress in Madrid, consulted Fray Luis de León and the Dominican Fray Domingo Báñez, and, after obtaining verbal permission from Nicolás, asked Pope Sixtus V to confirm the constitution of the nuns and to name Juan de la Cruz his superior instead of the Consultation. The pope, with a brief, confirmed the constitution of the nuns and created a position of general commissioner for the nuns, who was only below the vicar general and who was elected once every three years by the chapter.
When Fray Luis de León asked Nicolás to convene a general chapter to adopt the provisions of the brief regarding the nuns, he refused and said that he would do without them. Domingo Báñez told Nicolás that his intention to do without of the nuns was an infamy never seen in the history of the Catholic Church.
In the spring of 1591 Nicholas asked Pope Gregory XIV for a brief to annul that of the previous pope and to submit the nuns to Consultation. What the pope did was submit the nuns to the provincials, but since they had lost all their power in favor of the Consultation, Nicolás got away with it.
Juan de la Cruz sided with Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios and wrote in his favor to Nicolás and the Consulta. He also wanted the constitution of the nuns to be respected and did not approve of their being governed by the Consulta. He wrote a very hard letter to Nicolás that his secretary, Juan Evangelista, wanted to soften but he refused to change a single word.
Fall from Grace
In June 1591 it was time to celebrate a chapter, which took place in Madrid. Juan was removed from the positions of prior, first definitor and member of the Consultation. In the chapter, measures to be taken against Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios and, since Gregory XIV's brief had not yet been published in Spain, Nicolás proposed to organically separate the nuns from the friars and that they become directly dependent on the pope. Juan de la Cruz began his speech by saying:
If in the chapters, assemblies and meetings people no longer have the courage to say what the laws of justice and charity force them to say, for the sake of weakness, pusilanimity or the fear of disturbing their superior and for that reason of not having any benefit, then the order is forbidden and ruined.
Then, Juan de la Cruz proposed that the vote be secret. However, no one supported him. In the debate, Jerome of the Mother of God was spoken harshly and with the issue of the nuns and, although some friars privately agreed with Juan, none dared to oppose the vicar general Nicolás.
Juan de la Cruz also criticized the fact that, since Nicolás took office, too many new regulations had been approved, some three hundred.
As there was a possibility that Juan de la Cruz would be named superior of the nuns, Nicolás proposed sending him to Mexico, where there was a newly founded convent that needed more friars. Juan said that he was willing to go.
A few days later the brief of Gregory XIV arrived in Spain and, since he did not expressly mention Juan de la Cruz as superior of the nuns and as Nicolás thought it was not appropriate to discredit him so quickly, he offered him the position of prior in Segovia. Juan refused to avoid being embroiled in controversy again. Then he was ordered to recruit twelve friars in Andalusia to go with them to Mexico and work there as a visitor.
While he remained in the Discalced Carmelite convent in Madrid, he had to endure public insults and admonitions from Fray Diego Evangelista, who had taken his place in the consultation. The prior of the convent, Ambrosio Mariano de San Benito, a supporter of Fray Nicolás, asked the friars to accompany Juan de la Cruz everywhere and inform him of what he did or said.
In Madrid, Juan de la Cruz said goodbye to Ana de Peñalosa, to the family of Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios (who had just been imprisoned) and Ana de Jesús and her nuns. He left Madrid and passed through Segovia before going to Andalusia.
Later, he arrived at the Monastery of La Peñuela. The prior of this monastery was Fray Diego de la Concepción, who had been his novice in the Convent of the Holy Martyrs in Granada and had great respect for him. The prior made him spiritual director of the community. Once a week he went to Linares to confess and preach in the church, where it seems that he dealt with a second prose version of Llama de amor viva .
Nicolás de Jesús María sent Fray Diego Evangelista to Andalusia to visit Andalusian convents and gather information about possible scandalous conduct by Juan de la Cruz. Diego Evangelista interrogated friars and nuns, wrote a misrepresentation of what they said and made them sign it without being able to read it.
A nun from Granada, Agustina de San José, kept letters and other writings from Juan de la Cruz, but when she found out that he was suffering persecution, she burned them so that they would not fall into the hands of his enemies.
Historian Juan Antonio Llorente affirms that Juan de la Cruz, Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios and other friars were denounced before the Inquisition for practicing interior prayer, accusing them of being Illuminist heretics. Historian Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo affirmed that Juan had been accused before the Inquisition four times.
Death
Six weeks after Juan de la Cruz arrived at the Monastery of La Peñuela, he had inflammation in his right foot and a fever. Another friar fell ill at the same time. The prior decided to send them both to Baeza to be seen by a doctor. Juan de la Cruz knew that in Baeza he was highly appreciated and he asked to go to a recently founded barefoot convent in Úbeda to seek tranquility.
The prior of the convent of Úbeda did not appreciate Juan de la Cruz at all because he had been admonished by him when he was provincial vicar of Andalusia. He gave her the smallest and poorest room in the building. One day when Juan was too sick to go to the refectory, he sent for him and reprimanded him in front of the other religious.
Juan's fever and foot swelling got worse. A surgeon opened his foot and a lot of pus came out. After this, his leg, which was also swollen, became covered with sores. The surgeon cauterized the sores, causing him great pain.
The prior said that the convent could not afford the food that was prescribed to Juan, although most of his food was sent to him by his friends. The prior also stood by Juan's side every day to scold him and reproached him for six years before, he had received a reprimand from him for preaching too much in churches and spending too much time outside the convent.
The prior forbade Juan to be visited by the other friars without his authorization and, finally, deprived him of the person who cared for him. The friars were so surprised by the prior's inhumanity that they wrote to the provincial, Antonio de Jesús. The provincial came from Granada in November 1591, reprimanded the prior, and stayed a few days making sure that Juan de la Cruz had what he needed.
Juan began to have tumors all over his body, the most painful being one on his shoulder. When they told him that he was going to die, he asked that the letters in which he was alerted to Diego Evangelista's actions be burned so that they would not retaliate against those who warned him. Then he sent for the prior and asked his pardon for the inconvenience he had caused him. The prior began to feel remorse and apologized for not having treated him better, saying that he could not due to the poverty of the convent.
John received extreme unction. At night, when he saw his death close, he sent for the friars of the convent. These were about fourteen or fifteen, who came with oil lamps and recited the De Profundis and the Miserere. Juan asked that they read him some verses from the Song of Songs. It struck twelve on December 14, 1591, the friars left the cell and their last words were: "Today I will be in heaven saying Matins".
Fate of his remains
After his death, Juan de la Cruz was buried in the convent of Úbeda. Ana Peñalosa and her brother Luis wanted to take the body to the convent of Discalced Carmelites in Segovia. According to the Hispanist Gerald Brenan, nine months after his death, in August 1592, the remains were clandestinely removed from the tomb in Úbeda and taken to Segovia. According to other sources, in August 1592 the body was found in good condition. and they added quicklime so that it decomposed and, finally, they were able to take the remains in April 1593 in a suitcase to Segovia, leaving only one leg.
The friars of Úbeda protested and on September 15, 1596, Pope Clement VIII issued the brief Expositum Nobis ordering the return of the remains to Úbeda. Later there was a modification of the pontifical brief that allowed the superiors of the Discalced Carmelites to order the return to Úbeda only of the other leg and one arm, which arrived there on September 7, 1607.
The current tomb in Segovia was made in 1927 by Félix Granda.
In January 1594 there was evidence that there was a relic of his meat in the Convent of San José in Medina del Campo.
Canonization
The process of beatification and canonization began in 1627 and ended in 1630. He was beatified in 1675 by Clement X and canonized by Benedict XIII in 1726. Later, on August 24, 1926, Pius XI proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church Universal.
Literary work
Influences
In 1948 the poet and literary critic Dámaso Alonso gave a lecture at the Caro y Cuervo Institute entitled The poetry of San Juan de la Cruz where the influences of his poetic work are discussed.
Alonso divides the literary influences of this author into Spanish and biblical. Among the Spanish songs are songs of the time and the writings of Garcilaso de la Vega. The songs are those that the people sang or those of higher environments, collected in songbooks.
The influence of songs is scarce in the Spiritual Song and null in Dark Night, but it does determine other poems known as Christmas carols. The Christmas carol was characterized by beginning with a chorus (a stanza of two or three verses that is developed in the following stanzas) whose last line is repeated at the end of each stanza. Juan's most original Christmas carol is the one that begins by saying How well I know the fountain that flows and runs. This is not written in the popular octosyllable meter, common in Christmas carols, but in hendecasyllables, which corresponds to a style that had just been imported from Italy.
Juan also wrote some romances. Among these is a long one on the Trinity and the Incarnation, as well as his paraphrase of the psalm Super flumina Babylonis. Romance was used at the time for narrative themes and was characterized by the fact that the same rhyme or assonance is repeated throughout the entire poem.
The three poems that have given him the most reputation as a poet are Spiritual Song, Dark Night and Living Flame of Love. These owe their existence to Garcilaso de la Vega. Garcilaso, influenced in turn by Juan Boscán, wrote poems in Italian metric with more fluency and musicality with the hendecasyllable, which had three syllables more than the Spanish metric used until then. In 1543 the work of Boscán y Garcilaso was published in a volume that was a bestseller. Most of Garcilaso's work is Renaissance-style eclogues, songs, and sonnets, characterized by artificiality in pastoral themes and a refined sense of beauty.
When Juan entered the Carmelites in Medina del Campo he wrote poems in heroic verse and pastoral style. After he passed through Salamanca, he abandoned everything that was not related to the region, putting these poems aside. However, he decided to resume poetry later. It is known that he read a work by a religious poet, who wrote based on Garcilaso's eclogues and songs, named Sebastián de Córdoba, published in 1575. This was probably what made him see the possibility of writing poems with this metric on themes mystics. He would start doing it during his confinement in Toledo.
Spiritual song and Dark night are written in a stanza called a lyre, in which Garcilaso had written his song Si de mi baja la lira (also titled Flor de Gnido).
Juan also borrowed pastoral language from Garcilaso in the case of the Cántico espiritual.
John of the Cross also took influences from the Bible and, especially, from the Song of Songs. For John, the Song of Songs was an allegory written by Solomon of the soul that seeks God, of the mystical union and of the beatific vision. The Spirit Song and Dark Night are also of this type.
John of the Cross and John Paul II
Jan Tyranowski introduced Karol Wojtyła (future Pope Saint John Paul II) to the figure of Saint John of the Cross. In 1948 Karol finished his doctoral thesis, entitled The doctrine of faith according to Saint John of the Cross .
When John Paul II visited Spain in 1982 he went to Segovia, where he gave a homily about Saint John of the Cross.
In 1990 Saint John Paul II dedicated the pastoral letter Magister in fide to Saint John of the Cross.
Religiosity and philology
The work of Saint John of the Cross has always been approached from two perspectives, theological and literary, which, on many occasions, have been mixed.
- Religious perspective
Saint John's work suffers from a series of manipulations aimed at integrating it within the limits and conventions of orthodoxy. The first manipulation is probably performed by the author himself when he decides to write the comments.Domingo Ynduráin Muñoz
The quote refers to the comments or explanatory paraphrase that Juan de la Cruz wrote for his most important work, the so-called Cántico espiritual, with a didactic purpose as a result of the difficulties of adapting the structure from the poem to the scheme of the mystical itinerary (the three paths and the three correlative states). This theological presence on his work, and specifically on the Canticle , has also manifested itself in the constant manipulations of an editorial type that he has suffered, in the form of additions to the title or epigraphs for certain groups of stanzas of the poem. Consequently, an important branch of San Juan studies has dedicated itself to demonstrating the adequacy of what Saint John wrote to Catholic religious orthodoxy, favoring Commentaries in prose over poetry.
- Philological perspective
On the other hand, it is frequent in the literary study of his work that either continuous leaps are made to the theological, or that the poetry and the doctrinal Commentaries of his own are studied together poet, with the idea that these are necessary to understand that one. Faced with this aspect of San Juan studies, there is another that postulates that "the necessity (or possibility) of religious interpretation is something that must be argued and discussed in each case", while the objective meaning of the poetry of Saint John does not necessarily force one to accept a religious meaning.
Poetry
His poetic work is made up of three poems considered major: Dark Night, Spiritual Song and Live Flame of Love; and a set of poems usually classified as minor: five glosses, ten romances (nine of them can be counted as a single composition) and two songs. The dissemination of his work was handwritten, and all the textual problems that they entail have not yet been elucidated. In prose he wrote four commentaries on his major poems: Ascent of Mount Carmel and Dark Night for the first of these poems, and other homonymous treatises on the Spiritual Canticle and Living Flame of Love.
The poems attributable without a doubt to San Juan de la Cruz are those collected in the Sanlúcar codex or manuscript S, since this was supervised by San Juan himself. The repertoire of his poems, according to said source, is restricted to ten compositions (the three major poems mentioned and another seven compositions), as long as the romances that comprise the texts entitled In principio erat Verbum, which there are a total of nine, they are considered a single work. The authenticity of the rest of his poetic work has not yet been able to be elucidated by critics. By tradition it is generally accepted that the poems Sin arrimo y con arrimo and Por toda la hermosura, and the lyrics Of the Divine Word and Forgetting the servant. The seven "minor" glosses and poems whose authorship is not disputed are the following: (they are cited by the first verse):
- I walked in where I didn't know
- Gloss to the I live without living in me
- After a loving lance
- A pastor is only punished
- How well I know the plume
- In the beginning I dwelt
- In principle erat Verbum (nine romances whose first verses are: “In that immense love”, “A wife who loves you”, “Let the Father therefore be done”, “With this good hope”, “In those and other supplications”, “Since time was come”, “Then he called an archangel”, “Since time was come” and “Encima of the currents”)
Prose
His prose work is intended to be an explanatory corollary, given the symbolic hermeticism that some critics attribute to his poetry: (the first three have been published together in the volume Spiritual works that lead a soul to union perfect with God) and Spiritual Canticle.
- Rise of Mount Carmel (1579 -1583)
- Dark night of the soul
- Spiritual Cantic (1584)
- Flame of living love (1584 or 1585)
Parallels with Sufi writers
According to the Arabist Miguel Asín Palacios, the Sufi of the Sadili school Ibn Abbad de Ronda, from the 14th century, can be considered a precursor of Saint John of the Cross. The academic Luce López-Baralt has also seen similarities between the writings Sufis and those of Saint John of the Cross.
Doctrine
The existence of these three pathways corresponds to the three classical powers of the soul: memory, understanding and will, which in this same order are reduced to a state of perfect silence. The silence of memory is called in mystical hope. The silence of the understanding is called faith and the silence of the will charity or love. These three silences represent at the same time an interior emptying and a renunciation of oneself that reaches its maximum degree through the virtue of charity. This is where the enormous anguish and the sensation of death characteristic of the mystics come from, since joining God is a prior loss of oneself and then gaining.
In a dark night,with cravings, in swollen love
I'm getting my own house.
Oh blissful vein!
I went out without being noticed.First verse Dark night.
Originality
Saint John of the Cross offers a radical originality in mysticism consisting of the concept of spiritual dark night. From the historical beginnings of the hermitic retired life, the seekers renounced worldly goods and pleasures, submitting to fasting and other harshness, in order to empty their desires from the world and fill it with higher goods. Saint John of the Cross clarifies that this is only the first stage, since after it comes the aforementioned spiritual night, in which the seeker, already detached from worldly consolations and pleasures, will also lose the support of his peace, of his inner softness., entering the most "scary" night which is followed by perfect contemplation.
One of the most original and deepest parts of the doctrine of Saint John of the Cross, with which he has made progress the mystical theology and deserved the title of Doctor, is the one that refers to what he calls the passive night of the spirit.Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange
Unexplored field. Juan de la Cruz perceives the urgency and difficulty, and decides to explore the entire field of the night, especially the hardest areas where no writer had managed to penetrate.José Vicente Rodríguez and Federico Ruiz
Mount of Perfection
In his famous drawing of the Mount of Perfection, the straight path of ascent appears flanked by two cul-de-sac side roads. The one on the right, the mundane path, points out its dangers: possessing, joy, knowing, consolation, rest. Likewise, the one on the left also marks the dangers of a spiritual path: glory, joy, knowledge, comfort, rest. The legend of the steps of the central path, the correct one, is especially surprising, in which it reads: Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. As a note on this graph, the author writes: Gives warnings and doctrine, both to beginners and to those who have taken advantage of it, very helpful so that they know how to get rid of all that is temporal and not get embarrassed with the spiritual, and remain utterly naked and freedom of spirit, which is required for the divine union. Some of his short phrases sum up his doctrine well, such as: "Deny your desires, and you will find what your heart desires" and "Love does not consist in feeling great things, but in having great nakedness, and suffering for it." Loved".
Musical versions of his poems
- The silent musicby Federico Mompou in 1893–1987. It is a piano work composed of 28 small pieces, grouped in four notebooks published in 1959, 1962, 1965 and 1967 respectively. The title is taken from the verses "...the silent music/the sound loneliness..." Spiritual Cantic.
- Spiritual CanticAmancio Prada in 1977. Musical work of the poem accompanying his guitar voice, violin and cello.
- CreaturesSilvio Fernández Melgarejo in 1988. It is a song composed of several verses of the mystical poet, with the characteristic style of rock of the 1950s.
- MysticismCarmelo Bernaola in 1991. It is a cantata on verses of San Juan de la Cruz that premiered at the XI edition of Europa Cantat (1991), in Vitoria.
- The Dark Night of the SoulLoreena McKennitt in 1994. It is an adaptation in English The Dark Night of the Soul inside the disk The Mask and Mirror.
Upon a darkened nightThe flame of love was burning in my breast
I fled my house while all in quiet rest
And by a lantern brightIn a dark nightThe flame of love burned in my chest
I fled from my house while all quietly rested
And for a bright flashlightFirst verse The Dark Night of the SoulLoreena McKennitt
- San Juan De La Cruz, from the disk Meetings with entities of the Planets in 2002. Composed song in homage to the saint with stylized letter almost equal to that of a poet's text.
As I went from your hand to the mountain,A few days were fire and others were flames.
And a feeling I had was fear.
Inside the mirror where I did not reflect,
the promise that awaited us at the top.
But once there the clouds wouldn't let us see the groundFragment of San Juan De La CruzThe Planets
- Silence of LoveJésed Ministry of Music in 2002. It is a disc published in Monterrey, Mexico, whose lyrics are based on the poetic work of the saint.
- Dark night of Jesus Torres. Composed in 2006, for soprano and piano, on verses of Dark Night of the Soul. Posted by TRITÓ Edicions.
- Even though it's night, poem adapted as flamenco tango by Enrique Morente (1984) and versioned by Refree and Rosalía Vila (2017).
- Living wateradaptation for the Portuguese poem How well I know the source that drives and runs, even if it's night! by Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho and Brazilian singer Raul Seixas in the 1974 Gita album.
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