By Corazon Damo-Santiago
John Yepes was born on June 24, 1541, in Fontiveros, between Ávila and Salamanca, Spain. His father, Francisco Gonzalo de Yepes, was a wealthy silk merchant who was disowned by the family for marrying Catalina Alvarez, who was below his social class.
His father died after John’s birth. Life was difficult. Afraid that John would meet death like his brother Luis, his mother entrusted John to an orphanage in Medina when he was 9 until he was 17.
Austere, simple and devoted to God
John learned the skills of carpentry tailoring, woodcarving and painting but also had to beg on the streets for the upkeep of the orphanage.
At 17, he studied nursing and was employed at a hospital, while attending a Jesuit college at night.
Although he opted to join the hospital chaplain, he joined the Carmelites in Medina and took the name John of Matthias. He was sent to Salamanca for further studies.
He celebrated his first Mass at Medina del Campo. He met the future Saint Teresa of Ávila, who founded the second convent for Discalced Carmelites.
As one who frequently asked God to suffer something every day, he desired to join the Carthusian Order known for its solitary and silent contemplation.
John, who was 25, and Teresa, 52, talked about reformation, the need to restore the purity of the Carmelite Order’s Primitive Rule of 1209 which was relaxed by Pope Eugene in 1432 as narrated in the Spirit of Flame, a study of Saint John of the Cross.
John changed his name to John of the Cross and founded the first reformed Monastery of Discalced Carmelite Friars with two companions. Teresa called the monastery she donated Stable at Bethlehem.
Reform movement
Blessed with spiritual affinity, Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross restored the Discalced Carmelites to a simple lifestyle but deeper spiritual standards. He became her confessor, and when Teresa became a prisoner of the Convent at Ávila, John was invited to be the spiritual director.
But “spiritual innovation was a dangerous matter in 16th century Spain.” It was an era of the notorious Spanish Inquisition which “thrived on the detection of heresy and nonconformity,” according to Robert Ellsberg in All Saints.
The reform caused internal divisions over “contradictory orders given by the Apostolic Nuncio, the General of the Order and the general chapter.”
Disagreements between the Mitigated (Calced) and the Reformed (Discalced) Carmelites worsened in 1575. In January 1576 John was arrested in Medina del Campo by Carmelite friars and freed after the intervention of the Papal Nuncio.
With the death of Nuncio Omaneto in June 1577, the radical faction gained positions of power. Stripped of all his offices, John was taken prisoner on December 2, 1577.
Brought before the court in Toledo, the order’s most important monastery in Castile, he was accused of disobeying ordinances of Piacenza when he refused to renounce his reform projects.
Cross in many forms
He was imprisoned in a 10-by-6-foot, foul-smelling cell, bitterly cold in winter and unbearably warm in summer. He sustained on bread and water and few scraps of salted fish, and taken out for regular beatings, with scars he bore the rest of his life.
To read his breviary, he had to stand on a bench for light through a hole in an adjoining room.
For nine months the dark dungeon was his abode. It is in such a pitiful condition that his “spirit was humbled, softened and purified until it becomes so delicate, simple and refined that it can be one with the spirit of God,” according to Dark Night as cited by Fr. Norbert Cummins, OCD, in An Introduction to Saint John of the Cross.
He managed to escape nine months later through a small window in a room next to his cell.
In June 22, 1580, Pope Gregory XIII signed Pia Consideratione separating the Calced from the Discalced Carmelites.
John helped establish monasteries for the next five years. He was elected Provincial Vicar of Andalucia in May 1585.
After disagreeing with leadership changes in the Discalced Carmelite Order, he was removed by Fr. Nicolas Doria from his post in Segovia and was sent to a solitary monastery in southern Spain.
He fell ill caused by an ulcerous inflammation of the leg and was transferred to Ubeda for medical care.
Toward the end of his life a voice from the crucifix asked him what reward he wanted? His answer: “Endure sufferings, despised and counted as nothing,” recounted Enzo Lodi in Saints of the Roman Calendar.
His major works include the Dark Night, the Spiritual Canticle and The Living Flame of Love, and three love poems with commentaries. His minor works are the Sayings of Light and Love, Maxims of Love and Romances; and some Counsels on Perfection.
From his writings it can be surmised that he had offered himself entirely to God and has attained mystical experiences as gleaned in Stanza 27 of Spiritual Canticle: “There He gave me His breast. There He taught me a sweet and living knowledge.”
Saint John commented that giving one’s breast is extending love and friendship and revealing secrets to him as a friend.
He died at the age of 49 on December 14, 1591.
Beatified on January 25, 1675, by Pope Clement IX, he was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII on December 27, 1726, and declared Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XI on November 24, 1926.
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Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris College in Calauan, Laguna.
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons