Born in Spain in 1542, John learned the importance of self-sacrificing love from his parents.  After his father died, John’s mother kept the destitute family together as they wandered homeless in search of work.  These were the examples of sacrifice that John followed with his own great love of God. 

John went hungry in the middle of Medina del Campo, the wealthiest city in Spain.  Yet, at age fourteen, he took a job caring for hospital patients who suffered from incurable diseases and madness.  It was out of this poverty and suffering that John learn to search for beauty and happiness not in the world, but in God.  

John became a Carmelite monk in 1563 and was ordained a priest in 1567.  Saint Teresa of Avila asked John of the Cross to help her with the reform movement.  John supported her belief that the order should return to its life of prayer.  But many Carmelites felt threatened by this reform, and members of John’s own order kidnapped him.  He was locked in a six-by-ten-foot cell and beaten three times a week by the monks.  There was only one tiny window high up near the ceiling.  In that unbearable cold, dark desolation, his love and faith were like fire and light.  He had nothing left but God — and God brought John his greatest joys in the tiny cell.  

After nine months, John escaped.  Taking only the mystical poetry he had written in his cell, he climbed out a window using a rope made of strips of blankets.  He hid from his pursuers in the convent infirmary, where he read his poetry to the nuns.  From then on John’s life was devoted to sharing and explaining his experience of God’s love.  

His life of poverty and persecution could have produced a bitter cynic.  Instead, it gave birth to a compassionate mystic, who lived by the belief “Where there is no love, put love — and you will find love.”

St. John of the Cross left us many writings of practical advice on spiritual growth and prayer that are just as relevant today as they were then.  These writings include Ascent of Mount Carmel, Dark Night of the Soul,  A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and The Bridegroom Christ.