April 30, 2023 - "Juan de Yepes"

Juan de Yepes was born in 1542 in a small village near Ávila in what is now Spain to Gonzalo de Yepes, an impoverished noblewoman and Catalina Alvarez, a humble silk worker.  Gonzalo was disinherited by his family for marrying (at least in the mind of his family) beneath his station in life.  Gonzalo also died when John was young.  That made life increasingly difficult for Catalina and her two sons Juan and Francisco.  When John was nine, the family moved to Medina del Campo, near Valladolid.  A few years later John studied at a recently founded Jesuit College at Medina del Campo.  When he finished the course of studies, he felt a call to religious life and entered the Carmelites in 1563 where he received as a religious name Juan de Santo Matía. 
 
John met St. Teresa of Ávila for the first time in 1567 shortly after he had been ordained a priest.  John had grow dissatisfied with the lax religious practice of the Carmelites and thought seriously of transferring to the Carthusians.  Teresa explained her vision of reforming Carmel that involved restoring the traditional practice of prayer and penance for which the order had been noted.  She suggested to John that he support the reforming efforts she was proposing instead of abandoning the Carmelites for another religious order.  John agreed to work for a reform of the Carmelites that followed the primitive Rule of the order.  Eventually the first male community was established on December 28, 1568 at Duruelo.  At that time John and three companions renewed their religious profession according to the primitive Rule of Carmel.  Each of the four took a new name and it was from this time that John called himself “of the Cross” (Juan de la Cruz).
 
At the end of 1572 Teresa requested that John become the confessor and vicar of the monastery at Ávila where she was serving as the prioress.  The next few years they collaborated closely on the reform of the Carmelites.  Promoting adherence to the Carmelite reform was a difficult task which cost John some acute suffering.  The most painful episode occurred in 1577 when he was seized and imprisoned by the Carmelite Convent of the Ancient Observance in Toledo, following an unjust accusation.  Imprisoned there for months, John suffered physical and moral deprivations and constrictions.  It was during this time that he composed the well-known Spiritual Canticle along with some other poems.  In the night between August 17-18, 1578, John made a daring escape and sought shelter at the Monastery of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns in Toledo.  St. Teresa and her reformed companions celebrated his liberation with great joy.  After spending some time recovering, he was assigned to Andalusia where he spent ten years in various convents, especially in Granada.
 
John served in ever more important offices in the order, until he became vicar provincial and completed the draft of his spiritual treatises.  He lived in the Carmel of Segovia, serving in the office of community superior.  In 1591 he was relieved of all responsibility and assigned to the new religious Province of Mexico.  While he was preparing for the long voyage with ten companions, he retired to a secluded convent in Jaén, where he fell seriously ill. The local superior there had been justly disciplined by John when John was serving in provincial administration.  For this reason, he resented John’s presence and added to his suffering. 
 
John’s patience and serenity in facing great suffering caused the superior to ask forgiveness for his ill treatment of John as he lay dying.  John died in the night between December 13 and 14, 1591.  John was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726 and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XI in 1925.
 
Toward the end of his Angelus address on St. John of the Cross asked if John of the Cross had anything to say to us as ordinary Christians or is he a model for only a few select souls who are able to undertake the journey of purification and asceticism that John lays out in his writings?  Pope Benedict reminds us that John lived a very hard life that was both practical and concrete both as a reformer of the Order in which he encountered much opposition and from the Provincial Superior as well as in his confreres’ prison where he was exposed to unbelievable insults and physical abuse. Pope Benedict makes this observation about John’s life and witness:
 
If a person bears great love in himself, this love gives him wings, as it were, and he can face all life’s troubles more easily because he bears in himself this great light; this is faith: being loved by God and letting oneself be loved by God in Jesus Christ.  Letting oneself be loved in this way is the light that helps us to bear our daily burden.
 
And holiness is not a very difficult action of ours but means exactly this “openness”: opening the windows of our soul to let in God’s light, without forgetting God, because it is precisely in opening oneself to his light that one finds strength, one finds the joy of the redeemed.
 
Let us pray [to] the Lord to help us discover this holiness, to let ourselves by loved by God who is our common vocation and the true redemption.
 
Until next week,
Fr. John