) 
 
 
 
 
 
 l 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
NOTICE. 
 
 Iiie following Life of St. John of the Cross has 
 been compiled from that written by Fra Joseph of 
 Jesus and Mary, who entered the order of Carmel in 
 1595, three years after the death of the saint. Fra 
 Joseph was appointed annalist, and had access to 
 all the papers necessary for his work. But his 
 life of the saint was not regarded with favour by 
 his brethren, and the publication of it took place 
 without the sanction of his superiors, who after¬ 
 wards deprived him of his charge of annalist. The 
 truthfulness of the chronicler is not disputed, 
 though subsequent biographers of the saint correct 
 him occasionally as to names of persons and dates. 
 But these mistakes may have been made by those 
 who had the charge of the publication. 
 
 The great chronicle of the order, by Fra 
 Francis de Santa Maria, and the life by Fra 
 Jerome of St. Joseph, though not so full, are pro- 
 
IV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 bably more accurate. Of these the present writer 
 has made use, as well as of the Italian life, by the 
 Padre Marco di San Francesco of the order of 
 Carmel. This latter life is written with the 
 utmost care, and the author has taken pains to 
 ascertain the dates of the events he records. It is 
 a most reverent and clear history of the saint, and 
 would be probably regarded by most people as far 
 better than the more voluminous one of the French 
 Carmelite, Dosithee de Saint Alexis. 
 
 August 26, 1873. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 pa<jb 
 
 The Order of our Lady of Mount Carmel —St. Simon 
 Stock—The Mitigated Rule—St. Teresa—Maria de 
 Ocampo—The Prior-General of the Carmelites—The 
 reform of St. Teresa—Fra Antonio de Heredia—St. 
 Teresa in Medina del Campo—Fra John of St. Mathias 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Family of the Saint—Francis de Yepes—Poverty—Don 
 Alonso Alvarez—Juan de Yepes at school—his longing 
 for a religious life—enters the monastery of the Car¬ 
 melites—profession—is sent to Salamanca—ordained 
 priest—returns to Medina—intends to become a Car¬ 
 thusian ..13 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 St. John of the Cross persuaded by St. Teresa to become 
 a friar of her reform—Duruelo—St. John of the Cross 
 in Valladolid—goes to Duruelo . . . . . 36 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The saint in Duruelo—Beginning of the reform of the 
 friars—Change of names—Life in Duruelo—St. Teresa 
 visits the friars—Monastery of Pastrana—Fra Balta- 
 sar of Jesus—The friars remove from Duruelo to Man- 
 zera—Novices of the saint—St. John goes to Pastrana 
 —to Alcala de Henares—Fra Pedro Fernandez—Fra 
 Angel of St. Gabriel—Fra Dominic Banes—Francis 
 de Yepes ........ 43 
 
 a 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 St. Teresa sends for St. John of the Cross to Avila—Re¬ 
 formation of the monastery—Illness of a nun—Trances 
 —Exorcisms—A learned nun—Conversion of sinners— 
 
 The saint goes to Segovia.65 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The friars of the mitigation—Fra Jerome Tostado—Chap¬ 
 ter of the mitigation—Decrees against the reform—Fra 
 Jerome of the Mother of God—Chapter of Almodovar 
 •—Death of the Nuncio—Troubles in the monastery of 
 the Incarnation—St. John of the Cross made a prisoner 80 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Trial—Imprisonment—Hardships of the prison—Adonde 
 Te escondiste—Light in the cell—Vision of our Lady 
 —Preparations for escape . . . . .92 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The escape—Dangers—The saint takes refuge in the 
 Monastery of St. Joseph — Don Pedro Gonzalez de 
 Mendoza . . . .. . . . . .101 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Troubles in the Order—Chapter of Almodovar—St. John * 
 of the Cross made Vicar of Mount Calvary—visits Veae 
 —reforms the monastery—Mendicancy—Poverty — 
 Writes on mystical theology.112 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Foundation of Baeza—Poverty of the house—Miraculous 
 succours—The saint at Mass ..... 129 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Peace restored to the order—Election of Fra J erome—The 
 saint returns to Baeza from the chapter—made Prior 
 of Granada—his visits of ceremony—discourages beg¬ 
 ging—his charity.141 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 vn 
 
 CHAPTER, XII. 
 
 _ PAGE 
 
 Anne of Jesus—The saint founds a house m Granada—is 
 insulted in the street—watches over the novices under 
 Anne of Jesus. 154 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Troubles in the order—Fra Nicolas of Jesus Maria—Chap¬ 
 ter of Almodovar—The saint opposes foreign missions 
 —Famine—Writings of the saint—Foundation in Ma¬ 
 laga—Restoration of a nun to health—Mary of Christ. 161 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The saint in the chapter of Lisbon—Election of a new pro¬ 
 vincial—Prophecy of the saint—Mary of the Visitation 
 —The saint made vicar of Andalucia—corrects certain 
 abuses. 171 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Foundation in Segovia—The saint in Caravaca—visits Pen- 
 uela—founds a monastery in Cordova—visits Seville— 
 Miraculous escape—Fra Martin and the novices—Anne 
 of Jesus goes to Madrid—Bujalance—Caravaca . . 181 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Miraculous light—The chapter of Valladolid—Election of 
 the saint to be prior of Granada—Picture of the saint— 
 Foretells the canonisation of St. Teresa—Fra Jerome 
 of the Mother of God—Division of the province—The 
 saint elected prior of Segovia ..... 196 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The first general chapter of the reform—St. John of the 
 Cross prior of Segovia—Fra Nicolas—The discontented 
 friar—The disobedient preacher—Francis de Urena— 
 Death of Catherine Alvarez—Austerities and prayer of 
 the saint 202 
 
Ylll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XYIII. 
 
 TAGE 
 
 Discontent of the nnns—Resolution of the friars—Fra Luis 
 de Leon—Royal interference—St. John of the Cross 
 neglected by his brethren—retii*es to Penuela—illness 
 —goes to Ubeda.216 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A great cross—Illness of the saint— Harshness of the prior 
 of Ubeda—Visit of Fra Antonio .... 230 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Fra Antonio visits the saint—The prior relents—Doha 
 Clara de Benavides—Ines and Catherine de Salazar . 242 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The approach of death—The saint’s humility—Fra Anto¬ 
 nio’s visit—The last sacraments—Death . . . 250 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The funeral—Sermon—Incorruption of the body—removal 
 of it to Madrid and Segovia—contest for the possession 
 of it—Canonisation ....... 258 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Order of otir Lady of Mount Carmel — St. Simon 
 Stock—The Mitigated Rule—St. Teresa—Maria de 
 Ocampo—The Prior-General of the Carmelites—The 
 reform of St. Teresa—Fra Antonio de Heredia—St. 
 Teresa in Medina del Campo — Fra John of St. 
 Mathias. 
 
 The Order of our Lady of Mount Carmel had its 
 beginnings in the East, where, for many genera¬ 
 tions, it grew and flourished, unknown to the 
 dwellers in the West. From the day of the great 
 prophets Elias and Eliseus—so runs the venerable 
 tradition of Carmel—the holy mountain was peo¬ 
 pled by hermits who, by a life of prayer and 
 penance, according to their measure, shadowed 
 forth, from generation to generation, under the 
 old law, the greater graces of the new. Some of 
 those hermits, hearing the voice of the Baptist 
 crying in the wilderness, were thereby made ready 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. ' 
 
 for the coming of our Lord; and again in Jerusa- 
 lem, on the great day of Pentecost, hearing the 
 blessed Apostles proclaim the new law, were con¬ 
 verted to the faith of Christ. On their return to 
 the holy mountain, they raised an oratory in 
 Carmel to the honour of our Lady whom they had 
 seen in Jerusalem, in the very place where Elias 
 stood when he saw the little cloud coming up 
 from the sea, bringing with it the long-desired 
 rain w T hich God had so long withheld from the 
 earth. 
 
 In the beginning of the thirteenth century the 
 Brethren of Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel began 
 to be heard of in Europe. The troubles in the 
 Holy Land, and the growing weakness of the Cru¬ 
 saders, as well as the growing strength of the 
 infidels, forced some of them to depart from 
 Carmel of the Sea, and to seek a refuge in more 
 quiet lands. Among these was Balph Freeborn, 
 a Northumbrian by birth, who had gone to Pales¬ 
 tine as a soldier of the cross to fight the Saracens, 
 and who, in Carmel, had laid aside the armour of 
 earthly warfare for the peaceful habit of the friar. 
 He returned to Europe with one of his brethren, 
 in the company, and under the protection, of two 
 ’Englishmen, Lord Yesci and Lord Grey of Codnor. 
 The former gave him land for a monastery, near 
 Alnwick, where, in the year 1240, he founded the 
 Priory of Hulne. Lord Grey gave land in Kent 
 for the same purpose, and there the Priory of 
 Aylesford was built at the same time. In the 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 3 
 
 latter house, five years afterwards (a.d. 1245), the 
 first chapter of the Carmelites in Europe was 
 held, memorable for the election of St. Simon 
 Stock as Prior-General of the whole order.* The 
 friars multiplied in England, and passed over into 
 Ireland; hut it does not appear that they ever had 
 a house in Scotland. 
 
 Aimeri of Limoges, Patriarch of Antioch in the 
 twelfth century, is said to have brought the hermits 
 of Carmel together under the government of one 
 superior, and to have given them a rule of life. 
 Under Brocardo*, the second prior, that rule was 
 either laid aside for another, given by Albert of 
 Parma, Patriarch of Jerusalem, or was by that 
 Patriarch modified, during the pontificate of In¬ 
 nocent III. 
 
 The'rule given by Albert of Parma to the friars 
 who dwelt by the well of Elias was confirmed by 
 Honorius III. in the year of our Lord 1226; hut 
 when the friars settled in Europe, the rule given 
 to hermits on Mount Carmel, whose life was a life 
 of contemplation, became difficult to keep. Two 
 friars were therefore sent to the Holy See—proba¬ 
 bly by the general chapter of Aylesford, in 1245— 
 to beg for directions. In 1248 Innocent IY. con¬ 
 firmed the rule anew, hut with certain corrections 
 and modifications; and commanded the friars to * 
 observe it. The observance of the mitigated rule 
 in the course of time became a heavier burden than 
 the friars were able to carry. They therefore sub- 
 * Iteyner, Apostolat. Ben. p. 164. 
 
4 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 mitted the rule again to the correction of the Holy 
 See; and Eugenius IV., in 1482, at their request, 
 and in consideration of human weakness, mitigated 
 the severities thereof. From that time forth the 
 friars were allowed to eat flesh, and to be out of 
 their cells, hut still within the enclosure. The 
 fast from September 14 to Easter in the following 
 year was dispensed with, and the friars were hound 
 to fast only in Advent and Lent, and on the other 
 days observed in the Church. Other mitigations 
 were afterwards made, which were sanctioned by 
 Pius II. in 1459, and by Sixtus IY. in 1476. 
 The rule was perhaps not severe now, hut the ob¬ 
 servance of it was no doubt exact, and the friars 
 had the sanction of the Holy See. 
 
 It was under this rule that the Carmelites, in . 
 Spain and elsewhere, lived when St. Teresa made 
 her profession in the Monastery of the Incarnation 
 in Avila. She by degrees, as she was raised to 
 higher states of prayer, longed for a stricter way of 
 life, that she might become a more perfect sacri¬ 
 fice to our Lord, and do something for the honour 
 of God, and win more souls to His service. She 
 heard, too, of the outbreak of heresy and of the 
 flood of false opinions which had covered the earth, 
 and in her silence her soul took fire. 
 
 In her monastery at Avila, it was difficult 
 for her to be much alone, for enclosure was not 
 very rigidly observed; moreover, her superiors 
 sent her from timo to time to the houses of 
 people living in the world. This was a sore 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 5 
 
 distress to the saint, for she wished to keep her 
 rule with great strictness, knowing as she did that 
 her first duty was to follow her vocation.* Besides, 
 such strictness as she longed for was not possible 
 in that house, for there were more than a hun¬ 
 dred and fifty nuns in it, all of whom could not 
 be compelled to lead a severe life, because their 
 profession bound them only to the mitigated 
 rule. 
 
 The saint knew, indeed, that the rule, though 
 not observed anywhere in its original strictness, 
 but according to the custom of the order, sanc¬ 
 tioned by the Pope, was a safe way of salvation. 
 Nevertheless she longed to do more than she was 
 bound to do by the rule under which she was liv¬ 
 ing ; and, while pondering the matter in her heart, 
 prepared others to enter with her upon her great 
 work of travelling by the strait path for which 
 the few are chosen. 
 
 One day in her cell, when, the difficulties of a 
 life of prayer and retirement in the Monastery of 
 the Incarnation were spoken of, her niece, Maria 
 de Ocampo, not then a religious, in the simplicity 
 and sincerity of innocent childhood, said that if 
 they who were talking of such high things wished to 
 imitate in earnest the barefooted nuns of St. Fran¬ 
 cis, means might be found for the foundation of a 
 monastery, and she herself would give a thousand 
 ducats for that purpose. Maria de Ocampo was a 
 child, and hitherto had not shown any wish to be 
 
 * Life, c. xxxii. § 2. 
 
6 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 a nun; on the contrary, she was fond of dress, and 
 such amusements as she could find—honest, how¬ 
 ever, and true. But that generous offer to help 
 others to serve God better received the hundred¬ 
 fold reward at once. Many years afterwards, 
 being then a nun, she wrote thus at the com¬ 
 mandment of her confessor : * The instant I made 
 the offer of a thousand ducats for the foundation 
 of a monastery, I had a vision of our Lord bound 
 to the pillar—a most piteous and distressing 
 sight. He thanked me for that alms and for my 
 goodwill towards the foundation, as it was the 
 first, and told me how greatly it would be to His 
 honour. That vision was to me an exceeding joy, 
 and I was so moved by it, that I made up my 
 mind there and then to take the habit myself; and 
 did so within six months after the foundation of 
 St. Joseph.’* 
 
 St. Teresa’s heart w r as filled with gladness 
 when she heard her niece make the offer; so she 
 began to commend the matter to our Lord, and to 
 take counsel of holy people. The issue was the 
 foundation in 1562, about two years later, of the 
 first monastery of the Barefooted Nuns of Carmel 
 in the house of St. Joseph, in the city and diocese 
 of Avila, in the kingdom of Old Castille, and 
 under the jurisdiction of the bishop, Don Alvaro 
 de Mendoza. 
 
 When the first house of the reform w r as 
 founded, St. Teresa saw that only half of her 
 T ' Reforma de los Descalqos, lib. i. e. 35, § 7 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 7 
 
 work was done. It was not enough to have the 
 primitive rule observed by nuns, friars also must 
 be found to observe it, for the better direction of 
 those nuns. The need of friars had been felt from 
 the very beginning; for when St. Peter of Alcan¬ 
 tara, told his penitent Isabel de Ortega—after¬ 
 wards Isabel of St. Dominic—that she was called 
 to the new Carmel of St. Teresa, she replied that 
 she would not belong to the new foundation, be¬ 
 cause there were no friars observing the same rule 
 from whom she could receive such help as she 
 might require in the spirit of her vocation. Her 
 confessor bade her be at ease, the friars would be 
 found, and the reform about to be begun by St. 
 Teresa would not be confined to nuns. Some five 
 years afterwards, Sister Isabel made her profes¬ 
 sion in St. Joseph’s, but the friars of the reform 
 had not yet come. The Father-General of the order 
 came to Spain in 1566, and the next year visited 
 St. Teresa in her new monastery; the house was 
 subject to the bishop of the diocese, and its 
 foundress had been withdrawn, but without her 
 own knowledge and consent, from the jurisdiction 
 of the General, to the great grief of them both. 
 The General was a saintly man, and did not wish 
 to lose St. Teresa, so he readmitted her into the 
 order; he allowed her, however, to remain in the 
 house of St. Joseph, and to found more monasteries 
 of nuns in which the primitive rule should be 
 kept in all its austerity. 
 
 That was not what she wanted; she wished 
 
8 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 to see friars living under the same rule. The 
 General thought he could not help her, because 
 of the opposition in the province; the friars were 
 wedded to their customs, and disliked change. 
 Her friends went to the General on her behalf, 
 hut they could not prevail; at last she wrote to 
 him herself imploring him to give his consent. 
 He was moved by her entreaties, and gave her 
 authority to found two monasteries of friars, hut 
 within the province of Castille only. 
 
 It is believed that more than one attempt had 
 been made before to restore the observance of the 
 primitive rule; be that as it may, it is certain 
 that at this time there was not a monastery be¬ 
 longing to the order which was not under the 
 mitigated rule sanctioned by Eugenius IV. The 
 decree made at the instance of Clement VII., in 
 1524, for the establishment of one house in each 
 province wherein the primitive rule should be 
 kept, was never executed.* But it is not to 
 be supposed, however, that the order was there¬ 
 fore corrupt, or that its members were not edifying 
 and devout men; the friars kept their rule, and it 
 was very natural that their strict observance of a 
 rule, though less severe than the one laid aside, 
 should seem to them a good reason for persever¬ 
 ing under the discipline which was in force when 
 they were admitted to make their religious pro¬ 
 fession in Carmel. 
 
 The new foundations sanctioned by the General 
 ° Reforma cle los Descalgos, i. p. 107. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 9 
 
 were to be known as monasteries of Contemplative 
 Carmelites, living according to the old constitu¬ 
 tions of the order under the obedience of the 
 General. 'Though the friars were to spend their 
 time chiefly in saying Mass, in singing the divine 
 office, and in mental prayer, they were, neverthe¬ 
 less, to serve their neighbours in their necessities 
 whenever the occasion for doing so offered itself 
 to them. Their wish was to advance onwards 
 themselves in the way of perfection as Carmelites 
 by the observance of the primitive rule, renouncing 
 the mitigations vhich, in consideration of human 
 weakness, the Sovereign Pontiffs had allowed. 
 
 But St. Teresa, though greatly rejoicing in 
 the goodwill of the General, w r as very far, so 
 it seemed to her, from even a beginning of her 
 work. She did not know of one man in the whole 
 world who would accept the primitive rule. The 
 friars of her order were very few in the province, 
 and among them she saw no signs of better things, 
 yet she did not give up her plan, and was con¬ 
 fident that our Lord would come to her help in 
 due time. 
 
 Her first monastery of nuns was founded in 
 15G2, and now in 1567—at the very time she 
 received the General’s permission to found.the two 
 houses— she was in Medina del Campo, making 
 the second foundation of her reform. She was 
 there from the vigil of the Assumption to the end 
 of October, busy with her own immediate work in 
 her own monastery, but not forgetting that which 
 
10 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 was also hers, and which seemed so hopeless. 
 
 ‘ While staying there,’ she wrote in her Founda¬ 
 tions * ‘ I was always thinking of monasteries of 
 friars; hnt as I had not one friar to begin with, I 
 did not know what to do.’ In her straits she re¬ 
 solved to speak to Fra Antonio de Heredia, the 
 Prior of the Carmelites in Medina, in the house 
 of St. Anne, founded a few years before — in 
 1560. 
 
 Fra Antonio de Heredia had not been long in 
 Medina—he had been made prior in the chapter 
 held this year in Avila—but St. Teresa knew him 
 when he was prior of the Carmelites in Avila. 
 She had made known to him her wishes and 
 desires about houses of friars under the primi¬ 
 tive rule, even before the General of the Order had 
 come to Spain. When she spoke to him now on 
 the same subject, her plans were more definite, 
 and she had leave to do what she could formerly 
 only wish for. Fra Ant.onio at once promised to 
 make a beginning himself. St. Teresa thought 
 he was jesting and told him so, but the prior was 
 in earnest, and told her that God was calling him 
 to a stricter life, and that he had intended to leave 
 the order and become a Carthusian. 
 
 Fra Antonio was horn in the year 1510, five 
 years before St. Teresa, in Eequena of New Cas- 
 tille, and his mother was of the family of St. 
 Vincent Ferrer. He became a friar when only ten 
 years of age, and in his twenty-third year was or- 
 
 * Ch. iii. § 15. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 11 
 
 dained priest. A true friar, simple and obedient, 
 but of a delicate constitution, unused to austerities; 
 so the saint not unreasonably had some doubts 
 about his litness. On the other hand, he was a 
 man of great weight in his order, and respected by 
 seculars for his noble birth, his great prudence, and 
 long experience. 
 
 St. Teresa, nevertheless, did not think him 
 fitted for the work; she required greater gifts than 
 she was able to trace in Fra Antonio, and retained 
 her doubts. His goodwill, however, pleased her. 
 She would not refuse him, and asked him to wait 
 for a year; meanwhile he was to live in his mon¬ 
 astery, as far as it should be possible for him, in 
 the practice of those observances which were de¬ 
 manded by the primitive rule. Fra Antonio ac¬ 
 cepted the conditions and the counsel, gave him¬ 
 self up to a more severe life, and endured much 
 contradiction from his brethren, for they preferred 
 the customs of the mitigation. 
 
 Soon alter this, and before she had left Medina 
 del Campo, Fra Pedro Orozco, a grave and learned 
 friar, one of those whom St. Teresa always saw 
 with pleasure, called upon her, and in the course 
 of the conversation told her of a young friar who 
 had just been made a priest, but who wished for 
 a more recollected life than that of the order. The 
 account of his recollection, his humility, his devo¬ 
 tion, and his gravity beyond his years, struck St. 
 Teresa; so she begged him to send that friar to her. 
 She saw that this was the man whom God had 
 
12 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 raised up to be tire foundation of her reform and 
 the model of the new Carmel. Fra Pedro pro¬ 
 mised to send him, and St. Teresa betook herself 
 to her prayers. She spent that night in earnest 
 supplications unto our Lord to send her the young 
 friar for the work that He had given her to do. It 
 was the prayer of Rachel, ‘ Children, or I die.’ 
 
 Fra Pedro had some difficulty in persuading 
 the friar to visit St. Teresa, but he prevailed in the* 
 end, and the next day the visit was unwillingly 
 made. Then St. Teresa saw for the first time the 
 great saint and doctor of Carmel, the poor friar, 
 John of the Cross. 
 
CHAPTEB II. 
 
 Family of tlie Saint—Francis do Yepes—Poverty—Don 
 Alonso Alvarez—Juan de Yepes at school—his long- 
 lng lor a religious life—enters the monastery of the 
 Carmelites —profession —is sent to Salamanca— or¬ 
 dained priest—returns to Medina—intends to become 
 a Carthusian. 
 
 St. John of the Cross was born in the year 1542, 
 in Jlontiveros, once a flourishing city, but then 
 fallen into decay, in Old Castille, within the dio¬ 
 cese of Avila, the birthplace of St. Teresa. His 
 father, Gonzalo de Yepes, of an ancient and hon¬ 
 ourable family, and his mother, Catherine Alvarez, 
 a poor orphan, were both natives of Toledo. Cathe¬ 
 rine had been brought up by a devout widow, also 
 horn Toledo, who had come to Hontiveros, where 
 she gave herself up to good works. She watched 
 carefully and tenderly over the friendless orphan, 
 whom she nurtured in the fear of God and in the 
 piactice of true devotion. Ther child grew up ac¬ 
 cording to her education, and to her natural beauty, 
 which was very -great, God was pleased to add 
 the more winning beauty of modesty and grace. 
 
 Don Gonzalo had been brought up by an uncle, 
 
11 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 a merchant in Toledo, who sent him from time to 
 time, on the business of the house, to Medina del 
 Campo, where traders assembled from all parts of 
 Europe. On his way to Medina, Don Gonzalo 
 was in the habit of lodging in Hontiveros, in the 
 house of the widow from Toledo—with whom, per¬ 
 haps, he was already acquainted—w 7 ho had taken 
 under her motherly charge the friendless orphan, 
 Catherine Alvarez. 
 
 The nephew of the wealthy merchant, without 
 consulting his family, or even speaking to any of 
 his kindred, made Catherine Alvarez his wife. 
 Thereupon his relatives, indignant, disowned him, 
 and his uncle abandoned him to the poverty he 
 had courted—for they regarded the marriage as 
 unseemly ; and from that clay forth Don Gonzalo 
 was a stranger to his brethren and an outcast, for 
 he had brought disgrace into an honourable house. 
 
 Don Gonzalo w r as now as poor as his wife, both 
 being utterly destitute, but the keener pangs of 
 poverty were not felt so long as the widow lived. 
 Don Gonzalo, on his part, made efforts to gain 
 his bread by silk-weaving, learning the art from 
 his wife, but his gains were scanty, and poverty 
 came in as an armed man that could not be kept 
 at bay, and his days henceforward were days of 
 penury and toil, unrelieved by a single gleam of 
 worldly prosperity. Three children w r ere born to 
 him, Francis, Lewis, and John; the second died 
 in his infancy, but the others grew up to shed a 
 glory on the family of the De Yepes that disowned 
 
15 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 their father, which no other member of it had 
 done. 
 
 Francis, the eldest, was horn in 1530, and 
 John, the youngest, in 1542. When the charit¬ 
 able widow died, the succour they had received in 
 their poverty ceased, and at last Don Gonzalo fell 
 ill. . He lingered on for two years and then died, 
 having led a good and pious life, and borne his 
 tiiais in humility and patience, conforming him¬ 
 self to the will of God, leaving to his children the 
 sole inheritance of an unsullied name. The widow 
 was destitute and had three children to maintain. 
 In her great straits she went, by the advice of her 
 neighbours, to implore help from her husband’s 
 family ; perhaps the brothers still living, they 
 said, would forgive the dead, and be generous to 
 her and to her helpless children. She hoped it 
 might be so, and travelled amidst great hardships 
 and difficulties to Torrijos, where a brother of Don 
 Gonzalo was staying at the time. He was an arch- 
 'deacon, a member of the great chapter of Toledo, 
 and probably not poor. She spoke to him of her 
 own poverty, and begged him to take one of his 
 nephews into his house. The archdeacon could 
 not help her; the children w r ere too young; and 
 
 with that excuse the poor widow had to go her w r ay 
 sorrowing. 
 
 In gieat distress of mind and body, she went 
 now to Galves, about twenty miles from Toledo, 
 where another brother was living. That brother 
 w r as a physician and a charitable man, most ready 
 
16 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 at all times to help all around him. He received 
 with the utmost kindness the widow of his brother, 
 and undertook the charge of Francis, the eldest 
 boy, promising to educate him and finally to make 
 him his heir; he had no children himself. He 
 had made a promise, however, which he could not 
 keep ; but the poor widow did not know 7 it, and left 
 her boy in his house. The physician was neces- , 
 sariiy much from home, and his wife was not, so it 
 appeared, a woman to be trusted with the children 
 of others. She kept the boy at home instead of 
 sending him to school, made him her servant in 
 many ways, and treated him with great unkind¬ 
 ness. Not only w 7 as he not sent to school, but his 
 education was neglected, and he had to bear not 
 with ill-treatment only, but with scanty food and 
 scanty raiment. His mother had returned to Hon- 
 tiveros, where she laboured to earn bread for her¬ 
 self and the two children, the youngest, John, 
 still an infant. For a'whole year she knew nothing 
 of her eldest son, Francis, and, being uneasy about 
 him, resolved at last to make another journey to 
 Halves, that she might see her child with her own 
 eyes. The poor woman knew 7 nothing of the hard¬ 
 ships he had to bear; they w r ere certainly not 
 lighter than the poverty of his mother’s house, and 
 never relieved by the sunshine of^the mother’s 
 love. The boy told her, with tears in his eyes, of 
 the treatment he received; perhaps he could not 
 have hidden it from her; and she made up her 
 mind to take him home, though the uncle, who, 
 
17 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CEOSS. 
 
 until that day, knew nothing of it, promised to 
 w ateh over him for the future if his mother would 
 let him remain. Catherine Alvarez would not 
 leave her child there to suffer out of her sight; her 
 own poverty was for her a lighter burden to carry 
 than the ili-treatment of the unfeeling aunt. The 
 mother and the child returned to Hontiveros, 
 perhaps receiving alms on the way; and then, like 
 Anna, the mother of Tobias, Catherine Alvarez 
 went ‘ daily to her weaving work, and brought home 
 what she could get for their living by the labour of 
 her hands.* 
 
 Notwithstanding her poverty she sent the chil¬ 
 dren to school; but as the progress of Francis in 
 human learning was not great, she made him a 
 weaver, as his father had been, giving him thereby 
 tile means of earning his bread. Francis never 
 changed his occupation; it was to him the work 
 foi which he was fitted j and he lived all his days 
 contentedly in his lowly condition, poor and some¬ 
 times even in want. From Hontiveros, Catherine 
 removed with her children to Arevalo, where Francis 
 married Anne Izquierda, and then soon after, in 
 1551, the poor household removed to Medina del 
 Campo; the second son, Lewis, being dead, God 
 having taken him to Himself in the bloom of his 
 innocence and his youth. 
 
 Francis was hardly two-ancf-twenty years old 
 when he came to Medina, but he was an old man 
 in graca and goodness, given to mortification and 
 to prayer. Though he had made no progress what- 
 
18 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CEOSS. 
 
 ever in human learning, and perhaps never knew 
 how to read, yet God had given him a learning 
 which no human skill can compass. In Arevalo 
 he had begun a life of solid devotion, under the 
 direction of a holy priest, who made him confess 
 and communicate once a week. In those days 
 that was not usual, for even St. Teresa, in a con¬ 
 vent, was recommended to communicate only once 
 in a fortnight.* He continued that practice for 
 many years, until another confessor bade him 
 receive our . Lord more frequently. It was his 
 custom from that time forth all his life, in 
 summer, to go, like Isaac, to the fields at night¬ 
 fall to make his prayer in some retired spot, 
 where he would make himself a place like a tomb, 
 and then lie down with his face heavenwards, 
 and his arms stretched out as if he w r ere on the 
 cross. The time he spent in prayer varied, ac¬ 
 cording to the communications which God made 
 to him, and not according to any rule which he 
 had laid down for himself. In winter he retired 
 into some church at nightfall, and, when unwell 
 or unable to go out, he withdrew into some lonely 
 place in his own house, never dispensing himself, 
 but praying always without ceasing. This was 
 his habit all his life, and for this God visited him 
 in visions, revelations, trances, and divine locu¬ 
 tions, but never in the wealth of this world. He 
 was nurtured in poverty and humility, and his 
 old age was like his manhood and his youth. He 
 
 * Life, c. \ii. § 27. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOIIN OF THE CEOSS. 19 
 
 had eight children, but all of them died in their 
 infancy but one, who became a Cistercian nun in 
 the Monastery of the Holy Ghost in Olmedo. 
 Francis de Yepes outlived his younger brother, 
 and died at midnight on Friday, the Feast of St. 
 Andrew, 1607 ; and then the whole city of Medina 
 del Campo was moved, for he had been regarded 
 as a saint who had wrought miracles, and had the 
 gift of prophecy. The canons of the church— 
 lour religious orders—came to his poor house, 
 to bring him, w T ho had been one of the poorest 
 men in the city, to the church of St. Anne. He 
 was borne by the friars of Carmel and the canons, 
 the latter doing for the poor weaver what they 
 would not have done for the greatest personage in 
 all Spain. 
 
 Catherine Alvarez, living in the house of her 
 eldest son, had in Medina but one child to nur¬ 
 ture, her youngest-born, John. She brought him 
 up as she brought up his elder brother, tenderly 
 in the fear of God, and he, like his brother, made 
 the same return to her for her motherly care. The 
 child was w r ise above his years, gentle and recol¬ 
 lected, obedient to his mother, and winning in his 
 ways. Signs of the sanctity afterwards to be at¬ 
 tained to and revealed unto men were not wanting 
 even at this time. 
 
 One day the boy was playing with other 
 children close by a pool, and fell in. The water 
 was deep and muddy, and it was hardly possible 
 for a child such as he was to escape with his life 
 
20 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 The children who saw him fall conlcl do nothing 
 hut cry for the help which they could not give. 
 He sank beneath the waters, and for an instant 
 was out of sight; but he rose quickly to the 
 surface, and never sank again. He showed no 
 signs of fear ; nor did he cry for help. A lady of 
 wondrous beauty held out her hand to him; he 
 would not take it, because his own was not clean.. 
 At last a man came by who, holding out a rod, 
 drew the child therewith safe to the bank, and 
 went his way, none of the children knowing wiio 
 he was. 
 
 On another occasion, about tw T o years after¬ 
 wards, as he, with his mother and his elder bro¬ 
 ther, w’ere about to enter Medina del Campo, a 
 wild beast came forth to attack him, whereupon 
 he, being barely.seven years old, made the sign of 
 the cross, and w T as saved. He showed no signs 
 of fear, so great w 7 as his trust in God. 
 
 In Medina del Campo he attended the school 
 for the children of the poor. The boy was at¬ 
 tentive, and above all attentive to the religious 
 exercises practised therein. At the same time he 
 used to go early in the morning to the Monastery 
 of St. Mary Magdalene of the Angustinian nuns, 
 and there serve Mass as often as he could, which 
 he did with such recollection and devotion as to 
 attract the notice of those who w r ere present, and 
 move them to greater earnestness in the service 
 of God. When he w r as thirteen years of age his 
 mother had him apprenticed, but the boy who 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 21 
 
 was so quick and intelligent at school was too 
 dull to learn a trade ; he was tried in many ways, 
 but he could not be taught, nor had he the 
 power of learning anything whatever. It was 
 time wasted, for God had other work for him. 
 
 The great Hospital of the Conception in Me¬ 
 dina del Campo was at this time administered by 
 a gentleman from Toledo, Don Alonso Alvarez, 
 
 • who, weary of the world and without a vocation to 
 the priesthood, devoted himself to the service of 
 the poor and the sick, by taking on himself the 
 charge of the hospital of Medina. Having heard 
 cf Juan de Yepes, and his hopeless struggles to 
 earn bread for himself and his mother, he went 
 to Catherine Alvarez, and offered to take the boy 
 into his service in the hospital, promising at the 
 same time to allow him to attend school. The 
 offer w T as gladly accepted both by mother and son, 
 and Juan de Yepes became the servant of the poor 
 in the public hospital of the town. 
 
 Very soon after he had begun to serve the 
 poor, being in the courtyard of the hospital, he 
 tell into the well, which w T as uncovered. The 
 people who saw him cried aloud, thinking it was 
 impossible to save him, for the well w T as deep and 
 the water abundant. The people in the neigh¬ 
 bourhood heard the noise, and rushed in. On 
 looking into the well they saw the boy on the 
 surface of the water, calm and unhurt. Having 
 drawn him up by a rope, they asked him how it 
 all happened, upon which he, with great simplicity, 
 
22 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 told them that a lady of great beauty had received 
 him in her arms as he was falling, and sustained 
 him till they let down the rope by which he was 
 rescued. The people wondered, and regarded the 
 boy as one whom God was preserving for great 
 deeds. 
 
 Poor himself, horn and nurtured in ‘poverty, 
 and knowing nothing but poverty-—poverty was. 
 the high estate to which God had called him—he 
 waited humbly on the poor and the sick, tending 
 them carefully, and showing no signs of impa¬ 
 tience or disgust. The boy was wise above his 
 years, and saw in the poor whom he served the 
 sacred person of our most Blessed Lord. 
 
 Don Alonso, the administrator of the hospital, 
 kept his promise faithfully, for he sent him to 
 school, where he could continue to learn what he 
 had begun, but had not been able to do so because 
 of the poverty of his mother. In the year 1551, 
 the year Catherine Alvarez came to Medina, the 
 Society of Jesus had opened a great school—it 
 was the first they established in Spain—and to 
 this school, by the kindness of Don Alonso, Juan 
 de Yepes was sent daily from the Hospital of the 
 Conception. 
 
 The college of Ihe Society was not a school of 
 idle men; the teachers were in earnest, and breathed 
 that earnestness into the hearts of those who came 
 to them for the learning which they could furnish. 
 Juan was neither idle nor dull, and made great 
 progress in the school, which he frequented for 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 28 
 
 about seven years. It is recorded of him that he 
 was very careful in the study of all those questions 
 which are raised about the soul and its powers, 
 and that the fruit of his labours may be traced in 
 his mystical theology, where without effort, as it 
 seems, the very gravest questions are most clearly 
 discussed and most wonderfully solved. 
 
 It seems to be admitted that Juan de Yepes, 
 young as he was, knew the worth of the learning 
 which the fathers taught him, discerning from the 
 first the use to what it might be put. The lec¬ 
 tures of the professors on the soul and its powers 
 seemed to him the road to a great goal, which he 
 hoped to reach. They showed him how to pray, 
 and how to describe the different states of prayer. 
 His life at this time was more a life of prayer than 
 a life of study, and he made everything subserve 
 his one purpose—the doing in the best way the 
 work of God which he had to do. 
 
 In the hospital he w r as the humble and labori¬ 
 ous servant of the poor all the time; no duty was 
 neglected, no service carelessly rendered. When 
 his work in the house was done, he then, and not 
 before, betook himself to prayer and his books. 
 Besides, he led a most penitential life; for when he 
 was only nine years of age his mother discovered 
 that he had begun to treat his body with severity, 
 but she was too wise a woman to meddle with the 
 child’s devotion. He would sleep on the floor of 
 his poor room with a bundle of fagots for a pil¬ 
 low. In the hospital he redoubled his austerities, 
 
24 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 and was a cruel master to tlie fragile body which 
 
 O ts 
 
 God bad given to so heroic a soul, robbing it of 
 sleep and the necessary rest. 
 
 He had been twice saved from the peril of 
 death by onr Blessed Lady, and to her he was ex¬ 
 tremely devout. He said her Bosary daily on his 
 knees together with the Little Office, and confessed 
 her glory and her greatness on all possible occa¬ 
 sions, knowing in his earlier years that he could 
 not follow our Lord without honouring His Mother, 
 whom He had so highly honoured Himself. 
 
 Hon Alonso Alvarez hoped that Juan de 
 Yepes would in due time accept a benefice, the 
 patronage of which was in his hands, and receive 
 holy orders ; that done, he hoped to prevail upon 
 him to become the chaplain of the hospital, and 
 take the charge and government of it into his own 
 hands. The poor mother knew of the good in¬ 
 tentions of Hon Alonso, and she might well be for¬ 
 given if she entered gladly into such a scheme. 
 But it was not to be; Juan de Y r epes in his hu¬ 
 mility shrunk back from the priesthood, and the 
 oilers of Hon Alonso w 7 ere thankfully and resolutely 
 declined. 
 
 The school and the hospital occupied all his 
 time, for he carefully avoided all the pastimes in 
 which young men of his years indulged. If he 
 was not wanted in the school or the hospital, he 
 was in church or in some secret place in prayer. 
 
 When he had reached his twentieth year he 
 began to think of his state, and of the way in 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 25 
 
 which he was to serve God for the rest of his days. 
 He had no -wish or will of his own; all he desired 
 was to serve our Lord, hut he knew not how. He 
 redoubled his importunities in prayer and earnestly 
 begged for light and guidance, resigning himself 
 without reserve into the hands of God, whose 
 absolute power and unquestionable right over him 
 he never thought of doubting. One day when he 
 was in prayer begging for light and commending 
 his future life to our Lord, he heard a voice and 
 he also heard words—they sounded to him so 
 strange and mysterious that he was afraid to re¬ 
 veal them to any one. The words were, ‘ Thou 
 art to serve Me in an order the ancient perfection 
 of which thou shalt help to bring hack again.’ 
 
 He understood that God wished him to become 
 a religious, and he was content, but he could not 
 understand that he was to do so great a work as to 
 recover again the former greatness of any order. 
 He shrunk from the task, and, so far as he could, 
 banished the thought of it from his mind, for he 
 looked upon it as a snare and an occasion of delu¬ 
 sion to his soul. He confessed this at a later time 
 to the saintly nun, the venerable Mother Anne of 
 Jesus. 
 
 Hitherto he had not thought of the life of a 
 religious as one possible for himself, but from 
 this time forth the desire to leave the world, into 
 which he had really never entered, grew within 
 him and became strong. The more he prayed the 
 more he longed to be a religious, but he was not 
 
J 
 
 26 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 drawn towards one order more than another; all 
 orders were equally indifferent to him and equally 
 desired. In this uncertainty he went one day to 
 the Monastery of St. Anne. The friars had come 
 to the city in the year 1560, when Juan was eigh¬ 
 teen years old, and the sight of the habit made 
 an impression upon him which it had never made 
 before. He knew now that his vocation vra's to 
 serve God in Carmel, and was glad he had been 
 poor all his life—not against his will, it is true ; 
 but his poverty w^as the poverty of his family, not 
 his own; and now he embraced poverty as his 
 bride' and, renouncing even the possibility of pos¬ 
 sessing anything, gave himself up to follow our 
 Lord in His poverty, and resolved to become a 
 mendicant friar. 
 
 He made his way into the house, and begged to 
 be received into the order. The friars were well- 
 pleased, for he was known in Medina; and he 
 received the habit on the feast of St. Mathias, 
 February 24, 1563, being then in the twenty-first 
 year of his age. In honour of the Apostle, he 
 gave up his own name of Yepes, and was hence¬ 
 forth known in the order as Juan de San-Matias so 
 long as he continued to profess the mitigated 
 rule. 
 
 In the novitiate his regularity and obedience, 
 his recollection, his fervour, his penances, and the 
 austerities permitted him, were a fountain of edifi¬ 
 cation to all in the house. His prudence and 
 humility were once severely tested, and he did 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF'THE CEOSS. 
 
 27 
 
 an act from which novices might well shrink, and 
 which novices can rarely, if ever, perform without 
 some imperfection, if not sin. Ho was one day 
 with a father of the order who behaved somewhat 
 negligently in the presence of seculars. John of 
 St. Mathias was the only religious who saw the 
 fault committed, which is not said to have been 
 at all serious, but merely an unseemliness in one 
 who wore the habit of religion. The novice re¬ 
 minded the father of his failure; but he did so 
 with so much humility and discretion, that the 
 father not only did not seem offended, but cor¬ 
 rected himself, and accepted the correction with 
 
 joy- 
 
 In the following year, in 1564, he made his 
 profession before Fra Angel de Salazar, the Pro¬ 
 vincial of Castille. His generous protector, 
 Alonso Alvarez, was present at the ceremony. 
 The record of that profession was preserved in the 
 house as a precious memorial, and the small cell 
 in which John of St. Mathias lived was, after his 
 death, made into a chapel, though the monastery 
 itself never adopted the reform of St. Teresa. But 
 the house for ever after retained traces of the pass¬ 
 age of John of St. Mathias through it, in the 
 regular observances and the edifying punctuality 
 of the community in all its duties both within and 
 without. 
 
 Having now made his profession, he began to 
 consider anew the obligations of his state. While 
 giving continual thanks to God for having brought 
 
 -a-** 
 
 eW*TNUT 
 
28 
 
 LIFE OF ST. 'JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 him into the safe sanctuary of the order of our 
 Lady of Carmel, he sought for light to direct 
 his ways in the strictest observance of the rule. 
 Nourishing his soul by prayer, and feeding the 
 fires of prayer by a constant reading of the 
 Following of Christ , he thought nothing easy 
 that the world required of him, and nothing diffi¬ 
 cult to which God called him. The rule he read 
 diligently, that he might be filled with its spirit, 
 and be made like unto the saints who had been 
 formed in the order to which he unworthily had 
 been admitted. When he read the rule which 
 the blessed Albert of Parma had given, and which 
 Innocent IV. had confirmed, but with the exact 
 observance of which Eugenius IY. had dispensed, 
 he wished he might be allowed to keep it, so far 
 as it w 7 as possible for him. But being a child of 
 obedience, he would do nothing of his own will; 
 he had given up that to his superiors in the order. 
 Nevertheless, he could represent his wishes to 
 them, and did so; they listened to him, perhaps 
 not without some misgivings, but they did not 
 resist his wish, lest they should put out a flame 
 which our Lord had kindled. They gave him 
 leave to observe the primitive rule, provided that 
 no duty of the community should be neglecte'd, 
 and the present discipline of the house main¬ 
 tained. 
 
 * 
 
 He now entered on a life of penance winch, 
 because of the conditions under winch he was 
 living, was much more severe than the rule re- 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 29 
 
 quired. He was present at all tlie exercises of 
 the community, in choir, chapter, and refectory, 
 avoiding all appearance of singularity, and in all 
 outward semblance differing in nothing from the 
 other friars of the house. Yet he was fasting 
 from the Feast of the Cross in September till 
 Easter in the following year, and abstaining 
 wholly from flesh-meat throughout the year, ac¬ 
 cording to the primitive rule. But as no pro¬ 
 vision was made for him in the house, and as 
 he had to attend, and did attend, in the refectory 
 daily, where meat was served, according to the 
 dispensation of Eugenius IV., it was hard for 
 him to disguise his own mortification, and at the 
 same time find food enough to support life. He 
 had nothing in his cell, and he would not eat 
 except at the lawful times. He kept silence also 
 according to the rule, and for that end withdrew 
 to his cell the moment he was free from the 
 duties he had to discharge in public. He laboured 
 also with his hands, as the ancient hermits did, 
 and in his cell he would make crosses and disci¬ 
 plines, with other instruments of penance; but his 
 chief work was prayer, that being the true work of 
 a friar of Carmel, for it is said in the rule, ‘ Let 
 all remain in their cells, or near them, meditating 
 night and day on the law of our Lord.’ 
 
 His superiors, wisely discerning the great value 
 of Juan of St. Mathias, determined to send him to 
 their college in Salamanca, that by the help of 
 the learning to be there acquired he might be 
 
80 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 mado a labourer in our Saviour’s vineyard, whom 
 none could put to shame, rightly handling the 
 word of truth. The college of his order in Sala¬ 
 manca was then known as the college of St. 
 Andrew the Apostle, but at a later time the 
 name was changed, and the college of the Car¬ 
 melites became the college of St. Teresa. The 
 school of theology in the university was famous; 
 the Dominicans had given it professors of great 
 name. Francis a Yittoria died in 1546, and 
 was succeeded by his pupil, Melchior Cano, who, 
 resigning his chair on being made bishop of the 
 Canaries, made way for the celebrated Dominic 
 de Soto, who had been at the Council of Trent, 
 and had just refused the see of Segovia. Soto 
 died in 1560, and was succeeded by Mantius de 
 Corpore Christi, who sat in the great chair of 
 Theology in Salamanca, when Father Juan of 
 St. Mathias was sent thither from Medina del 
 Carnpo.^ 
 
 Fra Juan of St. Mathias went to Salamanca in 
 the year 1564. He was there most diligent in his 
 attendance in the schools, but his studies never 
 interfered with the severity oi his penitential 
 habits. Y/hat he had begun in Medina del 
 Campo with the sanction of his superiors was 
 continued in Salamanca, amid the unavoidable 
 interruptions o_ the public schools. The very 
 cell assigned him in the Carmelite house was a 
 prison rather than a room; it was small, dark, 
 
 * Banes, in 2 dam 2 dae qu. 1, art. 1, concl. 1. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 31 
 
 and wholly unfurnished; it is true it held a 
 shallow coffer which he used as a bed, but 
 which was more like a coffin than anything else. 
 In that coffer, without any covering other than his 
 habit, and a block of wood for his pillow, Father 
 Juan took his rest at night, such as it was, and 
 such as he allowed himself to take. All the light 
 he had came through a narrow opening in the 
 roof, and it was very scanty. On the other hand, 
 there was a window in it opening into the church, 
 through which he could see the tabernacle on the 
 altar in which our Lord was dwelling. That was 
 to him a sight more satisfying than anything the 
 world without could show him. That cell in Sala¬ 
 manca, as the other in Medina, was at a later time 
 converted into a chapel, because it had been once 
 tenanted by a poor friar who seems never to 
 have, been the owner of anything on the face of 
 • the earth. 
 
 He mortified his body with extreme severity. 
 The primitive rule is austere enough even for 
 souls athirst for penance, but Juan of St. Mathias 
 found the burden too light for his shoulders. He 
 girt his loins with an iron chain studded with 
 sharp points, and over his body he wore a dress 
 made of coarse grass, after the fashion of fisher¬ 
 men’s nets, the thick knots of which were as hard 
 as stones. This he hid under the habit of his 
 order. The unceasing distress caused hereby he 
 relieved by the most cruel disciplines, the effects 
 of which could not always be concealed from his 
 
32 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 companions and his superiors. And it was a 
 new and sharp penance to him when his secret 
 mortifications became known to others. 
 
 Though he was allowed to keep the primitive 
 i ule, he never failed to observe the minutest 
 practice in force in the house where he was 
 living. He did not dispense himself, nor ex¬ 
 pect to he dispensed, from the daily order of the 
 monastery, nor did he claim any exemption on 
 the ground that he kept a rule which was more 
 austere than that under which his brethren were 
 living. Modest, humble, and silent, he did the 
 woik he had to do, as if he were not already 
 oveiburdened with another work, of which his 
 companions might have said that he was not 
 bound to do it. Everything w T as in order with¬ 
 in : regular in the house, punctual in the choir 
 and in the schools, no duty ever interrupted 
 another. Nor was he carried away by his love 
 of learning from the more important work of 
 prayer; he made the lectures he heard minister 
 to his prayer, and in prayer he found light from 
 God, which enabled him to profit by the wisdom 
 of those who taught him. Always cheerful and 
 recollected, he was held in respect even by the 
 turbulent youth of a great university, and by his 
 superiors was specially beloved. In the public 
 disputations he spoke modestly and to the point; 
 vhen defeated in the contest he acknowledged his 
 opponent’s skill, but was never troubled at his 
 own discomfiture, neither was he elated at the 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 83 
 
 close of a disputation in wliicli lie had been suc¬ 
 cessful. 
 
 In this way did the time pass from his arrival 
 in Salamanca, in 1564, till near the middle of the 
 year 1567. He was then commanded by his su¬ 
 periors to prepare himself for the order of the 
 priesthood. That was a dignity he had shrunk 
 from when in the hospital of Medina del Campo, 
 hut it was not in his power now to do what he did 
 then; he was under obedience; so, bewailing his 
 great unworthiness, he went into retreat, and was 
 ordained priest in Salamanca in the year 1567. 
 
 The ordination took place probably in May of 
 that year, but his biographers are silent; and as 
 soon as he was made priest his superiors sent him 
 back to Medina del Campo, there to sing his first 
 Mass; partly because it was in the house of St. 
 Anne he had taken the habit, and partly to give 
 pleasure to his mother, who, in her poverty, had 
 trained him up, and given him to serve our Lord 
 in poverty for the rest of his life. 
 
 He came to Medina del Campo, and began to 
 prepare himself anew for the great act which he 
 was there to do for the first time—to offer up the 
 sacrifice of the new law. He redoubled his au¬ 
 sterities and prolonged his vigils, giving himself 
 wholly unto prayer. All his life, even hitherto, 
 had been a life of detachment and purity; and now 
 he seems to have felt that it was more necessary 
 than ever for him to keep close unto God, lest sin 
 should come in between them and separate him 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 from the only love of his souL He went np to 
 the altar on the day appointed for him, and made 
 the great oblation; then, holding in his hands 
 God who made him, he prayed to Him with all his 
 might for grace to preserve him in pureness of 
 life, and never to stain his baptismal robe. The 
 cry of faith went straight to the heart of God; and 
 Juan of St. Mathias heard an inward voice, which 
 said, ‘ Thy prayer is granted.’ 
 
 Great graces from God are accompanied with 
 a desire to retain them. Fra Juan, considering 
 the promise made him while saying Mass for the 
 first time, considered also how he was to do what 
 lay in his power to reap the fruits cf it. He saw 
 how necessary it w r as for him now to withdraw 
 farther and farther from the commerce of men, in 
 order to he led into the wilderness in which the 
 Divine communications are made. He had made 
 the offering of his whole self, and had nothing 
 more to offer now; but it was his duty still to 
 watch with Abraham, and drive away the birds of 
 the air, lest they should devour and defile the sa¬ 
 crifice. He saw no other w r ay before him but that 
 of leaving the order of Carmel, and entering that of 
 the Carthusians ; for that order was the sole order 
 which he, a mendicant, could enter. 
 
 He returned to Salamanca, probably to finish 
 his course in the university; and later in the year 
 came aw^ay in the company of Fra Pedro de Orozco, 
 who was returning to Medina. From Medina Fra 
 Juan intended to go to the Carthusians of Segovia, 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 35 
 
 to hide himself from the sight and commerce of men, 
 that he might serve God without distraction. He 
 remained for a time in the monastery of St. Anne; 
 but his secret was probably not unknown, for he 
 had told Fra Pedro of his resolution, and he it was 
 who helped to make it void, by communicating to 
 St. Teresa what he knew of the fervent spirit hid¬ 
 den in the frail body of Fra Juan of St. Mathias; 
 and of the earnest longings for a more perfect life 
 than was that he was then living among the Car¬ 
 melites of the mitigation. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 St. John of the Cross persuaded by St. Teresa to become a 
 friar of her reform—Duruelo—St. John of the Cross in 
 Valladolid—goes to Duruelo. 
 
 Fra Juan of St. Mathias was five-and-twenty 
 years old when, at the urgent request of Fra 
 Pedro de Orozco, he went to see St. Teresa in 
 her monastery in Medina. St. Teresa herself was 
 in her fifty-third year, and had been, more than 
 thirty-three years in religion. Fra Juan had been 
 about four years in the order, to the reform of 
 which he was nov/ called by the voice of the 
 saint. In the house of St. Joseph, in Medina 
 del Campo, the two saints met for the first time, 
 and then the nun told the friar what she intended 
 to do, and the friar on his part told her that he 
 had for some time wished to live among the Car¬ 
 thusians, believing himself called to a life of re¬ 
 tirement and prayer. But as the conversation 
 continued, and as the elder saint represented to 
 the .younger that he would do more for the glory 
 of God if he would restore the primitive rule of 
 his order than if he left it for another, Fra Juan, 
 humble and self-doubting, yielded to the persua- 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 37 
 
 sions of St. Teresa, and consented to do her bid¬ 
 ding, provided the work should be entered upon 
 without delay. St. Teresa was now content; she 
 had found one man on whom she could depend; 
 for though she had already accepted the Prior of 
 Medina, Fra Antonio de Heredia, she was not 
 wholly satisfied with him. She did not, however, 
 begin the reform of the friars at once, but waited 
 a while ; partly because of her want of perfect con¬ 
 fidence in Fra Antonio, and partly because she 
 had no house to give them, nor the means where¬ 
 with to buy one. 
 
 For all this, she was glad, and used to say 
 that she had begun her work, for she had found 
 a friar and a half—Fra Antonio was a portly per¬ 
 sonage of dignified presence, but Fra Juan was 
 small of stature, and worn already by austerities. 
 There was nothing in his outward look to com¬ 
 mand the respect of men ; but St. Teresa knew 
 his worth, and was wont to say of him that Father 
 John of the Cross was one of the most pure and 
 holy souls in the Church of God. 
 
 Two friars, then, were found willing to re¬ 
 nounce the mitigated observances of the order, 
 and to practise the austerities of the primitive 
 rule; but there was no house to lodge them in, 
 nor a single penny wherewith to buy one. The 
 two friars were, like St. Teresa, mendicants, and 
 had no possesions; so they remained for the pre¬ 
 sent in the house of St. Anne in Medina, where 
 they met with many crosses; but St. Teresa was 
 
38 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 without fear about one of them at least; for * though 
 he was living,’ she said, with a certain malicious¬ 
 ness, 4 among the fathers of the mitigated rule, he 
 always led a perfect and religious life.’* 
 
 St. Teresa went from Medina, about the end 
 of October 1567, to Madrid, and thence to the 
 monastery of the Venerable Maria of Jesus in 
 Alcala de Henares, where she remained for some 
 time. In April 1568, she had made her founda¬ 
 tion in Malagon, and was preparing to make 
 another in Valladolid. In Malagon she saw Fra 
 Juan again; and one day, while conversing together, 
 both fell into a trance, and -were seen by Mother 
 Isabel of the Incarnation—Fra Juan in the par¬ 
 lour of the monastery, and St. Teresa on the other 
 side of the grating, f In June, St. Teresa returned 
 to Avila to make the last arrangements for the 
 monastery to be founded in Valladolid; and while 
 so occupied, Don Eafael Mejia Velasquez, to whom 
 she had never spoken before, called upon her, and 
 offered a small cottage that he had in the country 
 in Duruelo for the monastery which he had heard 
 she wished to found. She accepted the offer with 
 great gratitude, and on the recommendation of 
 Don Eafael went to see the place. She set out 
 on her journey before the end of the month, early 
 in the morning; but so little known was the cottage 
 of Don Eafael, that nobody could tell her where to 
 find it. She missed her w^ay, therefore, and though 
 
 * Foundations, xiii. § 1. ^ 
 
 f Reforma de los Dcscalcos, i. p. 242. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 89 
 
 the place was not far from Avila, it was nearly 
 dark before she reached it. But the state of the 
 house was such that the saint and her companions 
 could not venture to pass the night in it, the filth 
 of it was so great. It was also harvest-time, and 
 the use to which it was then put did not make it 
 a pleasant place to rest in. It had a porch, a 
 small kitchen, and a room with a low garret over 
 it. 
 
 Sister Antonia of the Holy Ghost, who was 
 with St. Teresa, regarded the foundation of a 
 monastery there as impossible. ‘ No man,’ she 
 said, ‘ how ever spiritual he may be, can live here.’ 
 But the saint persevered in her purpose, discern¬ 
 ing in the poverty of the place the Bethlehem of 
 the reform of Carmel. She was won by its 
 wretchedness. 
 
 The night was spent in the neighbouring 
 church. The next day St. Teresa reached Medina 
 del Campo, and told the prior of the Carmelites 
 that she had found a house. Fra Antonio was 
 not alarmed, but courageously took up his cross; 
 he was content to live anywhere, provided he 
 could keep the primitive rule. Fra Juan of St. 
 Mathias made no objection; to him the poverty 
 of the house was as a spell that bound him, and 
 •he was of one mind with the prior. But all the 
 difficulties were not overcome. The General of 
 the order had allowed the foundation of the new 
 monasteries to De made, on the condition that the 
 then provincial and the former provincial gave 
 
40 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 their consent: there were good reasons for fearing 
 the opposition of the latter, Fra Angel de Salazar. 
 He had already had some trouble with St. Teresa, 
 and probably had not forgotten it. 
 
 St. Teresa went on to Valladolid to make the 
 foundation there, and took with her Fra Juan, 
 that he might see the way in which the rule was 
 kept. There the nuns had to live for some time 
 in a monastery unenclosed, because of the work¬ 
 men in the house; and that was perhaps a gain 
 for him, because it enabled him to see more of their 
 ways. While he was thus, in a manner, a novice 
 for the second time, St. Teresa was engaged in 
 obtaining the necessary consent of the provincial, 
 Fra Alonso Gonzalez, who came at this time to 
 Valladolid. He was not at all willing to accept 
 the new monastery under his jurisdiction; but the 
 Bishop of Avila and his sister, Doha Maria de 
 Mendoza, friends of St. Teresa, came also to Valla¬ 
 dolid, and helped her to the utmost of their power. 
 The two provincials gave way at last, moved not 
 a little by some difficulties of their own, for the 
 removal of which they required the help of the 
 bishop’s sister. Every hindrance was now over¬ 
 come ; and the foundation of the first monastery 
 of the barefooted Carmelites was not only possi¬ 
 ble, but legal, according to the constitutions of the 
 order, made with the full sanction of the General, 
 to the great joy of those who weraabout to begin 
 the work. 
 
 St. Teresa and her nuns with their own hands 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 41 
 
 made the habit of the first friar of the reform. 
 Fra Juan of St. Mathias. With that habit, but 
 not wearing it, and with the means of saying 
 Mass, he left Valladolid for Duruelo. 
 
 One of the workmen employed in repairing the 
 monastery of the nuns was sent with him, for his 
 services would he greatly needed in the ruined 
 house which was to be the cradle of the reform of 
 Carmel. Fra Juan and his companion were to 
 pass through Avila on their way to Duruelo; so 
 St. Teresa wrote a letter to her old and faithful 
 friend, and in some ways her director, Don Francis 
 de Salcedo. In that letter she thus spoke of Fra 
 Juan: 
 
 . ‘ I beg you to speak to liim,’ she writes, ‘ and help him in 
 this affair; for though he is but a little man, I believe him 
 to be great in the sight of God. We miss him here very 
 much , for he is a man of prudence and well fitted for our 
 way of fife, and I believe that our Lord has called him to 
 this work. There is not a friar who does not speak well 
 of him, for his life has been most penitential, though he is 
 still young. Besides, our Lord seems to hold him by the 
 hand ; for though we have had some trouble here—and I 
 am a very trouble myself, for I have been angry •with 
 him now and then—yet we never saw any imperfection in 
 him. He has courage, but as he is alone he has need 
 of all the courage our Lord gives him to undertake this 
 work in earnest. He will tell you how we are getting on 
 here.’ ° 
 
 Having finished her letter, in which she had 
 spoken of many things, she returns again to Fra 
 J uan, adding the following paragraph : 
 
 ‘ I ask you once more to be so good as to speak to this 
 
42 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 father, and to give him such advice as yon can concerning 
 his way of life. The spirit and goodness with which our 
 Lord has filled him encourage me, amidst our many diffi¬ 
 culties, to think that we are making a good beginning. He 
 is a man much given to prayer, and is endowed with good 
 sense. Mav our Lord be good to him !’* 
 
 All the preparations that could he made in 
 Valladolid being made, Fra Juan took leave of 
 St. Teresa and her nuns, and begged the mother 
 of the reform to bless him her eldest son, for he 
 was going forth into a strange land, and quitting 
 his brethren in religion, who were soon after to 
 be to him less than friends. St. Teresa with the 
 nuns wept tears of joy at the humility of the father, 
 and promised him the help of their prayers; and 
 then, falling on their knees, begged him who had 
 been their spiritual father and confessor, as the 
 priest of our Lord, to give them all his blessing. 
 Fra Juan took leave of the saint, and set out for 
 -Avila, where he saw Don Francis de Salcedo; and 
 then went to Duruelo, avoiding Medina del Campo, 
 where his mother and brother were living, to lay 
 the foundations of the reform of the friars of 
 Carmel. 
 
 * Letter 10, written about the end of September 1568. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Faint in Duruelo—Beginning of the reform of the 
 friars—Change of names—Life in Duruelo—St. Teresa 
 visits the friars—Monastery of Pastrana—Fra Balta- 
 sar of Jesus—The friars remove from Duraelo to Man- 
 zera—Novices of the saint—St. John goes to Pastrana 
 to Alcala de ITenares—Fra Pedro Fernandez—Fra 
 Angel of St. Gabriel—Fra Dominic Banes—Francis 
 de Yepes. 
 
 Fra J uan of St. Mathias had probably never seen 
 the house in Duruelo which he was to turn into a 
 monastery, before he went thither to take posses¬ 
 sion of it in the autumn of 1568. Its poverty- 
 stricken state had an irresistible charm for him, 
 and he entered it with joy in his heart because he 
 had found his true rest on the earth. He began 
 at once to put the house in order : the porch w r as 
 to be the church, the garret over the inner cham¬ 
 ber the choir of the religious, the only room in it 
 to be the dormitory, and the small kitchen was to 
 become still smaller, for a part of it w-as to be 
 taken for the refectory. The only ornaments of 
 the church were crosses made of branches of trees. 
 Then, when the work was done and evening had 
 come, Fra Juan sent the -workman who was with 
 him to the village to beg for food, for there was 
 
44 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 none in the new monastery of Carmel. The 
 people gave him some broken bread; and thus they 
 broke the fast of that day. 
 
 The greater part of the night, notwithstanding 
 the labour of the day before, F ra J uan spent in prayer; 
 and in the morning, having prepared the altar, he 
 proceeded to say Mass. The habit he had received 
 from St. Teresa he laid on the altar, and blessed, 
 and at the end of Mass he put it on. He had 
 neither shoes nor stockings—nothing to protect 
 his feet from the ground: he was as poor as man 
 could well be, and in as poor a monastery as any 
 in the world. Outwardly and inwardly detached, 
 he fell on his knees, and, with fervent thanksgiv¬ 
 ing, commended himself and his work to our Lord, 
 through the intercession of His most blessed 
 Mother, who had been his singular protectress 
 from his childhood up to that day. 
 
 He remained here alone, for Fra Antonio could 
 not come. That father, however, was able to 
 leave Medina for Valladolid, to see St. Teresa, and 
 to give her an account of the preparations he had 
 made for his new life in Carmel. He had pro¬ 
 vided himself with five hour-glasses, to insure 
 punctuality—to the great amusement of St. 
 Teresa*—and he had not thought of even a bed to 
 lie on. But it was not his fault that he was still 
 absent from Duruelo. He was prior of the house 
 in Medina, and was waiting for the provincial, 
 
 * Foundations , xiv. § 2. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 45 
 
 who also, on his part, was unable to come. How¬ 
 ever, he came at last, and Fra Antonio resigned his 
 priorate, and renounced the mitigations of the rule 
 in the presence of the provincial. It was now 
 nearly the end of November. Fra Antonio took 
 with him one of the brethren, Fra Joseph, not yet 
 a priest, and reached Duruelo on Saturday, Decem¬ 
 ber 27th, the eve of the first Sunday in Advent 
 1568. 
 
 The night was spent in prayer by the little 
 community; and the next morning, Fra Antonio 
 and Fra Juan having said Mass, the three friars, 
 on their knees before the Most Holy, weeping 
 tears of joy, renewed the solemn vows of their pro¬ 
 fession, and renounced the mitigations of the rule 
 which Eugenius IV. had sanctioned. They then 
 i promised our Lord and His most blessed Mother, 
 the most holy Mary of Mount Carmel, and the 
 most reverend the Father-General of the order, 
 to live henceforth under the primitive rule of St. 
 Albert, and to keep it in its integrity until death, 
 according to the corrections of his Holiness Inno¬ 
 cent IV. 
 
 They then, as St. Teresa had done, changed 
 their names. The choir-brother, Fra Joseph, be¬ 
 came Joseph of Christ ; Antonio de Heredia, 
 Antonio of Jesus; and Juan of St. Mathias, John 
 of the Cross. Soon after, the provincial came to 
 Duruelo, and made Fra Antonio prior, Fra John of 
 the Cross sub-prior and master of novices, and Fra 
 Joseph of Christ porter and sacristan. There was 
 
46 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 another father also in the house, who had come 
 from Medina del Campo, in the hope that he 
 mig’ht he able to live under the old rule. But as 
 he was in bad health, and as his infirmities grew 
 under the severities he attempted to undergo, he 
 returned to the mitigation. Fra Joseph of Christ 
 also fell away, and returned to the old observance ; 
 but the two friars whom St. Teresa had chosen re¬ 
 mained in Duruelo. Thus the reform was legally 
 and peaceably begun, with the consent of the Ge¬ 
 neral of the order, and the active cooperation of 
 the provincial, Fra Alonso Gonzalez. 
 
 Though St. John of the Cross had lived for 
 two months, more or less, in Duruelo before the 
 arrival of Fra Antonio, in the practice of the primi¬ 
 tive rule, the foundation of the reform of the friars 
 is considered to have been made on the first Sun¬ 
 day in Advent, when the two fathers were as¬ 
 sembled together with brother Joseph. In the 
 records of the monastery the foundation is thus 
 described: 
 
 ‘ In the year one thousand five hundred and sixty-eight, 
 the twenty-eighth day of November, this monastery of our 
 Lady of Mount Carmel was founded in this place. In 
 which monastery the primitive rule in its rigour, as de¬ 
 livered unto us by our first fathers, began to be observed 
 by the help and grace of the Holy Ghost: the father, the 
 doctor, Fra Alonso Gonzalez being Provincial, of the Pro¬ 
 vince; the brothers Fra Antonio of Jesus, Fra John of the 
 Cross, and Fra Joseph of Christ, by the grace of God began 
 to live according to the rule in its strictness. The house 
 and the place were given us by the noble lord Don Rafael 
 Mejia Velasquez, the owner; the most illustrous lord, Don 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 47 
 
 -# 
 
 Alonso de Mendoza, Bishop of Avila, consenting to the 
 foundation of the house.’* 
 
 This was the beginning of the reform of the 
 friars; and it should never be forgotten that 
 neither St. Teresa nor the friars of the reform ever 
 complained of any laxity in the houses they left. 
 The friars of the mitigation were not disorderly in 
 their lives; they kept their rule and constitutions, 
 and were blameless men. The reform was not a 
 reform of manners, or the rooting out of evil, hut 
 simply a restoration of the olden rule which the 
 Sovereign Pontiff had, for good reasons, mitigated, 
 but had never suppressed. The general of the 
 order and the provincials in Spain never imagined 
 at the time that the reform was to be regarded as 
 a censure upon them and their brethren. It was 
 a lawful and perfect life which men lived under the 
 rule of the mitigation; it was a lawful life also 
 under the older rule; and though the observance 
 of the latter was a greater perfection than the ob¬ 
 servance of the former, the perfection was one of 
 degree, not of kind; for the friars were all friars of 
 Carmel. The old Carmelite life under the rule 
 of St. Albert, mitigated by Innocent IV., had be¬ 
 come the Carmelite life under the same rule miti¬ 
 gated by Eugenius IV. The intention of St. 
 Teresa was not to condemn the latter, but to re¬ 
 store the former under the same father-general 
 of the order, and the same provincials throughout 
 
 * Reforma de los Descalcos, vol. i. p. 272 . 
 
48 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 Spain. The two friars began to order their lives 
 according to the old rule, and to make for them¬ 
 selves certain constitutions founded on the obser¬ 
 vances which St. John of the Cross had seen in 
 Valladolid, and which were substantially those 
 afterwards adopted in the order when it was firmly 
 established on its severance from the old observance 
 of the mitigation. 
 
 Though St. John of the Cross loved his cell, 
 and came out of it with regret, he was now, by 
 the prior, sent out to preach in the country 
 round. He had to make fatiguing journeys, and 
 to go to many places far away from the monastery, 
 —travelling always on foot, and his feet were bare, 
 for he wore no sandals then,—in the depth of win¬ 
 ter; the ground hardened by frost and covered with 
 snow. He came back to his cell as soon as his 
 work was done, refusing even a morsel of food, 
 however great the distance; and in his cell was 
 hardly a more comfortable place than the roads 
 rough with stones and the briers hidden in the 
 snow. 
 
 As no one from the monastery could be spared 
 as his companion on these journeys of charity, he 
 sent to Medina del Campo for his brother Francis, 
 whose poverty was nearly as great as his, that he 
 might have him with him on the road. One day, 
 after preaching in one of the parish churches, St. 
 John came down from the pulpit and left the 
 church with his brother. The priest continued the 
 Mass, and when it was over, on being told that the 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 49 
 
 preacher had departed for his convent, sent his 
 servant to overtake him, and beg him to return 
 and dine with him. The servant overtook St. John 
 and delivered his message; but the preacher made 
 his excuses and hastened to his monastery, not 
 altogether with the goodwill of his brother, who 
 remonstrated with him, and said it was an un- 
 courteous treatment of the parish priest. St. John 
 said that he was doing the work of God, and did 
 not wish to receive payment from man. So when 
 they came to a well by the wayside, St. John sat 
 down, and holding in his hand a little bread he 
 had taken from the monastery, divided it with his 
 brother, and both dined on bread and water.* 
 
 In the beginning of Lent 1569, St. Teresa, 
 about to found a house in Toledo, came to Duruelo 
 from Medina on her way to Avila from Yalladolid. 
 She found Fra Antonio sweeping the door of the 
 church ; he was a grave and portly friar, nearly 
 sixty years of age, and had been forty years in the 
 order. ‘ What has become of your dignity ?’ said 
 St. Teresa to him; and his answer, borrowed from 
 the prophet was, ‘ Cursed be the day wherein I had 
 any.’ The saint herself was struck by the poverty 
 of the place, by the resolution and devotion of the 
 friars, and their faithful observance of the rule. 
 But she was alarmed at the penances and the se¬ 
 verities of the house, which she regarded as exces¬ 
 sive, and which she feared might endanger the 
 
 * Joseph de Jesu Maria, Histor. cle la Vida del Fra 
 Juan, p. 130. 
 
 E 
 
50 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 reform by shortening the lives of those to whom 
 she had intrusted it. She therefore spoke seriously 
 on the subject to the friars, who, she said, ‘ having 
 gifts I had not, made light of my advice.’ She 
 gave thanks to God, and in her humility confessed 
 their ways to be safe.* 
 
 They were bound by the rule to fast from the 
 Feast of the Holy Cross in September till Easter in 
 the following year, a continuous fast of six or seven 
 months; but to this they added every Friday be¬ 
 tween Easter and the Feast of the Holy Cross, with 
 the eves of certain feasts on which there is no 
 obligation upon the faithful to fast. They took 
 the discipline in common on Monday, Wednesday, 
 and Friday, in addition to the other days which 
 each friar had chosen for himself with the sanction 
 of his superior. Then the silence was almost un¬ 
 broken, and when they had occasion to communi¬ 
 cate with each other, they did so generally by signs. 
 There was also a daily chapter of faults, though 
 the rule required but one in a week. 
 
 Such mortification and humility could not re¬ 
 main hidden; the people who dwelt around came 
 to the church, and filled the two confessionals, 
 which had been made in a part of the room in¬ 
 tended for the dormitory of the fathers. Not poor 
 people only, but the great noblemen in the neigh¬ 
 bourhood came to Duruelo, and intrusted their 
 consciences to the friars, "whose austere lives were 
 a "wonder in the country round. Among them was 
 
 Foundations, xiv. § 11. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CKOSS. 51 
 
 Don Luis de Toledo, a near relative of the great 
 Duke of Alva. He liad built a church in Manzera, 
 a town of his jurisdiction, in which he had placed 
 a marvellous picture of our Lady with the Infant 
 Jesus in her arms, attended by two angels. That 
 church he offered now to the fathers of Duruelo, 
 and with it the means of building a monastery, if 
 they would remove to Manzera. They could not 
 make up their minds to change. Fra Antonio, 
 however, went to preach in Manzera, and again 
 Don Luis and his wife, Dona Isabel de Leiva, so 
 represented to him the advantages of the place and 
 the unhealthiness of Duruelo, that at last they 
 won the reluctant consent of Fra Antonio. 
 
 In the mean while St. Teresa found means to 
 establish another monastery of friars in Pastrana— 
 she had leave from the General of the order to 
 found two—and Fra Antonio went thither from 
 Manzera, in July 15G9, .leaving the house of 
 Duruelo under the care of St. John of the Cross ; 
 St. Teresa at the same time founding .the sixth 
 monastery of her nuns. She had sent to Medina 
 for a nun, Isabel of St. Jerome, and begged the 
 prior of the Carmelites there to send one of the 
 fathers with her, and another from Avila. The 
 prior sent with the nuns Fra Baltasar cf Jesus, 
 who had lately told Fra Antonio that he wished 
 to quit the mitigation for the reform. The prior 
 knew nothing of this, and Fra Baltasar held his 
 peace, regarding his mission to Pastrana as a 
 grace. On his arrival, he immediately told St. 
 
52 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 Teresa of his intentions. She was glad, for Fra 
 Baltasar was a zealous friar and a great preacher, 
 famous in the order. 
 
 Two hermits of the Tardon, in the Sierra 
 Morena, had come to Pastrana to take the habit 
 of our Lady of Mount Carmel; they had been 
 won to the order by St. Teresa soon after Pente¬ 
 cost of this year, when she was in Madrid. The 
 postulants were eager to enter, and would hardly 
 wait for the arrival of Fra Antonio. They begged 
 St. Teresa to give them the habit, and as Fra 
 Pedro Muriel, the delegate of the provincial, was 
 then in Pastrana, the matter was arranged. The 
 saint and her nuns made the habits, the stuff 
 being given by the Duke of Pastrana, in the 
 oratory of whose house the ceremony took place. 
 Fra Baltasar preached a most moving sermon, 
 and St. Teresa with her own hands gave the 
 habit to the two hermits, Mariano and Juan de 
 la Miseria, while Fra Baltasar, being already a 
 Carmelite, made the change for himself. A few 
 days later Fra Antonio arrived, and the three 
 friars under him took formal possession of their 
 monastery. He remained there about four months, 
 instructing them and training them in the re¬ 
 covered discipline of Carmel. On his departure 
 for Duruelo, he left Fra Baltasar of Jesus, as his 
 vicar, to govern the house; for he was a priest, and 
 a man of considerable weight in the order before 
 he renounced the mitigated observance. 
 
 In the following Lent, 1570, Fra Antonio 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 53 
 
 was in Manzera preaching, and labouring with 
 his hands in building the monastery. When 
 the house w r as finished, he begged the provincial 
 to honour the removal with his presence. Fra 
 Alonso not only came himself, but brought with 
 him other friars, and all went in procession from 
 Duruelo, June 2, to Manzera, when Fra Alonso 
 the provincial sung the Mass, and Fra Antonio 
 preached, to the great joy of all the people of 
 Manzera, but to the great regret of those who 
 lived in Duruelo, and from whom the friars had 
 gone away. 
 
 St. John of the Cross took with him his two 
 novices. One of them was a lay brother, Fra 
 Peter of the Angels, who rose to great heights of 
 sanctity, and died as he had lived, in Valladolid, 
 in 1613, outliving his master for more than twenty 
 years; the other was destined for holy orders, Fra 
 Juan Bautista, and w r as a native of Avila. He was 
 made perfect in a short time, and died in the 
 monastery of La Boda, in 1577. 
 
 But in Manzera they had thirteen or fourteen 
 novices, some from the Carmelites of the mitiga¬ 
 tion, some from the world. Among the latter 
 was a doctor from the University of Salamanca, a 
 learned lawyer and an able man. Grace, how¬ 
 ever, found a way into his heart, and he left his 
 learned companions in Salamanca with all' his 
 worldly gains, and begged to be received among 
 the poor friars of Manzera, where his learning 
 would not be held in great reverence, but where 
 
54 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 the master of the novices, if not more learned 
 than he, possessed a learning far more profitable 
 than is always taught in universities. One day, 
 whether for the sake of saying something, which 
 is the common weakness of us all, or because the 
 old Adam had got the upper hand, the doctor from 
 Salamanca observed that the library of the house 
 was poorly furnished with certain books. The 
 master of the novices heard the incautious speech, 
 and ordered the cell of the doctor to be cleared of 
 all books whatever, even those of devotion, and 
 then gave him a child’s first-book, or primer, in 
 which there were also some elementary instruc¬ 
 tions on the faith, and with the book he gave him 
 a little rod, such as schoolmasters use in pointing 
 out the letters to young children. The learned 
 doctor, who had often disputed in the schools, was 
 to learn his letters like a child, and spell the book 
 through, as if he had never been to school before, 
 because, as the master of the novices said, of his 
 profound ignorance in the matter of Christian 
 perfection. 
 
 The novice deserved to have such a master, 
 for he humbled himself; he learnt his lesson like 
 a little child, and gave an account of his progress 
 from day to day with tears of compunction and 
 great tenderness of heart. He persevered in the 
 order, and was a good religious greatly respected, 
 and even a provincial in it. 
 
 The religious in Manzera had a more con¬ 
 venient house to live in; but it wrought no harm 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 55 
 
 to regular observance. The friars lived on the 
 alms of their neighbours, which were sometimes 
 abundant, and at other times scanty; but none 
 of them begged. They remained at home, content 
 with whatever God sent; and if they had nothing, 
 they were still more content. Such was the spirit 
 of their training. 
 
 While Manzera throve under the safe guidance 
 of St. John of the Cross, Pastrana was in danger; 
 and Fra Antonio, the prior of Manzera and superior 
 also of Pastrana, determined to send thither his 
 sub-prior and master of novices. Accordingly, in 
 October of this year, 1570, St. John of the Cross 
 went to Pastrana to instruct the novices there; 
 and Fra Pedro Fernandez, the apostolic visitor, 
 made him vicar of the house in the absence of 
 its prior. He took with him from Manzera, as 
 his companion, the lay brother already mentioned, 
 Peter of the Angels, whose prudent conduct and 
 exemplary life would be of great service in the 
 house. The two friars travelled on foot, begging 
 their bread, which they shared with the poor they 
 met. At night they rested in the poorest places, 
 avoiding great houses wherein women and servants 
 dwelt; and when they found no house poor enough 
 for their lodging, they slept on straw in barns 
 and outhouses,, carefully shunning all ease and 
 comfort, keeping in mind His life of pain and 
 travail who had no place to rest His head.* In 
 the novitiate were fourteen persons, four of whom, 
 * Joseph cle Jesu Maria, Vula, <&c. p.138. 
 
56 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 however, were professed, and all were fervent, men 
 of mortification and prayer. But they needed in¬ 
 struction, and some of them needed restraining; for 
 they were given to excesses unfitted for their state 
 of life. Some of them had been friars of the 
 mitigation, others had left the world for the new 
 Carmel; hut there was no one in the house who 
 had been trained under the first novice-master of 
 the reform. 
 
 St. John began by explaining to them the 
 intent and meaning of their vocation. He ex¬ 
 plained to them the requirements of the rule, 
 the spirit hidden under the letter thereof, and 
 the great importance of the observances which 
 were the several pathways, guards, and fences of 
 the law of their order. So persuasive was his 
 language, and so winning his ways, that no one 
 heard him unmoved. Carmel flourished, made 
 fruitful by the dew of his words. 
 
 In July of this year, 1570, and before St. John 
 went to Pastrana, St. Teresa being there herself, 
 present at the profession of the two friars whom 
 she had won in Madrid, it was resolved that a col¬ 
 lege should he founded for the order in Alcala de 
 Henares, for the instruction of the friars, and for 
 avoiding all occasions of dispute with those of the 
 mitigation, who also had a college there. St. 
 Teresa was now powerless, for she had leave to 
 found only two monasteries, and these were al¬ 
 ready founded. The provincial, however friendly, 
 could not help them, for he had no authbrity in 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CHOS3. 57 
 
 that matter. Application was made to the apos¬ 
 tolic visitor, who readily gave his consent, and the 
 Duke of Pastrana, the Prince Buy Gomez, coming 
 thither at the time, gave them a sum of money 
 towards the purchase of a house, and promised to 
 endow the college, so that the order should be 
 able to maintain in it at least eighteen students. 
 Fra Francis of the Conception bought a house, and 
 had everything ready by the beginning of October, 
 when Fra Baltasar of Jesus, now professed, and 
 Prior of Pastrana, went thither to take possession 
 and make the foundation. The college was 
 opened on the Feast of All Saints, and Fra Bal¬ 
 tasar began to preach in the city. So powerful 
 was his preaching, and so attractive was his mor¬ 
 tified life, that the whole university crowded to 
 hear him. Many of the students left the world 
 for the cloister, and some of them went to Pas¬ 
 trana as novices in Carmel, under St. John of the 
 Cross. Fra Baltasar having done his part of the 
 work, to the great regret of the university, re¬ 
 sumed his place as prior of Pastrana, St. John of 
 the Cross was sent to Alcala de Henares as rector 
 of the college which Fra Baltasar had just founded, 
 leaving the novices in the care of Fra Gabriel 
 of the Assumption, who, unhappily, not long 
 after, was charged with other duties, and the 
 novices were then placed under Fra Angel of St. 
 Gabriel.* 
 
 In the beginning of the year 1571, the college 
 * Reforma de los Dcscalcos, vol. ii. p. 107. 
 
58 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CEOSS. 
 
 of our Lady of Carmel in Alcala passed into the 
 hands of the novice-master, who had formed and 
 fashioned Duruelo, Manzera, and Pastrana. It 
 was trained, though a house of studies, as the 
 others had been trained, in the fear of God and 
 perfect detachment from earth. The example and 
 teaching of St. John were not in vain ; the students 
 of the house passing to and fro to the lectures of 
 the university, calm, recollected, with downcast 
 eyes, and never in a hurry, attracted the observa¬ 
 tion of the city, and won its respect. These 
 students of Carmel were a wonder there, bare¬ 
 footed and poorly clad; for the people knew that 
 many of them were wellborn and had been deli¬ 
 cately nurtured. Their food was poor and scanty * 
 and of the little given them they left some for the 
 poor, and not unfrequently feasted themselves on 
 bread and water. Regular discipline, fasting, 
 watching, and other mortifications humbled the 
 pride of life, and made the understanding captive 
 under the dominion of faith ; St. John of the 
 Cross, with unflagging watchfulness, encouraging 
 them in their studies, setting devotion and piety 
 on a higher level than learning ; so that from his 
 example it became a saying in the colleges of the 
 order, ‘ Religious and studious, but religious above 
 all.’ 
 
 The apostolic visitor, Fra Pedro Fernandez of 
 the order of St. Dominic, came at this time to 
 Alcala in the execution of his office. His fellow, 
 seeing the austerities of the college—which he 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 59 
 
 considered to be a prison rather than a house of 
 study—begged the visitor to put some limits to 
 the austerities practised therein. Fra Pedro was a 
 wiser man: he would make no change in the 
 order of the house, the fervour of which was to 
 him a comfort and joy. He told them all not to 
 let their studies be a source of weakness to them 
 in their austerities; for if they died under the 
 severities which they practised, such a death 
 w r ould be a better sermon than they could ever 
 hope to preach in a pulpit. They would do a 
 greater work for the Church ; for the world was full 
 of learning, and empty of w r orks of penance. 
 
 While the college in Alcala was growing, the 
 house in Pastrana fell into disorder again. There 
 Fra Angel of St. Gabriel, newdy made' priest, full 
 of zeal, fervent and mortified, but not gifted in the 
 discretion required in a master of novices, had, on 
 the departure of St. John of the Cross, begun to 
 make changes, and to disturb the settled order of 
 the house. He would have all carry the same 
 burden, making no account of age, strength, or 
 temper. A severe life was all he thought of, and 
 he measured all spiritual advancement by the fre¬ 
 quency and severity of penitential exercises. He 
 invented new methods of mortification; and the 
 more terrible they w r ere, the more he liked them. 
 Some of these mortifications were public, and in 
 the sight of persons of the world; but unhap¬ 
 pily that which at first ..^ved men to wonder, and 
 perhaps to compunction, became before long the 
 
60 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 occasion of jest and mockery. Fra Angel farther 
 forgot the rule and spirit of his order; he sent 
 the novices out into the villages to teach the 
 children their catechism, and in doing so made 
 them adopt the ways and manners of members of 
 other orders, who could lawfully do so. He did not 
 consider that the novice in Carmel v-as primarily 
 called to a life of retirement and contemplation. 
 He also sent them out to attend funerals; and, 
 still farther departing from the rule and practice 
 of the order, sent them out of the monastery to beg. 
 He w'as an earnest fiery man of strong will, and 
 his superiors were not able to withstand him, 
 still less to control him. 
 
 Fra Antonio of Jesus and other grave fathers, 
 knowing the state of the house in Pastrana, con¬ 
 sulted together, and agreed that there was hut one 
 help for it—to send the first novice-master of 
 Carmel thither at once. His work in Alcala they 
 felt w'as important; but it had been well done, 
 and the college wtis sound and healthy. But even 
 if he had not yet done his work there, they must 
 have sent him to Pastrana, for that had become 
 now the chief novitiate of the order. It was of 
 the last importance, therefore, to bring it again to 
 its former state. St. John of the Cross left Alcala 
 for Pastrana to undo the work of a whole year, and 
 to reduce a whole monastery—for the professed 
 fathers had also been led astray—into the true 
 pathways of the new Carmel. 
 
 He came to Pastrana in the beginning of the 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF TIIE CROSS. 61 
 
 year 1572, and began bis work gently and ten¬ 
 derly. In the first place he put an end to the 
 public humiliations, and then to the singular 
 penances which were done in the house. He 
 brought the monastery back by degrees to the 
 spirit of the rule and the observance of those con¬ 
 stitutions which he and Fra Antonio had agreed 
 upon in the beginning when they were together 
 in Duruelo. He showed the novices that their 
 spirit was peculiar—for every vocation has its own 
 means for its own ends—and that they were not 
 to adopt the practices even of the greatest saints 
 if they were not suited to their vocation. Their 
 chief work was prayer and meditation, “ dwelling 
 alone in the forest, in the midst of Carmel,”* away 
 from the noise of men; keeping the rule; for a 
 good work, however good, ceased to be a good 
 work in them if it were not a good work according 
 to the rule. Each order in holy Church has its 
 peculiar work and spirit; and confusion alone, 
 with the ruin of vocations, can come out of that 
 spirit of disorder which leads one man to do the 
 work of another. 
 
 Fra Angel of St. Gabriel, though a mortified 
 man, was still more mortified when he saw his 
 work undone. He could neither suffer in silence, 
 nor persuade himself that he had made any mis¬ 
 takes. Hurt to the quick by the crumbling of his 
 buildings on the sand, he made a formal complaint 
 to St. Teresa. In the letter he wrote to her, it 
 
 * Mich. vii. 14. 
 
62 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 was not enough for him to describe what St. John 
 of the Cross had done, hut he must also give his 
 reasons for his own conduct, and defend the method 
 he had pursued with the novices. St. Teresa was 
 at this time prioress of the monastery of the In¬ 
 carnation in Avila, where she had been a novice 
 and a nun herself. She was of one mind with Si. 
 John of the Cross, hut she was too wise to say so to 
 Fra Angel in his then mood; so she sent his letter, 
 with another from herself, to her trusted counsel¬ 
 lor Fra Dominic Banes, who was then reader in 
 theology in St. Stephen’s, the house of his order 
 in Salamanca, hut soon to ascend one of the public 
 chairs in that great university. Father Banes 
 answered the saint at great length, and wholly in 
 favour of St. John of the Cross. But as that 
 letter shows forth the common sense as well as the 
 spiritual knowledge olthat learned Dominican, and 
 is not easily accessible, some may he glad to know 
 its contents. After certain general observations, 
 in which he speaks slightingly of himself, Banes 
 writes thus :* 
 
 ‘ This master of the novices—Fra Angel—seems to be a 
 zealous man with good intentions; and as he wishes for 
 light, there is no reason why it should be denied him. May 
 Jesus Christ give it him, and teach him what perfection is! 
 Discite a me, quia mitis sum et humilis corde. He who is 
 of a meek and humble heart is so wrapt in the mercy of 
 God, knowing the depths of his own wretchedness, that he 
 regards himself as not worthy to breathe the air or to tread 
 the ground, and lives in fear of the justice of God, akvays 
 
 * Reforma de los Dcscalcos, vol. i. p. 373. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. (Vd 
 
 afraid that he is sinning against Him. Outward penances 
 and mortifications help us much to attain to this humility; 
 but then they must be done according to that prudence 
 which comes from God, and that prudence lies in obedience 
 to law: our Lord humbled Himself and was obedient. To 
 make a pilgrimage without any other necessity is not a 
 prudent mortification in a friar whose profession binds 
 him to such strict separation from the world as the primi¬ 
 tive rule does. As the novices are to be recollected men, 
 the w r ay to train them is not to let them have their own 
 way in mortifications. To copy the fathers of the Society 
 is to found another order, and not to build up that of 
 Carmel. These fathers have no distinguishing habit; their 
 profession is not that of separation from the -world; they 
 are not bound to silence and fasting, and never meet in 
 choir; their work is in the world, conversing with all, 
 teaching the Christian doctrine; nor is it anything out of 
 the way that they should do so. 
 
 But the friar and the monk are under no necessity to 
 seek for practices which are strange to their order. Let 
 them follow their profession and be silent; and they will 
 become saints without letting the world know of their 
 mortifications. I do not think much of those men who are 
 zealous for the edification of their neighbours. It is said 
 of St. Francis that men took him for a fool; that he strip¬ 
 ped himself, and put on clothes fit only for the poorest of 
 men : I respect that, because it w r as the work of the Holy 
 Ghost; but to copy actions of this kind, which are rare, is 
 acting a part. St. Francis at this time v T ore no religious 
 habit, belonged to no order, and had taken no vows; his 
 conduct was prudent in the state he was in. 
 
 If this father says in reply that he feels himself moved 
 to do acts of this kind, I would rather he made trial of 
 other ways which are more sanctioned by the Church. 
 Let people fast and watch, as the saints did. They cannot. 
 That is their answer, and they are in the right; for they 
 have not the spirit of the saints. Then let them be certain 
 of this : if they are moved by the Spirit of God to such ex- 
 
64 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CEOS8. 
 
 tremities of penance as these, they must first of all test 
 themselves in fastings, watchings, and prayer. 
 
 The father says that he shall become melancholy if 
 he is thwarted. I do not like that. He is too much at¬ 
 tached to novelties and untried ways. If he wishes for 
 mortification, here is a real one for him: let him belie\ e 
 that he has made a mistake. 
 
 I beg you, however, to console him, and advise him tc 
 practise obedience and be silent. Our Lord kept silence 
 for more than thirty years, and preached but for two. I 
 hope you will send him this my letter, and ask him to be¬ 
 lieve that I wish to serve him in his zeal. May our Lord 
 give us the light of His grace, and keep you in it! 
 
 Your servant in Christ, 
 
 Fra Domingo Banes. 
 
 St. Stephen’s, Salamanca, 
 
 April 23, 1572.’ 
 
 Francis de Yepes, the brother of St. John, came 
 to Pastrana by the invitation of the latter, who 
 gave him work in the garden of the monastery; 
 and when the Duke of Pastrana came to visit the 
 master of the novices, his attention was directed to 
 Francis in his poor clothes and in his daily work 
 by St. John. To humble himself the more before 
 the great benefactor of his order, he was careful to 
 tell him that his brother was poor, and that he 
 earned his bread by the labour of his hands. Fie 
 did this on all occasions when anybody came to 
 pay him visits of ceremony or politeness, contriv¬ 
 ing somehow or other to mortify himself by show¬ 
 ing his brother at work. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 St. Teresa sends for St. John of the Cross to Avila—Refor¬ 
 mation of the monastery—Illness of a nun—Trances— 
 Rxorcisms—A learned nun—Conversion of sinners—• 
 The saint goes to Segovia. 
 
 Before St. John of the Cross went to Pastrana, 
 and while he was still in Alcala de Henares, St. 
 Teresa had been sent by the apostolic visitor, Fra 
 Pedro Fernandes, of the order of St. Dominic, to 
 the monastery of the Incarnation in Avila, as 
 prioress of that house. The nuns were unwilling 
 to receive her, partly because they had not elected 
 her, and partly because they feared they might be 
 compelled to adopt the primitive rule. Notwitfn 
 standing the opposition of the nuns, the saint in 
 October 1571 entered and took possession of the 
 stall of the prioress, and winning by degrees the 
 affections of the discontented nuns, changed the 
 state of the monastery. 
 
 But in order to do her work the more surely, 
 and leave durable traces of her presence behind, 
 she asked the visitor for St. John of the Cross, as 
 . confessor of the monastery. The visitor assented 
 gladly, and the saint came without delay, having 
 
66 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF TIIE CROSS. 
 
 with him another friar, German of St. Mathias, as 
 his companion. The visitor lodged them in a 
 small house close to the monastery of the Incarna¬ 
 tion, where they could live in peace, withdrawn 
 from the tumult of the city and the concourse of 
 idle men. This was in the spring of 1572. 
 
 The great holiness of St. John of the Cross, 
 
 * hitherto hidden and known to few, began now to 
 be spoken of outside the order; the nuns of the 
 Incarnation gave him their confidence without, any 
 reservation, and changed their lives. 'St. Teresa 
 had put an end to the great distractions which 
 . were the results of too many visits to the monas¬ 
 tery on the part of seculars, and St. John of the 
 Cross made the work perfect, by stopping directly 
 and indirectly the confessions which the nuns made 
 to priests who, if they were not lax themselves, 
 were without the courage and the w T ill to correct 
 the laxity of the nuns, by forbidding the frequent 
 resort to the parlours. He dealt with the nuns 
 gently and tenderly, but with unfailing firmness, 
 and by degrees the community under the govern¬ 
 ment of St. Teresa, though not keeping the rule 
 which the prioress and the two confessors observed, 
 became a most edifying and recollected house; and 
 the saint herself, in a letter written September 
 27, 1572, to her sister Dona Juana, says: 4 The 
 barefooted friar who is confessor here is doing 
 great things : he is Fra John of the Cross.’ 
 
 Hot long after St. John came to the Incarna¬ 
 tion one of the nuns, Doha Maria de Yera, was 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CHOSS. 67 
 
 seized with sickness, and, before the greatness 01 
 her danger was suspected by the nuns, became 
 insensible. They then recognised the danger, and 
 sent for St. John of the Cross to administer the 
 last Sacraments. But before he entered the mon¬ 
 astery the nun was dead, to the extreme grief of her 
 sisters, one of whom, as he was entering the in¬ 
 firmary, reproached him in the bitterness of her 
 sorrow as if he had been to blame. ‘ Is this the 
 way,’ she said to him, ‘ you take care of your chil¬ 
 dren? This one has died unconfessed.’ The holy 
 man made no answer, but turned back and went 
 straight to the church, where before the Most Holy 
 he made known his distress, and begged humbly 
 for help. 
 
 After some considerable time the nuns sent him 
 word that their sister was restored to life, where- 
 upon he left the church, and on the way meeting j 
 the nun who had spoken to him before, said only 
 these words, ‘My child, are you satisfied?’ He 
 then went up to the infirmary, heard the nun’s 
 confession, and gave her the last Sacraments; then 
 when he had done for her all that could be done, 
 God took her to Himself. 
 
 He was kind to these poor nuns in every way, 
 and indeed they were much to be pitied; for the 
 monastery was very large and very poor, the nuns 
 more than a hundred in number, and occasionally 
 in distress, wanting both food and raiment. They 
 may be said to have had poverty without the merits 
 thereof, for they were not bound so strictly as the 
 
*68 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 barefooted nuns of tbe reform. St. John of the 
 Cross took compassion on them even in their out¬ 
 ward distresses; for one day seeing a nun in a habit 
 utterly unsuited to her, because of its extreme 
 worthlessness, he went out and begged the means 
 of supplying her with another, for the monastery 
 was too poor to do so. 
 
 In the year 1578, on the octave of St. Martin, 
 as St. Teresa tells us, he mortified that saint in 
 the very act of communion. St. Teresa liked to 
 receive large hosts, and had said so to St. John of 
 the Cross. So he, the great teacher of perfect de¬ 
 tachment, gave a lesson to the foundress of the 
 new Carmel, and on that day divided the host 
 between her and one of the nuns, because, as she 
 says, ‘ he wished to mortify me.’* 
 
 It was in the parlour of the Incarnation that 
 the nuns saw with their own eyes the concurrent 
 ecstasies of the two great saints to whose care they 
 had been committed. Beatriz of Jesus, one of 
 the sisters, but who afterwards left that house, 
 became a barefooted nun, and died in the mon¬ 
 astery of Ocana, went to the parlour on Trinity 
 Sunday with a message for the prioress. To her 
 great amazement, she saw St. Teresa raised in 
 the air, unconscious of her presence. She called 
 other nuns in, and all were witnesses of the same 
 marvel. On the other side of the grating they 
 saw St. John of the Cross, also raised above the 
 ground in the same way. The mystery was ex- 
 * Life of St. Teresa , relation lii. § 19. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 69 
 
 plained to them afterwards. The two saints had 
 begun by speaking of the most blessed Trinity, 
 and had fallen into a trance together. St. Teresa 
 said afterwards that it was impossible for any one 
 to speak of God to St. John of the Cross, for 
 either he or the other fell into a trance. On 
 another occasion, when they were conversing toge¬ 
 ther, he rose from his seat, trying to hide from 
 her what was coming on; and when she asked 
 him if it was the beginning of a trance, he replied 
 simply, 4 1 think it is.’ 
 
 Calmly and quietly he did his work among the 
 nuns, who gave up their unnecessary recreations 
 and many practices unseemly in the cloister. The 
 w T orld outside became conscious of the change with¬ 
 in, and felt that saints were standing by. 4 The 
 city is amazed,’wrote St. Teresa, 4 at the exceedingly 
 great good he has done there, and people take 
 him for a saint; and in my opinion he is one, and 
 has been one all his life.’* 
 
 He was now sought for throughout Avila, for 
 his great gift of spiritual direction. Troubled 
 consciences, unquiet scruples, all yielded before 
 him; and those whom melancholy or delusions 
 had led astray were, by his skilful guiding, 
 brought back to the true ways of the spirit. Re¬ 
 ligious houses sent for him, and were by him 
 wondrously sustained : for his words were words of 
 heavenly wisdom, not found in the land of those 
 whose life is pleasant. 
 
 * Lett. 170, to Don Pliilip II., Dec. 4, 1577. 
 
70 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 In a monastery in Avila, at this time, lived a 
 mm around whom Satan had thrown his net. Her 
 state was most pitiable, and her distress almost 
 unbearable, for she was tempted by the spirit of 
 blasphemy, doubt, and uncleanness. St. John of 
 the Cross was sent to her monastery. She re¬ 
 vealed to him the whole story of her dismal 
 temptations. He discerned the source of her 
 troubles and applied the fitting remedies, while 
 she on her part accepted them, and was delivered 
 from her distress. But no sooner had he left her 
 than the evil spirit returned to the assault. To 
 do his work the more effectually, he came dis¬ 
 guised in the likeness of St. John of the Cross, 
 sent for the nun to the confessional, and there 
 plied her with his deadly teaching. The next day 
 came the servant of God himself, and heard tne 
 confession of the poor nun, who had been more at 
 her ease, she said, because she had obeyed his di¬ 
 rection given the night before, and made less earn¬ 
 est resistance to the temptations by which she w as 
 tormented. The servant of God recognised the 
 deceit of the tempter, and told her that he had 
 not given her any directions the da^ oefoie, and 
 that he had not been near the monastery. The 
 saint then gave her certain instructions in writ¬ 
 ing, which she w T as carefully to observe, and went 
 his way. Immediately afterwards the nun received 
 another letter, containing farther instructions, but 
 of a different kind, in the handwriting of the 
 saint, and signed w r ith his name—so at least it ap- 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 71 
 
 peared to the nun. She was told that the former 
 instructions required some correction, because 
 they demanded of her a more vigilant watchful¬ 
 ness than was fitting for her state, seeing that a 
 certain degree of liberty was necessary for the 
 avoidance of scrupulosity, and for the greater 
 quiet of her conscience. The handwriting and 
 signature of the saint were counterfeited so skil¬ 
 fully that he himself, when he saw them, admitted 
 them to be his, but he recognised the forgery in 
 the teaching—that was Satan’s, not his. • Seeing 
 now that the poor nun was a puppet in the hand 
 of the evil one, the saint had recourse to the exor¬ 
 cisms of holy Church, and so delivered her from 
 the great peril she was in. 
 
 In another monastery he wrought another cure 
 of a more marvellous nature still—that of a nun 
 who amazed everybody by her learning. She could 
 speak many languages, and was versed in what is 
 called the arts and the sciences. She could dis¬ 
 pute in theology with the most learned theologian, 
 and her knowledge was so wonderful that people 
 began to think that her science was infused. 
 Grave doctors regarded her with reverence, for 
 they were afraid to suspect her, and incur the 
 guilt of rash judgment. But as all that is singular 
 in religion is almost always suspicious, her supe¬ 
 riors became at last uneasy about her, and resolved 
 to have her spirit tested by St. John of the Cross. 
 ITe was most unwilling to' undertake the task: his 
 sole desire was to be left alone in his poor cottage 
 
72 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CEOSS. 
 
 near the monastery of the Incarnation, and to he 
 forgotten of men. 
 
 He consented, however, to see the nun; hut 
 before doing so he prepared himself hy earnest 
 prayer and penance, his usual armour, and then, 
 committing the issues to our Lord, "went to the 
 monastery. The nun came to the parlour, where 
 the saint was waiting for her, hut the moment she 
 saw him she hegan to shake with a sudden fear, 
 and her tongue, usually so fluent, refused its 
 office. She could speak no language hut her own in 
 the presence of the saint, and all her knowledge de¬ 
 parted from her. Her superiors seeing this, and 
 now fully persuaded that she was in the toils of 
 Satan, and a source of indefinite danger to the reli¬ 
 gious around her, hegged the saint to perfect the 
 work he had thus begun. Compassionating the poor 
 soul before him, he yielded to their request, and 
 exorcised the nun. The dumb spirit that had 
 taken possession of her had to yield his prey, and 
 to reveal the whole story of that long possession. 
 The poor nun from her very earliest years had 
 been vain and foolish, and fond of human ap¬ 
 plause. The wicked spirit took advantage of her 
 curiosity and appeared before her, though she did 
 not know at the time what the vision meant, and 
 seized upon her imagination by his evil beauty. 
 She herself was naturally quick, lively, and witty; 
 but conscious of her ignorance, she coveted know¬ 
 ledge to enable her to shine the more. This 
 the devil promised her, on the condition of her 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 73 
 
 promising to become his bride. The poor soul, 
 thus in the power of the evil one, became more 
 and more careless about her soul, and at last began 
 to hate God and His service, and to wish that 
 others too might do so. 
 
 How she came to the monastery is not known. 
 Whether her parents were too poor to marry her, 
 or whether the devil tempted her for his own ends 
 to feign a vocation she had not, remains a secret. 
 But the monastery received her with joy, for her 
 fame was spread abroad; and the nuns among 
 whom she lived had no suspicion of the dangers 
 they were in till the wiles of the enemy were dis¬ 
 covered, and the evil spirits confessed their hateful 
 presence. St. John spoke to the nun of the mercy 
 of God, and enlightened her understanding while 
 moving her will. She, too, felt her danger now, 
 and undertook to do all that was in her power to 
 free herself from this visible dominion of the 
 devil. 
 
 St. John went home to the monastery of the In¬ 
 carnation, but before long he was inwardly admon¬ 
 ished to return to the house where the possessed 
 nun was living: for when he went away, the evil 
 spirit, unwilling to confess himself beaten, had 
 knocked at the gate of the monastery, in the dis¬ 
 guise of St. John of the Cross, and asked to see 
 the nun in the parlour, saying that he had some¬ 
 thing to say to her which he had forgotten. The 
 portress, suspecting nothing, opened the door, 
 and allowed him to enter, and the nun saw him. 
 
74 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CBOSS. 
 
 He having transformed himself into an angel of 
 light, and, for his evil ends, having put on the 
 likeness of St. John of the Cross, spoke to her of 
 the grievous nature of her sins, of the impossi¬ 
 bility of forgiveness, and of the power of the devil 
 to compel her to continue in his service. The 
 poor nun was overpowered, and her distress was 
 the greater because a few hours before St. Jonn of 
 the Cross, whom she believed to be then present, 
 had spoken to her of the compassion of God, and 
 encouraged her to do the works of penance, tiust- 
 ing in His mercy. 
 
 St. John now arrived at the monastery, and 
 asked to see the nun. The portress replied that it 
 was not possible, because she was at the moment 
 in the parlour with Fra John of the Cross. * How 
 can that be ?’ said the holy man. ‘ If I am John 
 of the Cross, he who is in the parlour cannot be 
 so.’ The portress, amazed, opened the door, and 
 allowed him to enter. He went straight to the 
 parlour, and the moment he came in the evil 
 spirit vanished. The portress had meanwhile told 
 the story to some of the nuns, and these hurried 
 into the parlour, where, however, they saw nothing 
 but the nun bitterly weeping, in great distress of 
 mind. The saint now exorcised the nun, and com¬ 
 manded the evil spirits, in the name of God, not 
 only to confess how they came to have such power 
 over that poor soul, but also to let go their prey, 
 and cease from troubling her any more. The 
 devil, overcome, told the whole tale of the posses- 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 75 
 
 sion, and moreover gave up tlie contract by which 
 the nun was bound to him. All this took place 
 in the presence not of the nuns only, but of certain 
 secular persons also, who came at that time into 
 the house. 
 
 His power over evil spirits caused the prioress 
 of Medina del Campo to beg St. Teresa to send 
 him thither. There was a nun in the house so 
 grievously afflicted with melancholy, that her 
 sisters were afraid her disease was not natural. 
 St. John went thither from the monastery of the 
 Incarnation, and having tried the nun, pronounced 
 her disorder akin to folly; in the course of time, 
 his decision was found to be true. St. Teresa 
 sent a letter at the same time to the prioress, 
 Ines of Jesus, her cousin, in which she says: £ I 
 send you Fra John of the Cross, to whom God 
 has given grace to drive evil spirits away; he 
 has now here in Avila put to flight three legions 
 of devils, whom in the name of God he commanded 
 to tell their number, and he was obeyed on the 
 instant.’* 
 
 Not the devil only, but the world also was 
 subject to his power. There was then in Avila 
 a young lady, beautiful, wealthy, and nobly born, 
 but whose daily life was a scandal because of her 
 vanity and the extravagance of her dress. The 
 young men of the city, captivated by her beauty, 
 and under the spell of her manners, flocked around 
 
 * Lett. 30; the date is not known, but probably written 
 when St. Teresa was prioress of the Incarnation. 
 
78 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 her whenever they could, to the great terror of her 
 friends and relatives, who were alarmed at the free¬ 
 dom of her life, and jealous of her honour. They 
 implored her to go to confession to St. John of the 
 Cross. It was their only hope of saving her from 
 imminent ruin. She heeded them not, and steadily 
 refused to go near a confessor whom she knew to 
 he unlikely to allow her to continue her amuse¬ 
 ments. But her friends persisted, and at last she 
 consented to make a confession to the man of 
 God. This was more than her friends had hoped 
 for latterly, for they begged her now only to speak 
 to the father as so many did; some, indeed, out of 
 curiosity rather than out of devotion. 
 
 She went to the church and to the confes¬ 
 sional, out of which she hardly expected to coine 
 forth alive, so much did she fear him; for she 
 knew nothing of him but his austerities and un¬ 
 worldly life so unlike her own. He heard her 
 confession, and spoke so gently to her, that she 
 was seized with amazement, and resolved to re¬ 
 turn to the same confessional. She did so, and 
 changed her life, putting aside her rich dresses, 
 avoiding idle company and light amusements, 
 doing penance and wearing sackcloth. Her con¬ 
 version was a joy not only to her family, but to 
 the whole city; and her whole life from that day 
 forward edified her neighbours more than her 
 former excesses of untamed spirits had offended 
 them. 
 
 The world felt the power of that holiness which 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 77 
 
 was growing in secret in tlie poor cottage against 
 the wall of the monastery, but it knew in reality 
 little or nothing of the unearthly life led within 
 it; of the long vigils, of the sharp discipline, and 
 of the still sharper discipline of perpetual watch¬ 
 fulness over every idle thought, in order to avoid 
 the idle w T ord that bringeth judgment in its train. 
 
 Two other conversions are recorded, both won¬ 
 derful and both effectual, wrought by his ministry 
 while he was confessor of the nuns of the Incarna¬ 
 tion in Avila. 
 
 One was that of a nun who had gone far 
 astray, and who had become a scandal in the 
 city. She had set aside the obligations of her 
 state, led a worldly life, conversing with seculars, 
 and wasting her time in unprofitable amusements, 
 and even worse. At last her conscience was 
 seriously disturbed, and she went to confession 
 to St. John of the Cross. The servant of God 
 heard her patiently, and she told him the whole 
 story of her misspent life. The poor nun returned 
 to her cell fully resolved to serve God only for 
 the rest of her days, and broke off from all her 
 former levities. But one of those who too often 
 frequented the parlour of her monastery, a wealthy 
 and powerful personage in Avila, was not pleased 
 at her conversion, for she never would see him or 
 any other idler as of old, and accordingly resolved 
 upon revenge. He knew well enough whose in¬ 
 fluence had been stronger than his, so he waited 
 one night near the monastery of the Incarnation, 
 
78 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 for the coming forth of St. John of the Cross from 
 the confessional of the church, according to his 
 wont. The saint came out and went towards his 
 house, when this man fell upon him, and beat 
 him so cruelly that he was nearly dead. Though 
 he knew who he was, and knew too why he was 
 thus insulted, he never complained, and never 
 said who it was that had thus been so merciless 
 to him. But he did say afterwards to some of 
 his brethren that he never was so happy in all 
 his life as he was then, suffering for the sake of 
 justice, and that the blows of the angry man were 
 as sweet to him as the shower of stones to St. 
 Stephen. 
 
 The other conversion was that of a young lady 
 of a noble house in Avila, with great gifts of mind 
 and body. She was a penitent of the saint, and 
 lived near the monastery of the Incarnation. Satan 
 pursued her with great malignity, and in the end 
 brought her to the very brink of ruin. She gave 
 up the battle as lost, and yielded to her unwearied 
 tempter. One night, as the servant of God was 
 in prayer in his house, he was surprised by the 
 sudden apparition before him of his penitent. He 
 trembled with fear, and signed himself with the 
 sign of the cross, for he believed that Satan him¬ 
 self stood before him. The poor girl, divining his 
 thoughts, told him he need not be afraid; it was 
 she herself, and not the devil, who had thus come 
 into a room where she ought not to set her foot. 
 She then told him that she had been tempted 
 
 . r. . f • . ' ‘ 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CEOSS. 
 
 79 
 
 sorely, and that she had resolved to fight no 
 longer; the attractions of sin had prevailed over 
 the terrors of the judgment to come. The holy 
 man heard her with horror, and then, lifting up 
 his eyes to God, and full of the most compas¬ 
 sionate zeal, spoke to the miserable woman of the 
 terrible judgment of God upon sinners, and of the 
 inevitable penalties which awaited her. She was 
 moved at last, and bursting into tears of true 
 contrition, fell upon her knees and cried to God 
 for pardon. He then sent her away as quickly as 
 he could, reserving for another time, and a more 
 fitting place, her perfect reconciliation with God. 
 
 In March 1574, St. Teresa took the saint with 
 her from Avila to Segovia, where she founded her 
 ninth monastery of nuns. The foundation was 
 made on the Feast of St. Joseph, and the first 
 Mass was said by St. John of the Cross. For 
 this the vicar-general threatened to put him in 
 prison ; but he did not execute his threat, and the 
 saint returned in safety to Avila. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The friars of the mitigation—Fra Jerome Tostado—Chapter 
 of the mitigation—Decrees against the reform—Fra 
 Jerome of the Mother of God—Chapter of Almodovar 
 —Death of the Nuncio—Troubles in the monastery of the 
 Incarnation—St. John of the Cross made a prisoner. 
 
 While St. John of the Cross was living in Avila, 
 and before the priorate of St. Teresa in the monas¬ 
 tery of the Incarnation had come to an end, the 
 friars of the mitigation struck their first blow at 
 the reform. They had been under the govern¬ 
 ment of visitors apostolic since the year 1570, the 
 two Dominican friars who ruled them as visitors 
 being friendly to the reform, and, as the friars 
 believed, unfriendly to them. It was necessary, 
 therefore, if they were to do anything in their 
 own defence, to be delivered out of the hands of 
 the visitors, and be placed again under their own 
 General. Accordingly they represented their con¬ 
 dition to his Holiness, and obtained from him, 
 August 3, 1574, a brief cancelling the faculties 
 of the visitors. They were in no hurry, however, 
 to hasten the fight, and waited patiently till 
 Pentecost 1575, when the general chapter of the 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 81 
 
 order assembled in Piacenza, in the Duchy of 
 Parma. 
 
 In that memorable chapter the fathers of the 
 01 dei decieed the suppression of all the monas- 
 teiies of fiiars in Spain which had been founded 
 without the sanction of the General, and every 
 one who should resist this decree was to be re¬ 
 garded as a rebel, and to suffer the penalties of 
 his rebellion. 
 
 Now as the General’s sanction was really 
 confined to the house of Duruelo, removed to 
 Manzeia, and that of Pastrana, the decree closed 
 six or seven houses, and destroyed the reform 
 throughout Andalucia, whither it had been lately 
 carried. Fra Jerome Tostado; a Portuguese, an 
 able, shrewd, and courageous friar, was appointed 
 visitoi of Spain, and charged with the execution 
 of this decree by the general chapter. 
 
 His instructions were given him, and he set 
 out for Spain. Conscious of his strength, he 
 made no haste, but came slowly and with de¬ 
 liberation to do his work. But the friars of the 
 reform knew the danger they were in, and made 
 their preparations for the coming fight. The 
 powers of the Nuncio were not touched, and to 
 him they applied, for he had always been their 
 friend. He having first consulted the Holy See, 
 and having ascertained that his hands were not 
 tied, made Fra Jerome of the Mother of God 
 visitor of Andalucia, and superior also of the friars 
 and nuns of the reform of St. Teresa. That was 
 
 G 
 
82 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 done August 3,1575, within three months of the as¬ 
 sembling of the chapter in Piacenza. By this act 
 of the Nuncio the reform was secured, and the vicar 
 of the General, Fra Jerome Tostado, was ousted of 
 his jurisdiction before he set his foot on the soil 
 of Spain. The friars of the mitigation were not 
 frightened, and the first blow was struck in Novem¬ 
 ber of this year, 1575, by the Provincial of Castille, 
 Fra Angel de Salazar, who sent the Friar Miguel 
 de Ulloa to Seville, with instructions to stop all 
 farther foundations of the reform, and to tell St. 
 Teresa that she was to confine herself—such were 
 the orders of the chapter—to any one of her own 
 monasteries at her choice. In a word, she was to 
 he a prisoner for the present. Then, either at the 
 end of the year or early in 1576, the prior of the 
 Carmelites in Avila, Father Yaldemoro, removed 
 from the monastery of the Incarnation St. John 
 of the Cross and Fra German of St. Mathias,, to 
 the ‘ exceeding great scandal of the city, writes 
 St. Teresa. The Nuncio was appealed to, and he 
 ordered them to he brought hack, forbidding at the 
 same time the friars of the mitigation to hear the 
 confessions of the nuns, or even to say Mass m 
 that monastery.* 
 
 In March 1576, Fra Jerome Tostado was m 
 Barcelona, and on May 12th a chapter of the old 
 observance was held in Moraleja, to which the 
 
 * Lett. 71, without date, hut written from Seville in 
 the beginning of 1576 ; and Lett. 170, to Don Philip II., 
 
 Dec. 4, 1577. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 83 
 
 priors of Manzera and Pastrana, with the rector of 
 Alcala, all of the reform, were summoned. These 
 houses were recognised because founded with the 
 consent of the General; but the priors of six 
 houses were not summoned, because they w r ere 
 regarded as rebels and strangers to the order, 
 living in houses which the General had never 
 sanctioned. 
 
 The prior of Pastrana and the rector of Alcala 
 suspected some mischief, and therefore before going 
 to the chapter consulted the Nuncio of his Holi¬ 
 ness in Madrid, to w T hom they made known their 
 suspicions, and showed the letters by which they 
 had been summoned. The Nuncio advised them 
 to attend the chapter, but to give their consent to 
 nothing that might be decreed against the reform, 
 or against the person of Fra Jerome of the Mother 
 of God, whom he had made superior of the bare¬ 
 footed friars, and visitor of the province of Anda- 
 lueia. 
 
 The friars of the old observance decreed, in 
 spite of the remonstrances of the three friars of 
 the reform, that there should be in future no 
 difference in the habits worn in the order; that 
 the barefooted friars should w r ear shoes, cease to 
 be called barefooted, and be known as contempla- 
 tives; that the friars of the old observance and of 
 the reform should dwell as brethren in the same 
 house, each following his own rule, but living 
 together, as if there were nothing to distinguish 
 them one from the other; and that none of the 
 
. 84 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CEOSS. 
 
 houses of the order should he regarded as shut 
 against the observants on the one hand, or against 
 the contemplatives on the other. 
 
 The intention of the friars was plain enough: 
 they hoped, by compelling all to dwell together as 
 if there were no difference between them, to biing 
 the more earnest friars, by the contagion of ex¬ 
 ample, back again to the more easy life of the 
 mitigated rule. 
 
 The friars of the reform were not bound to give 
 way, for they had their own Superior given them 
 by the Nuncio of his Holiness, and accordingly 
 they made preparations to defend themselves. 
 Their Superior, Fra Jerome of the Mother of God, 
 summoned the priors of the reform to Almodovar 
 del Campo, where they met Sept. 8, 1576, and 
 with them St. John of the Cross, who was still 
 the confessor of the nuns of the Incarnation. They 
 elected a council to assist the provincial—so was 
 Fra Jerome called by the Nuncio—and of that 
 council, the first chosen was Fra Antonio of Jesus. 
 They also resolved to send two of the fathers to 
 Home, to defend them against the charges which 
 the friars of the mitigation brought against them. 
 But the state of the order was so full of peril at 
 this time that the two fathers could not be spared, 
 
 and so they never went. 
 
 In the same assembly a question was raised 
 about the rule and the constitutions. Fra Antonio 
 and St. John of the Cross had agreed in Duruelo 
 upon certain things, and Fra Jerome of the Mother 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CEOSS. 
 
 85 
 
 of Gcd, as provincial and visitor appointed by tlie 
 Nuncio, had made certain decrees for the good 
 government of the order. The chief friars, meet¬ 
 ing together in chapter for the first time, could 
 not refrain from discussing the end of the reform, 
 and the means by which that end was to be 
 reached. 
 
 Now, according to the letters of the General 
 received by St. Teresa, and in virtue of which she 
 founded the house in Duruelo, which was the birth¬ 
 place of the order, the friars of the reform were to 
 be contemplatives, and their active work was to be 
 subordinate to the higher work unto which God 
 had called them. They were to be like the nuns, 
 so far as that was possible—men of retirement and 
 prayer. 
 
 Fra Jerome was of another mind, and in this 
 assembly of Almodovar spoke at some length to 
 the fathers, insisting on the fact that the order 
 was mendicant: he persuaded his brethren that 
 they were as much bound to succour their neigh¬ 
 bours as they were bound to their cells and to 
 prayer. Most of the friars who had formerly pro¬ 
 fessed the mitigated rule were easily convinced, 
 and Fra Antonio himself agreeing with him, the 
 assembly was almost of one mind. 
 
 But St. John of the Cross understood the re¬ 
 form in another sense, and rose up amidst his 
 brethren to combat the opinions which most of 
 them adopted. He admitted the fact that they 
 were mendicants, and that they owed, therefore, a 
 
83 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 debt to their neighbour; they were bound to share 
 with him what God gave to them in prayer. But 
 charity must be in order ; the first duty of the friars _ i 
 was to keep the rule, by which they are required 
 to abide in their cells, meditating night and day 
 in the law of God, unless reasonably hindered. 
 
 As for preaching out of the monasteries and hear¬ 
 ing confessions, there were orders in holy Church 
 to whom these good works specially belonged, and 
 he begged his brethren not to undo the work so 
 happily begun by sanctioning practices which 
 made silence and prayer so difficult. He could not 
 prevail against the provincial and Fra Antonio ; 
 the latter w T as an old man, and greatly respected 
 by his brethren. 
 
 This was the beginning of Fra Jerome’s 
 troubles, and the beginning also of great troubles 
 in the whole order. The chapter decreed accord¬ 
 ing to the propositions of the provincial, and then 
 dissolved; St. John of the Cross returning to the 
 monastery of the Incarnation in Avila. 
 
 In the next'year 1577, in the month of June, 
 the Nuncio of his Holiness, Monsignore Ormaneto, 
 died, to the great grief of the friars of the reform, 
 for he had been faithful and constant in their 
 defence. His successor, Monsignore Sega, who 
 arrived in August, was known to be unfriendly to 
 them, believing them to be rebellious friars who 
 were bringing in novelties to the ruin of the order. 
 
 He had unfortunately given credit to men inter¬ 
 ested or deceived, and had conceived an evil opinion 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 87 
 
 of St. Teresa herself; he thought she was nothing 
 else but a restless and dissatisfied nun, who could 
 not he quiet in her monastery. At the same time 
 two friars of the reform, Miguel de la Columna, 
 and the zealous friar who had done so much in 
 the order, Fra Baltasar of Jesus, were won over 
 by the friars of the mitigation, and were weak 
 enough to bring hateful charges against St. Teresa 
 and their Superior, Fra Jerome of the Mother of 
 God. Fra Miguel soon repented, and withdrew 
 the charges; and before witnesses, in the presence 
 of a notary, Sept. 4, 1577, in Pastrana, declared 
 that he had even signed the papers in which they 
 were recorded without first reading them. Fra 
 Baltasar also, in a letter to Fra Jerome, expressed 
 - his sorrow for what he had done, confessing that 
 he had been carried away by passion, and begged 
 for forgiveness. He was forgiven and readmitted, 
 without either active or passive voice, by the de- 
 finitors in the chapter held in Valladolid, in April 
 1587, when Fra Nicolas of Jesus Maria was pro¬ 
 vincial. But the order never trusted him again, 
 and never raised him to any dignity in it. His 
 after life -was most edifying, however, and full of 
 consolation to his brethren. He died in the house 
 in Lisbon, in the year 1589.* 
 
 The Nuncio no doubt believed there ivas some 
 truth at least in these miserable accusations, and 
 his anger was not lessened when the 4 restless 
 
 * Reforma , j. p. 648, ii. p. 352. Letters of St. Teresa, 
 Lett. 165 and 166, written in October 1577. 
 
88 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF TIIE CROSS. 
 
 woman,’ as tie once called St. Teresa, was elected 
 prioress of the Incarnation in October, by fifty-five 
 nuns against forty-four w 7 ho were in favour of 
 Dona Ana of Toledo, one of the nuns in the house. 
 The fifty nuns regarded as rebellious were by the 
 provincial excommunicated, and w T ere refused leave 
 to enter the choir even when nobody w r as there; 
 all communications with their friends and relatives 
 were interdicted, and they were not allowed to hear 
 Mass.* 
 
 The nuns submitted at last to the prioress 
 elected by the minority and confirmed by the vicar 
 of the General, Fra Jerome Tostado, who, to his 
 credit, in spite of the king’s opposition, persisted 
 in fulfilling his duty. Fra Jerome Tostado then 
 sent the prior of Toledo, Fra Fernando Maldonado, 
 to absolve the nuns and to make peace in the mon¬ 
 astery. That prior had other instructions also, 
 which he faithfully obeyed. He w r as, if possible, to 
 detach St. John of the Cross from the reform, and 
 failing that, to put him in prison as a disobedient 
 friar. Father Maldonado’s instructions could not 
 be kept secret, and the friars elected St. John 
 prior of Manzera, to save him from the risk he 
 was running at the Incarnation. He, too, knew 
 his danger and the troubles before him, for one 
 day he said to Dona Ana Maria, a holy nun of the 
 Incarnation, that he should be taken and made to 
 suffer much; to wliich she replied, not believing 
 
 * Letters of St. Teresa , Lett. 166, October 1577, to the 
 prioress of Seville. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 89 
 
 him, that his sufferings could not be long, because 
 he was not strong enough to bear any. He was 
 stronger than she thought he was, for he outlived 
 the cruel treatment of his imprisonment. 
 
 Father Fernando Maldonado began by tempt¬ 
 ing the saint to return to the old observance, which 
 he had abandoned nine years before. He repre¬ 
 sented to him that the reform was a scandal in 
 itself, a slur on the good name of the order, a life 
 full of spiritual dangers, because it was so new. 
 St. John could not be moved, so Fra Fernando 
 made up his mind to use force, and take him with 
 him to prison in Toledo, where he was prior. 
 
 Somehow or other his resolution to use violence 
 became known, and some of the chief men in 
 Avila, with certain relatives of the nuns, kept 
 watch around the poor cottage of the two friars. 
 Father Maldonado remained quiet, and by degrees 
 the watch was discontinued. Thereupon the friar, 
 on the night of Dec. 8, went with a band of armed 
 men to the cottage, though the two friars neither 
 did nor wished to offer any resistance; once in his 
 power, they were gagged and bound. Having se¬ 
 cured his prey, Father Maldonado took them to the 
 monastery of the friars for the night; but before 
 shutting them up in their cells, he had them 
 severely disciplined, as rebel children of their 
 Mother.* 
 
 The next morning the prior sent for St. John 
 
 * Letters of St. Teresa , Lett. 173, Dec. 10,1577, to the 
 prioress of Seville. 
 
90 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 of the Cross, intending to obtain some information 
 from him. The saint left his cell, which was also 
 his prison, guarded by his gaolers, and was led 
 into the place where the prior was making his 
 thanksgiving after Mass. There he was left; and 
 he, seeing the door open, went out of the house to 
 secure certain papers left behind in the little cot¬ 
 tage, and which seem to have escaped the search 
 of Father Maldonado. His absence was at last 
 observed, and some of the friars followed him in 
 all haste; hut he was in the house, and, having 
 locked the door, had time to destroy the papers. 
 
 He was now to he taken to Toledo, but Fra 
 German of St. Mathias was to he sent to Moraleja.* 
 In order to depart the more easily out of Avila, Fa¬ 
 ther Maldonado made the saint change his habit 
 and cover his feet, as if he were a friar of the old 
 observance. But when the disguise was effected, 
 St. John simply observed that he was still a friar 
 of the reform. The religious to whom he was 
 committed hated the reform, and to show his 
 hatred, treated his prisoner harshly on the road. 
 His companion, however, who was a secular, 
 was more compassionate, and determined to help 
 St. John to escape. He found an opportunity of 
 
 * St. Teresa, writing to Mary of St. Joseph, prioress of 
 Seville, Deo. 10, Lett. 173, says : ‘ The prior of Avila has 
 taken Fra German to St. Paul's in Moraleja, and when he 
 came hack he told the nuns who are of his party, that he 
 had put that traitor in a place of safety: they say that 
 on the road blood flowed from his mouth.’ 
 
91 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 making liis resolution known to the prisoner but 
 the only answer he got was that the friar 1 no 
 treat him half so harshly as he deserved; he 
 hoped, therefore, that he would not trouble him¬ 
 self farther about him. . 
 
 But the layman was not so easily deceive . 
 
 When they came to the inn where they were to 
 lodge that night, ho went to the host, and, 
 having told him what he had observed, said that 
 he believed the prisoner to be a great saint, an 
 that he wished to set him free. The innkeeper 
 entered into the plan, and told St. John of t e 
 Cross that means of escape would be found for him 
 during the night. It was all in vain; the holy 
 man told him, as he had told the other, that he 
 had no wish to eseape-he was a willing prisoner 
 
 in the hands of his gaoler. 
 
 The prisoner arrived in Toledo, calm an 
 joyous of heart, for he was reaping the ruito 
 many prayers. His judges were waiting for him 
 in the monastery of the Incarnation of the old ob¬ 
 servance. In the morning of that day St. Teiesa 
 heard of the seizure, but she could not hear any¬ 
 thing of the destination of the prisoner. In her 
 distress, she wrote to the king, Hon P n ip •» 
 hewing for help. ‘ I would rather, she said, he 
 wore in the hands of the Moors, for they perhaps 
 would be more merciful; and this Mar, whois so 
 great a servant of God, is so enfeebled by his 
 great sufferings that I fear for his life. 
 
 * Lett. 170, Dec. 4, 1577. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Trial—Imprisonment—Hardships of the prison—Adonde 
 
 Te escondiste—Light in the cell—Vision of our Lady— 
 
 Preparations for escape. 
 
 The next day lie appeared before his judges, friars 
 of the old observance, empowered by the vicar of 
 the order in Spain to try him. The acts of the 
 general chapter held in Piacenza were produced, 
 and he was then pressed to return to the observ¬ 
 ance which he had quitted nine years before. His 
 judges promised not only to forgive and forget the 
 past, but also to treat him with great honour, and 
 raise him to the high offices of the order. If he 
 refused to submit, he would be regarded as a rebel¬ 
 lious friar, and subjected to the penalties with 
 which all religious orders visit their contumacious 
 children. 
 
 The man of God heard them in all patience, 
 and with great humility replied that it was im¬ 
 possible for him to do what they required of him. 
 The reform to which he belonged was lawfully 
 established, with the consent of the General, by the 
 visitors apostolic and the Nuncio of his Holiness; 
 he was bound, therefore, to persevere under obe- 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 93 
 
 dience to an authority higher than theirs: the 
 authority of the Pope is greater than that of die 
 general chapter. He admitted that he was m 
 their power, and that they could punish him; he 
 was ready and willing to bear his burden, but he 
 was not legally subject to their jurisdiction His 
 superior was Fra Jerome of the Mother of God 
 The friars of the mitigation were within tneir 
 own right, so they thought; honestly believing, 
 at the same time, that they were justified m im¬ 
 prisoning St. John of the Cross under the autho¬ 
 rity of the General. The new Nuncio favoured 
 them, and wished to crush the reform as much as 
 they did. Their duty was to execute the decrees 
 of the general chapter, binding upon them as true 
 children of the order; and they did not recognise 
 the acts of the late nuncio. The saint could no 
 submit to their conditions ; so they ordered him to 
 be imprisoned in the monastery, severely scourged, 
 and fed on bread and water. They regarded 1m 
 as a headstrong friar who followed his own wi , 
 and who heeded not the authority of the order. 
 They had him in their power now, and they ha 
 the right to chastise him for his disobedience. 
 
 The servant of God was helpless, but he never 
 made the slightest complaint, and submitted 
 humbly to the sentence pronounced by men who 
 were not really invested with any jurisdiction over 
 him. He neither disputed their authority nor 
 begged for their .forgiveness, but yielded himseli 
 passively to suffer whatever they might lay upon 
 
94 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 liim; lie had prayed for sufferings, and his prayer, 
 to his great joy, was heard at last. 
 
 His prison, visited devoutly afterwards by one 
 of his biographers, Fra Joseph of Jesus Maria, was 
 a small closet, not quite six feet wide, and less 
 than ten feet in length, at the end of a room in 
 which guests of distinction were usually lodged. 
 It was close and dark, for it had no window; and 
 the scanty light it had came through a loophole, 
 not three inches wide, in the wall near the roof— 
 and that was, moreover, a borrowed' light. To 
 read his Breviary, the prisoner must stand on a 
 bench and hold his book under the light, and that 
 light could be had only for a short time during the 
 day, when the sun shone in the corridor of the 
 house. 
 
 The door of this closet was padlocked, and he 
 could never leave it without the gaoler’s permis¬ 
 sion. Afterwards, when the friars heard of the 
 escape of his fellow-prisoner, German of St. 
 Mathias,* from the monastery in Moraleja, the 
 door of the room to which the closet belonged was 
 also locked. They were determined to keep him 
 
 * Fra German was born in Logrona in Pdojas; made 
 his profession in Pastrana, Feb. 25, 1573. He was elected 
 prior of Manzera, June 10, 1579, and died in the course of 
 the year in the odour of sanctity. Pedro de las Cuevas, a 
 priest, was with St. Teresa in Avila one day, when the saint 
 burst into tears, and being asked the reason, said, ‘ The 
 prior of Manzera is dead.’ Don Pedro found afterwards 
 that he had died that very day. Notes of Fra Antonio on 
 Lett. 77, vol. iii. o: the Letters oj St. Teresa. 
 
95 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 safely, for they looked on him —as in truth he 
 was— the chief pillar of the reform which they 
 
 hated. ' _ 
 
 During the day no one hut the friar who was 
 
 his gaoler was allowed to speak to him, or even to 
 see him. In the evening he was led to the re¬ 
 fectory at the time of collation, and there, on the 
 floor, he had to take his food, which was generally 
 bread and water. Occasionally they gave him a 
 little fish, if any could be spared from the meal of 
 the community; they even gave him salt-fish, and 
 refused him water. When the meal was over, the 
 prior rebuked him severely, speaking to him as to 
 one who had committed scandalous sins, upbraid¬ 
 ing him as a reformer of others when he needed 
 reformation himself, and calling the attention of 
 his brethren to him as to one who had set himself 
 up to teach them before he had been taught him¬ 
 self—he who was, in reality, but the lowest and the 
 
 least in the order. 
 
 When the prior ceased to speak, the saint 
 bared his shoulders to receive the public disci- 
 pline inflicted on friars guilty of grave offences. 
 It is the heaviest penance which religious inflict, 
 and is also the most keenly felt, for it is the 
 reward of disgraceful deeds. St. John of t e 
 Cross, walking in the footsteps of his Master, 
 bowed his head, and submitted to the _ terrible 
 scourging, which was so unsparingly administered 
 that his shoulders bore the marks of it for the rest 
 of his days. He received it all as from the hands 
 
96 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 of God, who had a right to scourge him, and 
 neither then nor afterwards did he ever complain 
 of the friars, always making excuses for them 
 whenever his imprisonment was spoken of. At 
 all times, even among his own brethren of the 
 reform who knew the whole story, he w T ould never 
 allow any one to blame the friars of Toledo. At 
 first they led him to the refectory every night, 
 hut they grew weary at last of that cruel scourging 
 before he did. This was to him another grief ; 
 he complained to his gaoler, and asked him why 
 he was forgotten and deprived of his only consola¬ 
 tion. He longed for the evening, that he might 
 he led to the torture; but his tormentors, grown 
 weary, sent for him only thrice in the w r eek for a 
 time, and then only on Fridays. Later on, they 
 spared him even the Fridays, and left him for 
 weeks unmolested in his cell: perhaps they w r ere 
 thinking, in spite of themselves, of the lamb be¬ 
 fore his shearers, dumb. 
 
 He was kept in prison more than eight months, 
 and was never allowed to change his clothes. He 
 had to wear the habit of the mitigation given him 
 in Avila when he was made prisoner, which was a 
 perpetual penance to him, and his woollen tunic 
 underneath must have been saturated with blood, 
 and soiled; hut the friars were blind to the cruelty 
 of their conduct. As he came into his prison, so 
 he went out, in the very same garments, never 
 changed; and he was become a burden, horrible 
 even to himself. To add to his sorrows, the friars 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 97 
 
 of the observance would meet together in the room 
 to which his cell belonged, and there discuss the 
 affairs of the reform. They were careful to say 
 nothing that was not true, hut all they had to say 
 was meant to vex their prisoner. They spoke of 
 the resolution of the Nuncio, Monsignore Sega, to 
 quash the reform, and detailed the strange charges 
 brought against St. Teresa by two friars who for a 
 time had fallen away, and who were supposed to 
 know the secrets of the reform, as if those charges 
 had never been retracted, or as if they believed 
 them to be true. All this was gall and wormwood, 
 for he knew nothing of the state of his brethren ; 
 he bewailed his own sins and imperfections, which 
 he, in his humility, considered as the cause of the 
 great ruin which had been wrought in Carmel. It 
 was impossible for him to communicate with any¬ 
 body, nor could anybody communicate with him. 
 He was cut off from the rest of the world; and 
 they were the sons of his mother who fought 
 ‘v against him. 
 
 \ It was with difficulty he could say his office, 
 and he was not allowed to say Mass. The reform 
 in the order, which he had accepted at the hands 
 of St. Teresa, had brought him to utter misery; 
 if he had gone to the Carthusians, as he had 
 purposed, he could have served God in peace and 
 quietness. He was now among the dead; his 
 brethren could not deliver him—none of them even 
 knew where he was. God had thrown him into the 
 crucible to burn away the dross, to purify the 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 spirit, and bring it home to Himself. But amid 
 all bis trials, and in tbe depths of his sufferings, 
 his patience never failed him, and it was in that 
 prison he composed the wonderful hymn jLclondc 
 Te escondiste, which he afterwards so wonderfully 
 explained. 
 
 The bodily sufferings of that prison may be, 
 perhaps, understood; but the spiritual sufferings 
 by which his soul was raised so high are unutter¬ 
 able. He was drawn in beneath the deep waters, 
 and hidden from the eyes of men bodily and spi¬ 
 ritually, so that none could comfort him. The 
 rigours of his prison were redoubled in the begin¬ 
 ning of March 1578, when the friars heard of the 
 escape of Fra German of St. Mathias, who was 
 made a prisoner with him in December before in 
 Avila. Soon the hot weather made his close cell 
 more intolerable still, and he was now become a 
 burden to himself, because he was not allowed a 
 change of raiment. Nobody had compassion upon 
 him, and his gaoler was unmoved by his miseiable 
 condition. It was rumoured too that Fra Jerome 
 Tostado h^d sent him to Borne, and St. Teresa 
 seems to have believed it.* The story may have 
 caused his friends to cease from searching for him; 
 and while he was in his prison they were never able 
 to discover the place where he had been hidden. 
 
 But God did not forsake His servant; his 
 enemies had chased him, and caught him like a 
 bird, without cause, and hidden him from all his 
 * Lett. 183, March 9th, 1578. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 99 
 
 acquaintance in a close and stifling cell, which, in 
 the heat of summer, had become a furnace. His 
 gaoler, obedient to the order of his superiors, 
 refused him any relief; and even at night the 
 darkness was hardly greater than it was during 
 the day. Now and then the saint made his moan 
 unto God, but without complaining, and his cell 
 became filled with light seen by the bodily eye. 
 One night the friar who kept him went as usual 
 to see that his prisoner was safe, and witnessed 
 the heavenly light with which the cell was flooded. 
 He did not stop to consider it, but hurried to the 
 prior, thinking that some one in the house had 
 keys to open the doors of the prison. The prior, 
 with two religious, went at once to the prison, but 
 on his entering the room through which the prison 
 was approached, the light vanished. The prior, 
 however, entered the cell, and, finding it dark, 
 opened the lantern with which he had provided 
 himself, and asked the prisoner who had given him 
 light. St. John answered him, and said that no 
 one in the house had done so, that no one could 
 do it, and that there was neither candle nor lamp 
 in the cell. The prior made no reply, and went 
 away, thinking that the gaoler had made a mistake. 
 
 St. John, at a later time, told one of his bre¬ 
 thren that the heavenly light, which God so merci¬ 
 fully sent him, lasted the night through, and that 
 it filled his soul with joy, and made the night pass 
 away as if it were but a moment. Wheh his im¬ 
 prisonment was drawing to its close, he heard our 
 
'100 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 Lord say to him, as it were, out of the soft light 
 that was around him, ( John, I am here; he not 
 
 afraid; I will set thee free.’ 
 
 On the eye of the Assumption of our Lady, 
 1578, when he had been eight months in prison, 
 the prior came suddenly in with two of the friars, 
 and found the saint on his knees in prayer. He 
 was now so worn by his sufferings and so weak, as 
 to he unable to rise when the prior entered. In¬ 
 deed, he made no effort to do so, hut continued his 
 prayer, for he thought it was only his gaoler. The 
 prior touched him rudely, and asked him why he 
 had not stood up to receive him as subjects receive 
 their superiors when visited by them. The prior 
 honestly believed that his not rising up was an act 
 of studied disrespect, and was greatly displeased. 
 The servant of God begged to be forgiven so 
 simply and so humbly, that the prior was softened 
 for a moment, and asked him what he was think¬ 
 ing of. St. John of the Cross made answer, ‘ I 
 was thinking that to-morrow is the Feast of the 
 Assumption of our Lady, and that it would be a 
 great joy to me if I could say Mass. The piior 
 turned his back upon him saying, ‘ Not in my 
 
 time;’ and went his way. 
 
 The servant of our Lord was left alone in his 
 sorrow, but sorrowing most that the next day he 
 was neither to say nor hear Mass. But during the 
 night that followed the day of the Assumption, 
 our Blessed Lady herself came to his cell, radiant 
 in the soft light of her presence, and said to him, 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 101 
 
 4 My son, have patience, thy trials are nearly over; 
 thou shalt leave thy prison, say Mass, and be glad.’ 
 His heart dilated with joy at the words, and he 
 began to consider how he was to make his escape. 
 He knew that his gaolers would not release him, 
 
 I and. he could not deliver himself. In this per¬ 
 plexity, but confident that an escape was possible, 
 he continued for a day or two, and then our Lord 
 Himself appeared to him during the Octave, and 
 bade him be of good cheer, for He who enabled the 
 Prophet Eliseus to divide the waters of the Jordan 
 with the mantle of Elias, and cross the river, 
 would, without any difficulty, deliver him out of 
 prison. 
 
 Hoping and believing that his deliverance was 
 nigh, he took heart, and waited, but he was still 
 unable to understand how it was- to be wrought. 
 Then, in the midst of his perplexities, our Lady ap¬ 
 peared to him, and in a vision showed him a win¬ 
 dow of the monastery from which the Tagus could 
 be seen; he was to descend from that window, and 
 she would save him from all danger. As he had 
 never been in that monastery except as a prisoner, 
 he knew nothing of the arrangements of the house, 
 nor could he find his way to that window, -even by 
 daylight, still less in the darkness of the night. 
 But the matter had been all prepared beforehand : 
 the ordinary gaoler, who had been so harsh, was 
 wanted for some other work, and a friar from Val¬ 
 ladolid, of a more tender heart, had been now his 
 guardian for some weeks. This iriar, x*ra John 
 
102 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 of St. Mary, touched by the patience and silence 
 and uncomplainingness of his prisoner, became 
 persuaded that he was a great saint. He there¬ 
 fore was as kind to him as he possibly could he, 
 and softened the rigours of his prison, so far as 
 obedience to his superiors allowed him. When 
 the fathers were at recreation or resting in the 
 heat of the day, he would take St. John out of 
 his cell and allow him to walk up and down the 
 room to which it belonged. By degrees he gave 
 him greater freedom, and suffered him to enter 
 the corridor and even to look out of the windows. 
 Thus it was that St. John discovered the window 
 showed him in a vision; and when he saw it he 
 took special notice of it, feeling that the hour of 
 his release was come. 
 
 His gaoler had been very kind to him; so now, 
 knowing that he was to he parted from him, he 
 thanked him for his kindness, and begged him to 
 forgive all the trouble lie had given him. He 
 then asked him to accept a crucifix which it seems 
 the friars had not taken from him. The Cross 
 was made of some rare wood, on which the in¬ 
 struments of the Passion were admirably figured, 
 and the image of our Lord was of bronze. The 
 saint had worn it under his scapular, near his 
 heart, and told his gaoler that he prized it highly 
 himself, not for the workmanship, hut because it 
 had been given him by a most saintly person, in 
 whose possession it had been for some time. He 
 did not say that it was the gift, as it is believed, 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 103 
 
 of St. Teresa herself to him when he was confessor 
 of the nuns of the Incarnation, because at that 
 time the name of St. Teresa was hateful in the ears 
 of the fathers of the mitigation; and this good 
 friar from Valladolid was probably under the do¬ 
 minion of the same misconception, notwithstand¬ 
 ing his great charity towards the servant of God. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The escape —Dangers —The saint takes refuge in the 
 Monastery of St. Joseph —Don Pedro Gonzalez de 
 Mendoza. 
 
 When the servant of God saw the window which 
 had been shown him in a vision, he knew that the 
 time was come in which he was to make his escape. 
 That very night, when his gaoler, after giving him 
 his supper, went out of the cell for some water, he 
 loosened the staple of the padlock on his door; the 
 gaoler also, when he took leave of him for the night, 
 forgot to take away the lamp, having seen nothing 
 amiss with the fastening of the room. 
 
 Towards night the provincial, with some re¬ 
 ligious, came unexpectedly to the monastery, and 
 two of them were lodged in the room through 
 which the prison of St. John was entered. At 
 first that seemed another difficulty for the prisoner 
 to overcome, hut it was in reality a help, for as 
 the weather was hot, the two religious kept the 
 door of the room open for the sake of greater cool¬ 
 ness. But they continued to converse together a 
 great part of the night, and had placed theii beds 
 
LIFE OF ST, JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 105 
 
 close to the door. Meanwhile, St. John, in his 
 cell, was making preparations; he tore the two 
 cloaks, which they had given him to cover him at 
 night, into strips, and tied them together that 
 they might serve him for a rope. That done, he 
 betook himself to prayer, in which he spent the 
 rest of the time till the hour he had fixed for his 
 going forth. .Ahout two o clock in the morning 
 he took up the iron lamp—it had probably gone 
 ou t— w ith the rope he had made, and calling on 
 our Lady to help him, he heard a voice within 
 saying, 1 Be cjuick.* He then shook the dooi, and 
 the loosened staple gave way. But the noise it 
 made disturbed the sleeping friars, who cried out, 
 
 < yyho is there ?’ He made no answer, and they, 
 knowing nothing of his presence, soon fell asleep 
 
 again. 
 
 He now waited a while, and when he thought 
 that the two friars were once more sound asleep, 
 he left his cell, crossed the room, and almost 
 treading on the sleepers, passed out undiscovered 
 to the corridor, straight to the window which he 
 had seen in a vision. The window had a wooden 
 parapet, the lower part oi which was not then 
 joined to the brickwork j in the opening he in¬ 
 serted the iron rod from which the lamp hung, 
 and made his rope fast to it. Then commending 
 himself to Grod and His Most Holy Mothei, he 
 let himself down in the darkness to a place he 
 had never seen in his life. The rope was much 
 too short, and he, thinking he w r as near the giound, 
 
106 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 though in truth very far from it, and praying for 
 help, let the rope go. He was neither stunned 
 nor hurt, and yet he fell, from a considerable 
 height, and on loose stones, heaped there for the 
 building of the church of the monastery. He was 
 so near the city walls, that if he had fallen some 
 two feet further off, he would have fallen on the 
 other side of the wall, which in that place was 
 
 very high. 
 
 He had left one prison to find himself in 
 another, of which he knew nothing, for he was 
 still within the precincts of the monastery, and 
 the night was dark. He did not know his way, 
 and no outlet was to he seen. As his eyes grew 
 accustomed to the darkness, he saw a dog gnawing 
 some hones which had been thrown near the heap 
 of stones; he went up to the dog and frightened 
 him away, meaning to follow the dumb brute, and 
 thereby find a way out. The dog bounded over 
 the wall, which, as he had heard from his gaoler, 
 separated the monastery of the friars in that part 
 from a courtyard of the Franciscan nuns of the 
 Monastery of the Conception. The courtyard was 
 behind the church, but not within the enclosure, 
 and the wall was high. The saint was not only 
 weak from his long imprisonment, but worn also 
 by his descent from the window, so it was impos¬ 
 sible for him to climb over the wall. In his dis¬ 
 tress he prayed again to our Blessed Lady for help, 
 and somehow or other, he knew not how, he reached 
 the top of the wall, and let himself down on the 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 107 
 
 other side. He was now out of his prison, and 
 outside the monastery also, hut when he went 
 round the courtyard his search was in vain for a way 
 to escape. Two sides of that enclosure were girt 
 by the city walls, underneath which the Tagus 
 flowed; on the third side was the wall of the 
 monastery out of which he had come; and the 
 fourth side—the part of it which was next the 
 city— wa g protected by another wall built on a 
 high hank. He thought the dog had disappeared 
 inthat direction, and so he went to that side, but 
 the wall was so high that he gave up at once all 
 
 hopes of escape that w r ay. 
 
 In his misery—for he felt that discovery in 
 
 such a place would he worse than in any other— 
 he went again round the court, but he could find 
 no outlet; he was hemmed in between four walls, 
 and there was no means of escape. He could do 
 no more by human means, so he prayed that He 
 who had begun to deliver him would he pleased to 
 finish His work. While still praying for help he 
 saw a wonderful light, out of which came a voice, 
 saying, ‘ Follow me.’ He followed, and the light 
 moved before him towards the wall which was 
 on the hank, and then he knew not how he found 
 himself on the summit of it without effort or fa¬ 
 tigue. He descended into the street, and then 
 the light vanished. So brilliant was it, that for 
 two or three days afterwards, so he confessed at a 
 later time, his eyes were weak, as if he had been 
 looking at the sun in its strength. 
 
108 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS* 
 
 He bad never been in Toledo, and knew not 
 one street from another; be was therefore not 
 safe • but giving hearty thanks to our Lord for 
 bis miraculous Escape, and confident that bis 
 deliverance would be complete, be took shelter 
 in the porch of a large bouse which bad been 
 left open. Then when the day began to break 
 be saw a woman making ready her wares for the 
 public market of the city, and asked her the way 
 to the Monastery of the Barefooted Carmelites. 
 It was the monastery founded by St. Teresa, in 
 1568. The people looked at him with amaze¬ 
 ment as be walked through the streets, for be bad 
 on an old and worn habit, but no mantle, and bis 
 biographer says that bis appearance was rather 
 that of a man beside himself than of a grave 
 religious of Carmel. 
 
 He knocked at the door of the monastery it 
 was about five o’clock—and at the turn be found 
 sister Leonor of Jesus. He told her that be was 
 John of the Cross, who bad just escaped from 
 prison, and now wished her to tell the mother 
 prioress that be was there. The astonished sister 
 lost no time in delivering her message; the news 
 of bis escape ran through the monastery in an 
 instant, and made all the religious glad. He bad 
 been for eight months close to them, and j et none 
 
 of them knew where be was. 
 
 At the moment of St. John’s arrival at the 
 
 door of the monastery, one of the sisters, Anne of 
 the Mother of God, who bad been ill foi some 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 109 
 
 time, thought herself to he in serious danger, and 
 begged the confessor of the house might be sent 
 for. St. John had come in time, and the con¬ 
 fessor was not disturbed. Weak and ill as he 
 was, he ascended to the infirmary where the sister 
 was supposed to be dying. The nuns saw that he 
 could scarcely walk, and that he was worn and 
 weary; so before he entered the infirmary they 
 insisted on his taking food, which they provided 
 for him at once. 
 
 Having recruited his strength, he went in 
 to the infirmary, and while hearing the sister’s 
 confession, the friars of the mitigation, out of 
 whose prison he had made his escape during the 
 night, came to the monastery with the officers of 
 justice. They had discovered that their prisoner 
 was gone, and searched the parlour, the confes¬ 
 sional, the sacristy, and the church, for they were 
 persuaded that he would go to that monastery, if 
 not for refuge, certainly for the means of leaving 
 Toledo, and they hoped to be in time to seize 
 him. They did not find him, and went to seek 
 for him elsewhere. 
 
 The nuns kept the saint in the house, and, as 
 long as they could, in the infirmary, which was a 
 place of safety; for the friars, even if they re¬ 
 turned in search of him, would hardly seek him 
 there. The nuns asked him to tell them the story 
 of his sufferings. They said it would comfort the 
 sick sister to hear it; and he yielded to their wish. 
 But in all he said there was not one word against 
 
110 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 the friars he had left, nor any trace of ill-feeling; he 
 made excuses for them, and threw on himself all 
 the blame. Meanwhile the sisters were providing 
 a habit for him, such as was befitting his Older, 
 for he was clad in the habit of the mitigation. 
 Towards evening he went down to the church. 
 
 The prioress now sent for a great friend ot the 
 order Don Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, canon 
 and’ treasurer of the cathedral church, to whom 
 she told what had taken place. It was impossib e 
 to lodge St. John in the monastery, and it was 
 dangerous to send him out. Don Pedro’fi carriage 
 was waiting at the door, and into that St. John 
 hurried with the canon, who took him to his own 
 lodgings, which at that time were within the Hos¬ 
 pital of the Holy Cross, he being the administrator 
 of it that year. The saint remained with him 
 some days, and then, when he had recovered his 
 strength, Don Pedro sent two of his servants with 
 him who took him safely to the. Monastery of Al¬ 
 modovar del Campo, to the friars of his own order. 
 
 The friars of the mitigation were very much 
 distressed when they found that their prisoner 
 had made his escape; they put the gaoler to pen¬ 
 ance, and deprived him for a time of his p ace 
 in the chapter and choir. They were not a little 
 troubled, however, when they found how he ha 
 got out of the monastery, for they could not help 
 seeing that the means were not naturally sufficien . 
 The rope could not sustain the weight of his body, 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CEOSS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 and its own weight alone would, under other cir¬ 
 cumstances, have detached the parapet from the 
 wall, and bent the iron rod of the lamp from which 
 it hung. Many of the religious, however, saw in 
 it the hand of God, and were glad the prisoner was 
 free. 
 
 Soon afterwards St. Teresa returned to Toledo 
 from Avila. The news of his escape had reached 
 her before she left Avila, but'it is probable that 
 she could not learn how much the saint had suf¬ 
 fered before she came to Toledo. "When she heard 
 the story of the imprisonment, she wished the 
 Nuncio to be told of the way in which the friars 
 of the mitigation, whom he befriended, had dealt 
 with one who was wholly innocent, and of whom 
 she said afterwards that * she was not worthy to 
 suffer as he had done.’* 
 
 * Lett. 215, written in Avila in December 1578. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Troubles in the Order—Chapter of Almodovar—St. John 
 of the Cross made Vicar of Mount Calvary visits 
 y eas —reforms the monastery—Mendicancy—Poverty 
 —Writes on mystical theology. 
 
 When St. John of the Cross arrived in Almo¬ 
 dovar, he found the great work he had begun 
 in Duruelo ten years before in the utmost danger. 
 Monsignore Sega, the Nuncio, unfriendly to it, 
 had been made still more unfriendly by the con¬ 
 duct of Fra Jerome of the Mother of God, to whom 
 the late Nuncio had intrusted it. Monsignore 
 Sega was surprised at Fra Jerome’s acts, and very 
 much- displeased because he did not cease fiom the 
 use of the faculties granted by the former Nuncio. 
 He thought that Fra Jerome ought to have con¬ 
 sidered them as no longer lawful, and so, to make 
 matters safe, he demanded of Fra Jerome the sur¬ 
 render of his faculties. Unhappily Fra Jerome 
 was weak enough to refuse, and in so doing dis¬ 
 obeyed the Nuncio of the Pope. This refusal of 
 Fra Jerome to give up his faculties was a great 
 grief to St. Teresa,* and an annoyance to Mon- 
 * Lett!*211, to Fra Jerome, Oct. 1578. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 113 
 
 signore Sega. It is true that learned lawyers 
 had told Fra Jerome he might continue to exercise 
 his office of visitor under the commission of the 
 late Nuncio, notwithstanding the arrival of his 
 successor, but it does not seem that they either 
 did, or could, justify his refusal to surrender his 
 faculties, when they were demanded by one who 
 was the equal in authority of him who had granted 
 them at first. 
 
 The Nuncio was determined to preserve his 
 authority, as legate of the Holy See. Though the 
 king had given orders to his own officers to hinder 
 the execution of the decrees of the Nuncio in the 
 affairs of the religious orders, Monsignore Sega 
 pursued his course, and appointed his own visitors 
 they were friars of the mitigation—recalling and 
 quashing at the same time all the faculties hitherto 
 held by Fra Jerome of the Mother of God. 
 
 The visitors appointed by the Nuncio entered 
 on their work, and in August 1578 went to Pas¬ 
 trana to receive the submission of the friars there; 
 St. John of the Cross being at the time in prison in 
 Toledo. The people of Pastrana, when they heard 
 of their approach, went to the governor, and insis¬ 
 ted on his executing the king’s orders ; in other 
 words, on his hindering the visitation. The friars 
 themselves, at least some of them, were ready 
 enough to resist, under the protection of the civil 
 authorities, but happily better counsels prevailed, 
 and the visitors were admitted. Fra Jerome him- 
 self, by the advice of a pious lay brother, gave way, 
 
 i 
 
114 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 submitted to the visitors, and resigned bis com¬ 
 mission. At this time the prior of Manzera, Fra 
 John of Jesus, came to Madrid on the affairs of 
 bis order, and presented bimself before the Nuncio. 
 The Nuncio would not even bear him, but ordered 
 him to remain a prisoner in the Carmelite house 
 of the mitigation. From bis prison be wrote to the 
 Nuncio, begging at least to be beard in bis own 
 defence, but apparently in vain. After some time 
 the Nuncio went to the monastery, and all the 
 fathers, except the prior of Manzera, came forth 
 to receive him. When the Nuncio bad entered 
 the choir, he asked for Fra John of Jesus, and as 
 be was not present, be desired him to be sent for. 
 The Nuncio received him courteously, and asked 
 him what be bad to say; be replied that he wished 
 to defend bis brethren the barefooted friars. There¬ 
 upon the Nuncio ordered the friars of the mitiga¬ 
 tion to withdraw, when Fra John began. But as 
 soon as he uttered the name of St. Teresa, the 
 Nuncio could not restrain himself, and spoke of 
 her as an unquiet, gadabout, disobedient, and 
 obstinate woman, who under colour of piety was 
 bringing in dangerous doctrines, who went about 
 the country, careless about enclosure and the de¬ 
 crees of the Council of Trent, teaching, though a 
 woman, in despite of St. Paul, who forbade women 
 to teach. The friar heard this with amazement; 
 but he took courage, and begged to be allowed to 
 speak. The Nuncio gave him leave, and he spoke 
 so truly and so well, so humbly and yet so firmly, 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 115 
 
 in defence of St. Teresa, showing that she had 
 acted in everything, and always, under obedience 
 of her superiors, that the Nuncio showed signs of 
 relenting. Fra John, seeing the change, proposed 
 to him the separation of the barefooted friars from 
 those of the mitigation. The Nuncio listened, 
 and then asked Fra John why the friars of the 
 reform, having a rule of their own and wearing a 
 different habit, should find any inconvenience in 
 being governed by a friar of the mitigation. Fra 
 John said, the friars of the mitigation would not 
 govern them according to their rule, for their aim 
 was to suppress them. When the Nuncio had 
 considered the matter for a moment, he told Fra 
 John, ‘ You shall not be governed then by the friars 
 of the mitigation/ and he told him further to write 
 to all the monasteries of the reform that the 
 Nuncio would himself attend to all their affairs. 
 
 The courage of Fra John was met by the 
 justice of the Nuncio; and as the latter, hitherto 
 unfriendly to the reform, was now won over, the 
 troubles of the order might have ended here. The 
 friars were numerous, having many houses, and 
 novices were everywhere pressing in; and as we 
 learn from St. Teresa, the primitive rule was at 
 this time professed by more than two hundred 
 friars.* 
 
 But peace was not to be yet. The Nuncio 
 heard of the royal decrees issued for the purpose 
 
 Letters of St. Teresa , Lett. 179, to the Provincial of 
 the Jesuits, Father Suarez, Feh. 10, 1578. 
 

 116 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 of hindering him in the execution of his duties as 
 visitor of the order. Unhappily he persuaded 
 himself that those decrees had been issued at the 
 instance of the barefooted friars of St. Teresa, and 
 so, suspecting the fathers of dishonesty, sent for 
 Fra John of Jesus, whom he reprimanded with 
 great severity. He then ordered him to make a 
 retreat for two months in Madrid, and then retire 
 to his monastery of Manzera. 
 
 There was more trouble in Carmel. Some of 
 the friars—of whom Fra Antonio of Jesus was the 
 chief—determined to hold a chapter in Almodovar 
 del Campo, though they were without a provincial, 
 and though the government of them was, by dele¬ 
 gation of the Nuncio, in the hands of the friars of 
 the mitigation. Fra Antonio had been elected 
 definitor in the chapter held in Almodovar del 
 Campo, in September 1576; and now that Fra 
 Jerome had resigned his office of provincial, he 
 believed himself to have some authority in the 
 order, notwithstanding the resumption by the 
 Nuncio of all authority in it. In this he was 
 fortified by lawyers, who advised him according 
 to his wishes ; so he summoned a chapter to 
 meet in Almodovar, on the 9th day of October 
 1578. 
 
 This was against the opinion of St. Teresa, 
 who, in a letter to Fra Jerome, says she was 
 glad to hear from him they w T ere not going to 
 elect a provincial, ‘ though Fra Antonio told me 
 they were bound under pain of sin to do so; 
 
117 
 
 LIFE OF Sf. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 ' 
 
 however, I did not contradict him.’* The saint 
 made no objection because she thought it was too 
 late ; but she never approved of the proceedings 
 in Almodovar del Campo. 
 
 Fra Antonio, as the definitor, presided in the 
 chapter; his brethren elected him provincial of 
 the reform. St. John of the Cross, newly es¬ 
 caped out of prison, withheld his Consent, for 
 he regarded the election as illegal, and beyond 
 their power. The assembled fathers would not 
 attend to him, and w r ent on with their work from 
 day to day as if they were met together in a law¬ 
 ful chapter, with full authority to do what they 
 were doing. Fra John of Jesus in Madrid heard 
 of these doings, and instead of returning to Man- 
 zera, as the Nuncio had ordered him, hastened to 
 Almodovar, in the hope of being able to dissuade 
 his brethren from their illegal courses. When he 
 arrived, he pointed out to them that they had no 
 authority whatever, and that the election of a 
 provincial was an act of separation from their 
 brethren : they were therefore setting up a new 
 order without the sanction of the Pope, which was 
 unlawful, and rebelling against their immediate 
 superior, the Nuncio of his Holiness. 
 
 Fra John, as St. John of the Cross before him, 
 preached to unwilling hearers, and, the chapter 
 ended, w r as ordered into prison by his brethren, 
 where he was kept for a month, that he might 
 not tell the Nuncio the story of their deeds. 
 
 * Lett. 211, October 15, 1578. 
 
118 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 These friars had suffered themselves; but they 
 were none the less ready to make Fra John suffer 
 also. In the same chapter, against the wishes of 
 St. Teresa,* they chose two of their brethren to 
 go to Eome to obtain the confirmation of their 
 acts; one of them was Fra Pedro of the Angels, 
 prior of the Monastery of Mount Calvary, a zealous 
 and austere*man, who had left the mitigation for 
 the reform; he was regarded as a saint by his 
 brethren because of the great graces which God 
 had bestowed upon him. St. John of the Cross, 
 however, was not comforted by the choice, and 
 divinely enlightened, said to Fra Pedro, ‘ You are 
 going, my father, shoeless to Eome; but you will 
 return to Spain shod.’ The prophecy was accom¬ 
 plished. Fra Pedro became lax, and betrayed his 
 trust through weakness; and on his return to 
 Spain, having done no service whatever to the 
 order, went back to his brethren of the mitigation 
 in their monastery in Granada, where he ended 
 his days under a cloud of sorrow and of shame. 
 
 Fra Pedro was prior of Mount Calvary, and 
 now that his brethren were sending him to Eome, 
 they must supply his absence in the monastery. 
 They elected St. John of the Cross to be the vicar 
 of the house during the rest of the term cf the pri- 
 orate of Fra Pedro, if he should be absent so long. 
 
 Fra Antonio, the new provincial, perhaps not 
 without grave misgivings, went with some of his 
 brethren from Almodovar to Madrid. He pre- 
 
 * Lett. 211. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 119 
 
 sented himself before the Nuncio, and told Mon¬ 
 signore Sega that he and his brethren had come 
 to him from the chapter to obtain the confirma¬ 
 tion of Fra Antonio as provincial of the barefooted 
 friars. The Nuncio, hearing the words chapter, 
 election, provincial, and knowing that all had 
 been done without his consent, who was their 
 superior, stopped all further discourse, pronounced 
 their acts a nullity, and ordered them into prison, 
 excommunicating at the same time all those who 
 had any share in the unhappy proceedings in 
 Almodovar. Believing the friars to be wholly 
 dishonest in all their dealings with him, and that 
 they could not be trusted, he appointed friars of 
 the mitigation to govern all the houses of the 
 reform, which was the most certain road to their 
 final suppression. 
 
 St. John of the Cross had left Almodovar 
 before the Nuncio had heard of the ill-advised 
 doings o i the illegal chapter, and on his way to 
 Mount Calvary stopped at Yeas to see the nuns 
 theie, and especially the prioress, the Venerable 
 Anne of Jesus. The nuns rejoiced to see the 
 confessor who had suffered so much for the order, 
 and who was the great pillar of the reform among 
 the friars. The prioress, while he was in the par¬ 
 lour, desired one of the nuns to sing. The sister 
 sang, and her song was of the blessedness of suf¬ 
 fering. But almost as soon as she began, the 
 servant of God felt that he was about to fall into 
 a trance, so he made a sign to the religious to 
 
120 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CEOSS. 
 
 cease, but it was too lg>te; so lie clung to the bars 
 of the grating lest his body should be lifted up 
 from the ground. Ho remained for an hour lost 
 in prayer, insensible to all around him ; and thus 
 the nuns of Yeas became witnesses of the marvels 
 seen before by the nuns of the Incarnation in Avila 
 when he was confessor there. 
 
 From Yeas he went to the Monastery of Mount 
 Calvary, far away from the tumults of men in the 
 solitudes of Andalucia. The friars of Penuela had 
 removed thither in December 1576, in obedience 
 to a decree of the first chapter of Almodovar, held 
 September 8th of that year. Penuela was an 
 unhealthy place, the friars were always sickly, and 
 death was frequent among them; the chapter 
 therefore decided that the place should be aban¬ 
 doned. The prior, Fra Pedro of the Angels, set¬ 
 tled the community, thirty in number, in a solitude 
 called Corencuela, and the monastery was known 
 as the Monastery of Mount Calvary. 
 
 Fra Pedro was a man of great zeal, mortified 
 and laborious; he had also the gift of prayer, and 
 was often seen lost in raptures. He was at this 
 time greatly thought of in the order, for he had 
 been chosen as the delegate of the friars to go to 
 Pome, in the first chapter of Almodovar, as well 
 as in the second. The pressure of other mat¬ 
 ters hindered the first choice from being effective, 
 and Fra Pedro did not leave Spain, but now he 
 ■ttent; and it would have done no harm to his 
 brethren if he had stayed at home, so far as their 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 121 
 
 public affairs were concerned. But not so as to tlie 
 government of tlie Monastery of Mount Calvaiy. 
 He bad been at least indiscreet, and bad sanctioned 
 many practices wliicli were not wise. As. before 
 in Pastrana, so now in Corencuela, St. John of the 
 Cross, whose whole life was one continued mortifi¬ 
 cation, bad to restrain and temper tbe mortifica¬ 
 tions of others, by checking certain practices and 
 observances which had either crept in or had been 
 openly brought in, without clear warrant of the 
 rule and constitutions. 
 
 There were men there, as elsewhere, who de¬ 
 fended these novelties, but the servant of God was 
 firm. When they told him that they were within 
 their right, because the rule allows things to be 
 done which are not enjoined by it, he answeied 
 that the permission was for single persons, not for 
 whole communities, and that the general order of 
 the house should never he disturbed by practices 
 not sanctioned by the rule, nor by any observances 
 which any member of it might adopt for his own 
 sanctification. They urged upon him the fuithei 
 consideration that this house was in a remote and 
 lonely place, far away from the concourse of men, 
 and that as none claimed their services outside 
 the monastery, they were therefore free, if not 
 bound, to lead a more rigorous life, and might 
 lawfully observe many practices not to be found in 
 
 • other houses of the order. 
 
 St. John of the Cross would not give way; he 
 insisted on the careful observance of the rule and 
 
122 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 constitutions by which their lives were to be 
 ordered. They were to attain to perfection in a 
 definite way, and not by haphazard, or by ways 
 otherwise good and fitting for other orders. The 
 friars of Carmel were called to one special kind of 
 life; and they would miss their road if they de¬ 
 parted from it. He would not allow the commu¬ 
 nity, though the friars had no work to do outside 
 the house, to burden itself with any practices 
 which were not observed throughout the order. 
 These novelties were full of danger; for those' 
 houses in which the irregularities were allowed 
 would be shunned by the old friars, worn out by 
 their labours, and only the young and the strong 
 would frequent them; which would be an injury 
 to all. The old friars would lose the rest and 
 solitude necessary for contemplation, which inmost 
 of the houses might be difficult to find; and the 
 young friars, not having yet reached the perfection 
 of their state, would be carried away by the sweet¬ 
 ness of excessive penance, and miss the road to 
 solid devotion. 
 
 On this subject we have his judgment given at 
 a later time, in the sixth chapter of the first book 
 of the Obscure Night: 
 
 ‘ Many beginners, delighting in the sweetness and joy 
 which they find in such practices, seek after spiritual 
 sweetness more than pure and true devotion, which is that 
 which God regards and accepts in the whole course of the 
 spiritual road. For which reason, over and above their 
 imperfection in seeking alter sweetness in devotion, the 
 spirit of gluttony which has taken possession of them forces 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CHOSS. 
 
 123 
 
 them to overstep the bounds of moderation, within which 
 virtue is acquired and consists. Allured by the sweetness 
 they find therein, some of them kill themselves by penance, 
 and others weaken themselves by fasting, taking upon 
 themselves without rule or advice more than their "weak¬ 
 ness can beai , they try rather to hide their doings from 
 those whom they are bound to obey in the matter, and 
 some even dare to practise austerities expressly forbidden 
 them. These are full of imperfections, people without rea¬ 
 son, who put aside discretion and submission and obedi¬ 
 ence wliicn is the penance of reason, and therefore a sacri¬ 
 fice moie sweet, and acceptable to God than all the other 
 acts of bodily penance. Bodily penance is full of imperfec¬ 
 tions, it that of the rule be neglected, because men are drawn 
 to it simply because they like it, and find pleasure in it.’ 
 
 This seems to have been a difficulty which St. 
 John of the Cross and St. Teresa had to fight 
 against everywhere; both friars and nuns were 
 fond of novelties: they were ready to add to the 
 rule, and devise new ways of perfection. St. Teresa 
 says she was edified by much that she saw; but 
 she adds, ‘I would rather they kept the rule.’* In 
 the same sense she wrote to Fra Jerome of the 
 Mother of God himself, May 22, 1578; for even 
 he could not refrain from adding to the burdens of 
 communities. ‘Believe me,’ said the saint, ‘these 
 houses are doing well, and need not to be laden 
 with more observances, which are a burden to the 
 nuns. Do not forget this, I entreat you. What 
 we have to do is to insist on keeping the consti¬ 
 tutions, nothing more; enough is done when they 
 are kept.’! Again, in another letter to the same 
 
 * Foundations, xviii. § 7. f Lett. 195, May 22, 1578. 
 
124 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 father, written about eighteen months before her 
 death,-she complains of her own prioresses: ‘I 
 wish we had the constitutions printed, for they 
 are not everywhere alike; and many a prioress, 
 not thinking that she is doing anything out of the 
 way, leaves out or puts in what she likes when 
 copying them.’* 
 
 On this subject St. Teresa was firm. She knew 
 the dangers of novelties, and the security of beaten 
 tracks; and that the true director of souls was our 
 Lord, who had called them to serve Him in a par¬ 
 ticular way. ‘ Our Lord leads souls,’ she wrote,! 
 ‘by different roads; but the prioresses must keep 
 in mind that they have not been appointed to guide 
 souls by ways which they like themselves, but by 
 the way of the rule and constitutions. 
 
 St. John of the Cross was always pitiless when¬ 
 ever he came across the extravagances of men 
 who were too wise in their own eyes to keep the 
 law under which they were to live. The excesses 
 of Corenpuela he lopped off, as he had lopped off 
 before the like excesses in Pastrana. He who was 
 so austere himself was never austere with others; 
 he would not impose rules of his own devising, 
 nor allow others to impose them, if they were 
 without authority to do it. As in the government 
 of communities, so in the .direction of single per¬ 
 sons, he never made himself their master. He 
 did but administer the law,, and w T atch over its 
 observance. ‘Spiritual directors,’ he said, ‘are not 
 * Lett. 321, Feb. 21, 1581. f Foundations , xviii. G. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 125 
 
 the chief workers,'but .rather the Holy Ghost; 
 they,’ he added, ‘ are mere instruments, only to 
 guide souls by the rule of faith and the law of 
 God, according to the spirit which God gives to 
 each. Their object, therefore, should be not to 
 guide souls by a way of their own, suitable to 
 themselves; hut to ascertain, if they can, the way 
 by which God Himself is guiding them.’* 
 
 Experience also showed how right the two 
 saints were in their resistance to these observ¬ 
 ances, which were unwisely added to the rule. The 
 prior of Corenguela fell away from the order; and 
 the novice master in Pastrana was so wedded to 
 his own inventions, that he could not submit to a 
 higher authority without great murmuring and 
 discontent; a sure proof of self-will. 
 
 While he was checking extravagances, and 
 moderating penances in others, his own life was 
 the most penitential in the house. But his pen¬ 
 ances never were in the way, and his austeiities 
 never interfered with the regular observance of the 
 community. His cell was the poorest and the most 
 scantily furnished. He had in it but two books, 
 his Breviary and the sacred writings; if he wanted 
 other books he went to the library for them, and 
 took them back as soon as he had done with them. 
 He slept about two hours during the night, the 
 rest was spent in prayer; either in the church be¬ 
 fore the Most Holy, or in his cell. He resumed 
 the terrible penances of Duruelo, and gave his 
 * Living Flame , stanza iii. 1. 3, § 9, Eng. transl. 
 
126 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 body no rest; and that was the only creature of 
 God to which he showed himself without mercy. 
 
 The former prior of Mount Calvary, among 
 other mortifications visible to the outer world, had 
 allowed the friars to go out to beg for the monas¬ 
 tery. St. John of the Cross had always resisted 
 this; it was not directed by the rule, and was in 
 his eyes the high-road to dissipation, and the loss 
 of that recollected spirit which is one of the graces 
 of Carmel. He would not allow any begging, un¬ 
 der any conditions. The friars were the servants 
 of God, who had left everything to follow Him ; and 
 He, as the good Master of the house, would pro¬ 
 vide for their wants. The faith of the saint was 
 strong and clear, and it pained him to see one Oi 
 his religious give way to uneasy thoughts about 
 the sustenance of his brethren. 
 
 One day he was told that there was no food in 
 the house; but he w T as not troubled by the news. 
 The community came to the refectory, according 
 to the custom, at the appointed time; for he had 
 given orders that no change should be made. A 
 fragment of bread was found, and by his direction 
 brought into the refectory, when grace was said. 
 The fathers sat down before an empty table, and 
 St. John spoke to them of the hidden graces of 
 poverty, of the merit of suffering, and conformity 
 to the will of God, with so much unction that the 
 fathers left the refectory with their hearts on fire; 
 and gave thanks to God for His special mercy in 
 leaving them that day without food to eat. They 
 
127 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 withdrew to their cells, and no sooner had they 
 begun to prepare themselves for prayer than the 
 whole house was disturbed by a loud knocking a 
 
 the outer gate. 
 
 The porter went to the door, and saw there a 
 man with a letter in his hand for the vicar. The 
 porter took it, and finding St. John in the church, 
 in prayer before the Most Holy, gave it to him. 
 The saint opened it, and as soon as. he saw what 
 it meant, began to cry like a man m pain. Ihe 
 porter was distressed, and begged the samt to tell 
 him why he was weeping so bitterly. The sam 
 replied,' ‘ I cry, my brother, because God thinks 
 us too weak to bear hunger any longer; He could 
 not trust us for one day, and is sending us food. 
 In the course of the afternoon a servant of Dona 
 Philippa da Caravajal came from Ubeda with wo 
 mules laden with provisions for the house. _ 
 
 In the town of Iznatorafe, distant about six 
 miles from the monastery, was a man possessed of 
 the devil, and whom the exorcisms of Holy Church 
 had hitherto failed to deliver. His friends and 
 relatives, having heard of th'e sanctity of the Vicar 
 of Mount Calvary, implored him to come to then 
 relief The saint yielded to their importunities, 
 and went to Iznatorafe. The man possessed was 
 brought to him ; and the evil spirit, which had so 
 cruelly tormented him, showing before all the 
 terror which had seized upon him, m a whining 
 voice began to complain that another St. Basi 
 bad come. The servant of God commanded him, 
 
128 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 in the name of Christ, to cease from his possession, 
 and on the instant the evil spirit departed; the 
 man being restored to perfect health of mind and 
 body, to the great joy of all the people. But the 
 devil, thus defeated, was bent on revenge; and en¬ 
 tering into a woman, w r ho lived in a village through 
 which the servant of God had to pass on his way 
 home, there waited his coming. When the saint 
 had arrived, the woman came forth to meet him, 
 and begged him to come into her house; hut he, 
 recognising his enemy, turned away, saying he 
 would rather go into hell than into her house. 
 
 From CorenQuela he went once in every week 
 to Yeas, to hear the confessions of the nuns there, 
 to their great consolation and help. The road 
 was hilly and rough; hut he, with his worn frame, 
 went always on foot, never heeding either weather 
 or distance. 
 
 The nuns were earnestly recommended by St. 
 Teresa, through their prioress, Anne of Jesus, to 
 have recourse to his services; for he w 7 as a man, 
 she said, of ‘ very great spirituality, learning, and 
 experience/ On another occasion she writes to 
 the same prioress, and says that she has ‘ not 
 found one like him in all Castille.’* 
 
 In the Monastery of Mount Calvary > the saint 
 began to write on mystical theology; and two of 
 his books, the Ascent of Mount Carmel and the 
 Obscure Night, were written there. 
 
 * Lett. 219, 220, written about the end of 1573. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Foundation of Baeza—Poverty of tlie house—Miraculous 
 succours—Tlie saint at Mass. 
 
 One day in Yeas, while conversing with some of 
 the nuns, the servant of God said that he should 
 not he long their confessor. They were surprised, 
 and asked the reason; after some difficulty, for the • 
 words probably escaped him, he told them that he 
 must leave Corencuela for Baeza, where another 
 house of the order would be soon founded. When 
 the nuns had heard this, they said they were not 
 troubled, for another foundation was impossible. 
 So it seemed at the time, because the Nuncio had 
 forbidden the foundation of more monasteries; 
 and there was no sign of any change in his deal¬ 
 ings with the reform of St. Teresa. 
 
 Nevertheless, the light broke in upon the Nun¬ 
 cio at last, and he confessed that he had been too 
 hasty in trusting to the reports of the friars of the 
 mitigation. He therefore recalled his prohibition, 
 and allowed the friars of the reform to do their 
 work as before. In the very beginning of April 
 1579, he made Fra Angel de Salazar superior of 
 
 K 
 
130 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 « 
 
 the reformed friars and nuns, forbidding them, at 
 the same time, to obey any of the prelates of the 
 
 mitigation. . 
 
 The people of Baeza, a rich and noble city, 
 
 seeing the fathers of the reform in Penuela, wished 
 to have them also within their own gates. The 
 inhabitants were once a fierce race, divided into 
 two factions; partisans of two noble families at 
 enmity one with another. The city was dis¬ 
 honoured by brawling, fighting, and murder; the 
 civil authority had neither power nor influence, 
 and the city seemed doomed. Into this dwelling- 
 place of unceasing bloodshed came the holy and 
 venerable priest who has earned the title of Apos¬ 
 tle of Andalucia, Juan of Avila, resolved by the 
 grace of God to put an end to so much misery, 
 and to quench hereditary hatreds. He preached 
 in the churches and in private houses, in season- 
 and out of season, rebuking these inveterate sin¬ 
 ners in all patience and doctrine. The people of 
 Baeza yielded in the end, and laid their unholy 
 feuds aside; and that Babylon of sin and disorder 
 became, through his preaching, a city of peace and 
 
 rest# 
 
 The venerable priest by whose ministiy this 
 miracle was wrought established schools in the 
 place, and made provision for the teaching of 
 Christian doctrine. Moreover, at the request of 
 Don Rodrigo Lopez, chaplain of Paul III., he 
 undertook the charge of all the schools in Baeza, 
 including the university then founded, for the 
 

 LIFE OF ST. JOH^ OF THE CROSS. 
 
 131 
 
 foundation of which Don Rodrigo obtained a Bull 
 from his Holiness. 
 
 It was a marvellous conversion, and its fruits . 
 were gathered in for more than forty years. At 
 this time, when the barefooted friars of Carmel 
 were invited to Baeza, the lay people were said 
 to be like ecclesiastics and the ecclesiastics like 
 religious. The students of the university were 
 more like men than boys, heard Mass every morn¬ 
 ing, on Fridays held conferences on Christian 
 doctrine, and on Saturdays visited the hospitals, 
 nursed the sick'and made their beds. No one was 
 admitted to his degree in that university who had 
 i not, as part of his exercises, spent some days on 
 
 ! the missions in the country round ; and the Uni- 
 
 j versity of Baeza, in spite of the learning of its 
 doctors, was commonly regarded more as a reli¬ 
 gious community than a gathering of students, 
 with their professors. 
 
 It was from this place, in the spring of 1579, 
 that Fra Angel de Salazar, the new superior of 
 the barefooted Carmelites, received a request for 
 i friars. Fra Angel, though himself a friar of the 
 , mitigation, was always friendly to the reform; and 
 ! if he had not been frightened by his brethren in 
 1582, the reform might have been peaceably es- 
 ! tablished, for he had once consented to it. Now 
 that he was in power, he exercised his authority 
 gently, and without any difficulty, yielding to the 
 
 * Munoz, Vida y Virtucles del Ven. Juan de Avila , 
 cap. 20. 
 
132 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 » 
 
 wishes of the people of Baeza, ordered St. John of 
 the Cross to make the foundation there. 
 
 The saint, in obedience to the commandment 
 of his superior, went from Coren^uela to the old 
 house of Penuela, which had been peopled again by 
 the friars after the emigration to Mount Calvary. 
 The friars were glad to recover their cherished 
 solitude, and the inhabitants of the country round 
 had begged them to return. Fra Francis of the 
 Conception, then confessor of the nuns in Malagon, 
 was made prior by Fra Jerome of the Mother of 
 God, the house being refounded August 11,1577. 
 
 From that house he took some of its members 
 for the new foundation, and while staying in it, 
 having obtained through the vicar-general of 
 Jaen the sanction of the ordinary for the founda¬ 
 tion, purchased a house for 1800 ducats, the 
 greater part of which sum was furnished by Dr. 
 Pedro Roman, prior of the church of Iznato- 
 rafe. All the preparations being made, he re¬ 
 turned to Mount Calvary, and thence, with his 
 religious on foot and fasting, set out for Baeza— 
 all the furniture they had being carried by one ass 
 —on Saturday in Whitsun week, June 13, 1579. 
 
 They arrived in the evening, after a journey of 
 nearly eighteen miles, and made preparations for 
 the opening of the house on the following day. 
 The next morning, which was Trinity Sunday, the 
 little bell of the community, hung out of a window, 
 was rung; St. John of the Cross said Mass, and 
 took possession. Fra Francis of the Conception, 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 138 
 
 prior of Penuela, and three famous doctors of the 
 university, known in Paris and Salamanca, Bernar- 
 din de Carleval, Diego Perez de Yaldiera, and 
 Pedro de Ojeda, were present at the ceremony. 
 
 This house was a college like that founded in 
 Alcala de Henares in 1570, and St. John of the 
 Cross was founder and rector. The vice-rector 
 was Fra Juan of Jesus, commonly called the saint, 
 who had come from Penuela with his prior, Fra 
 Francis of the Conception, the founder of the col¬ 
 lege in Alcala nearly nine years before. A saintly 
 priest, Alvaro Nunez Marzelo, who had helped 
 greatly in the second foundation of Penuela, came 
 to see the friars. He w T as shown the house and 
 all it contained. The altar of their temporary 
 church alone was furnished; the whole house w*as 
 hare; and the furniture even of the altar was of the 
 poorest kind consistent with reverence. He was 
 edified exceedingly, and went his way. But he 
 could not drive out of his thoughts the memory 
 of what he had seen, so he sent some mattresses 
 at once to the college, that the fathers might have 
 something to sleep on. The messenger went with 
 his burden, and the porter who opened the door 
 for him told St. John of the charity of the 4 Padre 
 Marzelo.’ The rector v^as most grateful, as he 
 always was for the slightest kindness shown him, 
 but he would not accept the gift of the tender¬ 
 hearted priest. 4 The Carmelites,’ he said, 'sleep on 
 the floor when well, and at present there is no 
 sickness in the house.’ 
 
134 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 St. John of the Cross had come from the pri¬ 
 son in Toledo, where he had learned the worth of 
 suffering and poverty, from the depths of which 
 God had raised him to such heights of prayer as 
 surpass the power of words to describe. He had 
 seen and tasted, and would not throw away the 
 heavenly food, nor refuse it to his brethren within 
 the measure of the rule. He governed the house 
 and trained it as he had trained the others over 
 which he had been placed—in silence, by prayer 
 and meditation, and by the strict observance of 
 the rule and constitutions. The doctors of the 
 university could not refrain from the praise of the 
 new house in their public sermons, and the odour 
 of its good name was spread abroad throughout 
 Andalucia. The friars were hardly ever seen out 
 of their church; only the students went abroad to 
 the public lectures; and these were so recollected 
 and . so mortified as to cause devotion in those 
 who saw them pass. Though the house was 
 founded for the service of the students, yet such 
 was the order and recollection of it, that novices 
 were admitted into it, and that without any in¬ 
 convenience whatever either to them or to the 
 
 students. 
 
 As the rector of the house, St. John of the 
 Cross was compelled to unite the active with the 
 contemplative life ; he had many cares necessarily, 
 and often had to converse with seculars ; living as 
 lie was on the alms of the faithful, he had obliga¬ 
 tions to fulfil towards those who did him good, and 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 135 
 
 his very profession of a mendicant was a law that 
 required of him a certain subjection to the impor¬ 
 tunities of strangers. In all this he was exact; 
 hut the silence of the house was never disturbed, 
 and the religious were not seen in the streets. 
 He commended his benefactors to the care of God, 
 and served them to the utmost of his power in the 
 pulpit and the confessional. He would not aUow 
 that there was any necessity for appearing abroad; 
 a religious outside his monastery being in his 
 opinion like a fish out of the water, on the point 
 of spiritual death. If there was at any time any 
 real necessity for the procurator’s going out, he 
 always charged him to be very careful not to be 
 too pressing, and to abstain as much as possible 
 from troubling those on the affairs of the house 
 with whom they were most familiar. 
 
 It happened more than once that the friars 
 came to the refectory to find nothing but empty 
 tables; on which St. John would say, ‘We may 
 return to our cells; for as we have nothing to eat, 
 it is a proof that we ought not to do so, seeing 
 that our Lord has not provided for us.’ But as 
 our Lord never disappoints those who trust in 
 Him, so was it in Baeza; for when the house was 
 utterly empty, there would come men with provi¬ 
 sions to the gate of the college sufficient for the 
 wants of all therein. 
 
 The year 1580 was a year of sickness in Spain, 
 and the house in Baeza suffered like the rest. At 
 one time there were twenty friars in the infiimaiy 
 
136 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 —some of whom had been sent thither from Mount 
 Calvary—and there were neither beds for them to 
 lie on, nor food to nourish them. The procurator 
 in his distress went to the rector, and begged he 
 might he allowed to go out to seek help from the 
 charity of the town. The rector replied that he 
 longed himself for means to relieve the sick, hut 
 he did not think it was right to he troublesome to 
 those outside. ‘ We have our Lord in the house 
 to help us,’ he said; ‘and instead of wasting our 
 time in going about the streets, let us spend it in 
 the choir and ask Him to help us, and He will do 
 it.’ The procurator had to be satisfied with the 
 answer, and St. John w T ent to the church to pray. 
 That very night, and again early the next morn¬ 
 ing, some good people sent twenty mattresses and 
 much food to the house, and the sick were all 
 relieved. 
 
 Some of the friars said to him one day, that 
 people complained of him because nobody went to 
 their houses for the alms they had ready for the 
 college. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘if these people really 
 mean to help us, God w r ould make them send the 
 alms without being asked by us.’ 
 
 He disliked exceedingly the too easy relations 
 of some of the friars with the world without; and 
 he was sore distressed when he heard that a grave 
 superior was lax in his watchfulness over preachers 
 and confessors wdiom he allowed to go out of their 
 monasteries, and to harden themselves with the 
 trifles which men in the w’orld call business. On 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 187 
 
 one occasion he was speaking of this to Fra John 
 of St. Anne, and at last broke out in the vehe¬ 
 mence of his spirit, saying, ‘Look to it, Father 
 John, if any man, even a superior, were ever to 
 tempt you with enlightened notions, even if he 
 confirmed them with miracles, do not believe in 
 them or accept them, but rather cling to penance 
 and detachment from all things; do not seek 
 Christ except on the cross. He has called us to 
 be the barefooted friars of the Virgin to follow 
 Him on the cross, and not to seek our own ease 
 and comfort. Eemember, and do not forget this, 
 for it is a matter of grave importance.’ 
 
 One day, at recreation with the friars, there 
 came in one whose hood was of finer cloth than is 
 usually worn, and some of them took notice of it, 
 as a breach of holy poverty. The friar, not seeing 
 St. John, who was in another part of the room, 
 replied with some confidence that a coarse habit 
 was not an essential part of sanctity. Alas for 
 his knowledge of theology ! St. John of the Cross 
 heard the unlucky w r ords, and, like another Elias, 
 broke forth in a storm of thunder upon his head. 
 He made him know and feel that the sanctity of 
 his vocation at least depended on a coarse habit; 
 for he took his fine hood from him, and made 
 him put on another worn and mended, that ho 
 might learn to value what he thought was of no 
 worth. ‘ He who does not love a poor habit is not 
 worthy to wear it,’ said the saint, ‘and shows that 
 he has not cleansed his soul of the filth of the 
 
138 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 world; and his religion is vain who, being in con¬ 
 science obliged to be a religions, outwardly resem¬ 
 bles seculars.’ 
 
 His great devotion to the Most Holy Trinity 
 was observed now in Baeza by his brethren. The 
 nuns of Yeas had observed it before. He was 
 continually saying the Mass of the Trinity. They 
 asked him one day why he said that Mass so often; 
 he answered pleasantly, as if he could thereby hide 
 his great devotion, ‘ I say the Mass of the Most 
 Holy Trinity because there is no one more holy 
 in heaven.’ 
 
 Saying Mass had become to him now what it 
 is to so many saints, at once a torment and a joy. 
 The inflowing of the divine communications was 
 so abundant and so vehement as to overpower 
 occasionally all resistance on his part; the hum¬ 
 ble and lowly servant of God, wdiose only wish 
 was to be hidden from men, suffered exceedingly 
 when these communications became known and 
 visible to others. One day, while saying Mass in 
 Baeza, all his efforts proved unavailing; for when 
 he had drunk the Most Precious Blood, and before 
 he could replace the chalice on the altar, his soul 
 was carried away by the divine communications, 
 and he remained motionless as if dead. After 
 some time he recovered himself partially; but 
 being still unconscious of the place he w 7 as in, 
 and of the act he had done, he came down from 
 the altar, and made for the sacristy, that he might 
 hide himself and be alone. The people were 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 139 
 
 amazed, and looked one to tlie other in wonder 
 and awe ; at last a pious woman, Mother Pefiuela 
 —so was she commonly called—broke the silence 
 and cried out, ‘ Call for the angels to finish the 
 Mass, the saint is unable to go on; for they alone 
 can do it with tfye due devotion.’ The friars in the 
 house heard of what had happened, and one of 
 them came down into the church, led the holy 
 man hack to the altar, and helped him to finish 
 the Mass. 
 
 The nuns of Caravaca were in some trouble, 
 and St. John of the Cross, at the request of St. 
 Teresa, went thither to console them. While there 
 the nuns saw rays of light around him at the altar, 
 and the prioress, Mother Anne of St. Albert, asked . 
 him in the confessional—whither she betook her¬ 
 self to be ready for him as soon as he had made 
 his thanksgiving—what had happened to him while 
 at the altar; he replied that God revealed Himself 
 to his soul with such force that he could hardly 
 complete the sacrifice, and that he was occasionally 
 afraid to say Mass. 
 
 Dona Maria de la Paz thought the servant of 
 God was a man without much learning, grounding 
 her opinion on the simplicity of his speech, and 
 the absence of that peculiar pomp which men who 
 think themselves learned generally affect; but she 
 never gave utterance to the thought. One day she 
 went to his confessional, and before she could 
 begin her confession, the holy man said, 
 
140 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 ‘ I am a sinner, my child, that is true ; but I 
 am not ignorant.’ 
 
 ‘Why say that to me, father?’ ashed Doha 
 Maria. 
 
 ‘ Because you need it,’ was the answer of the 
 
 saint. * 
 
 The same lady on another occasion was troubled 
 
 by some scruple or other, and wished to go to con¬ 
 fession to one of the friars. The brother to v/hom 
 she spoke went to the father rector to ask for a 
 confessor, without saying a word more. The saint 
 said, ‘ Tell her to go home; there is no necessity 
 for her to go to confession.’ The brother delivered 
 the message, and Doha Maria was amazed. 
 
 On another occasion she was in the church, in 
 great trouble, and St. John of the Cross came out 
 of his confessional—around which a considerable 
 crowd was waiting—and went up to her, heaid her 
 confession, and sent her home calm and tranquil. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Peace restored to tlie order—Election of Fra Jerome—The 
 saint returns to Baeza from the chapter—made Prior 
 of Granada—his visits of ceremony—discourages beg¬ 
 ging—his charity. 
 
 The storm that threatened to destroy the Carmel 
 of St. Teresa died away in April 1579, when St. 
 John of the Cross was vicar of the house in 
 Coren 9 uela. Two friars, Fra John of Jesus and 
 Fra Diego of the Trinity, chosen by St. Teresa, 
 were sent to Home, to perfect the work begun by 
 the Nuncio. Travelling in disguise, lest they 
 should fall into the hands of their brethren of 
 the mitigation, and be thrown into prison, they 
 arrived in Rome safely, and, notwithstanding much 
 opposition, obtained from Gregory XIII. the se¬ 
 paration of the friars of the reform from those of 
 the mitigated observance. The Bull of the Pope 
 is dated June 22, 1580, and was put into execu¬ 
 tion in the beginning of March 1581, in Alcala de 
 Henares, when Fra Jerome of the Mother of God 
 was, by a majority of one, elected provincial of the 
 order ; St. John of the Cross being elected one of 
 the defmitors. 
 
142 LIFE OP ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 The storm'from without was over, hut the 
 storm from within began to gather. Fra Jerome s 9 
 election was brought about by the influence of St. ■ 
 Teresa, exercised through the president of the 1 
 
 chapter, Fra Juan de las Cuevas, prior of the 1 
 
 Dominicans in Talavera. Fra Jerome was a plea- 1 
 sant and affectionate man, unwilling to displease 1 
 
 anybody '; a man of flowing and tender devotion ; 1 
 
 but wanting in that firmness of character which ■ 
 
 comes close to severity, because it is just. He had 
 great gifts, and was one of the most conspicuous 
 friars of the reform, singularly trusted by St. | 
 Teresa, who had a strong affection for him, though 
 she had grave misgivings all the while. He had 
 all the tenderness of St. Teresa, but he had not 
 all her strength; he was wise and ready in the 
 affairs of the order, but the common sense of the 
 foundress had not been granted to him, and so he 
 made enemies in his house, out of the very sin¬ 
 cerity and simplicity of his heart. It is confessed 
 that he was a most holy man, but of an effusive 
 spirit, active if not restless, loving external work, 
 and disinclined to be alone. A great preacher, 
 full and flowing, and fond of the work, his win¬ 
 ning ways and graceful habits made him popular 
 in the world, and in that breath of applause that 
 followed he dilated and felt its influence. Then 
 the charm of his manner was so great, that hardly 
 any one could resist it, and it nearly won over the 
 stern hearts of some of his more resolute brethren. 
 
 He did good service to his order, and though he 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 143 
 
 did it in his own way, he did it innocently, firmly 
 believing that the primitive rule w T hich he had 
 professed fully sanctioned his way of life. 
 
 St. Teresa knew that many of the friars w T ere 
 unwilling to elect him as their provincial, and it 
 distressed her much; but she knew that his elec¬ 
 tion w r as then necessary for the order, and so she 
 exerted all her strength to secure it. She hoped 
 probably to supply that which was wanting in Fra 
 Jerome by the great gifts of Fra Nicolas of Jesus 
 Maria, the famous Doria, who had made his pro¬ 
 fession about a year before. Fra Nicolas she 
 hoped to see elected as the fellow of the provincial, 
 for his zeal and austerity would be a check on the 
 easy gentleness of Fra Jerome. She was not dis¬ 
 appointed, for the friars elected Fra Nicolas to be 
 the fellow of the provincial; but Fra Jerome, as if 
 aware of the intentions of his brethren, and bent 
 on thwarting them, continued Fra Nicolas in his 
 place as prior of Pastrana. He also made him 
 Provincial-Vicar of New Castille, and at the same 
 time announced his resolution to send him on 
 behalf of the order to make known to the General 
 what had been done in the chapter held in Alcala 
 de Henares. The friars believed that all this was 
 done for the purpose of releasing himself from the 
 vexation of being constantly watched by so zealous 
 a friar as Fra Nicolas, and resented his conduct. 
 Nevertheless, it could hardly be a matter of doubt 
 that Fra Nicolas, a Genoese, was the fittest man 
 in the order to send to Rome, for he was not only 
 
144 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 a most able and sagacious man, but also familiar 
 with the habits of those to whom he was about to 
 be sent.* 
 
 Fra Jerome disappointed both St. Teresa and 
 the friars, and chose Fra Bartholomew of Jesus 
 for his fellow in the enforced absence of Fra 
 Nicolas; and it was not a good choice. St. 
 Teresa had warned him, at least indirectly, for 
 she was afraid of that friar because of his health, 
 and because of the indulgences he required on 
 that account. 
 
 She warned him on the 17th February 1581, 
 before the chapter was held ; but she returned to 
 the subject again a month later; and on Good 
 Friday, March 24th, writing to Fra Jerome, she 
 said, ‘I should like to know what is become of 
 Fra Bartholomew; he would make a good prior.’f 
 The saint was too generous to speak more openly, 
 but she did not hide her fears, and Fra Jerome 
 might have seen .that she wished him to recognise 
 the danger of his choice. Unhappily he did not; 
 and as Fra Bartholomew was too much under the 
 spell of the provincial’s manner, Fra Jerome was 
 never disturbed, and the complaints in the order 
 became loud and strong. 
 
 St. John of the Cross returned to Baeza from 
 the chapter ; but either before he did so, or im¬ 
 mediately after, wrote to St. Teresa to beg her to 
 fulfil a promise she had made him, that she 
 
 * Reforma de los Descalcos, i. p. 759. 
 f Letters of St. Teresa, Lett. 820 and 829. 
 

 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 145 
 
 would obtain bis recall from Andalucia as soon as 
 the separation should he accomplished. The two 
 saints had not seen one another since they were 
 both together in the Monastery of the Incarnation 
 in Avila; so St. John writes from Baeza, July 6, 
 1581, to Mother Catherine of Jesus : 4 Since I was 
 swallowed up by the whale’ (he means his im¬ 
 prisonment in Toledo) ‘and cast forth in this 
 strange haven, I have never been counted worthy 
 to see her’ (St. Teresa) ‘ or the saints who are 
 there.’ Now that the friars of the reform were 
 under their own provincial, he claimed the fulfil¬ 
 ment of the promise, and St. Teresa wrote to Fra 
 Jerome, on Good Friday of this year: 
 
 ‘ I forgot to beg one thing of your paternity,’ she said, 
 ‘ for my Easter cake. God grant you may give it. You 
 must know that some time ago, when comforting Fra John 
 of the Cross in his distress at his having to live in Anda¬ 
 lucia—he cannot bear its people—I told him I should ask 
 for his removal to Castille, whenever God should let us be 
 a province by ourselves. He now claims the fulfilment of 
 that promise, and is afraid they will elect him prior of 
 Baeza. In Iris letter he asks me to beg your paternity 
 not to confirm the election. If it be possible, it is only 
 right he should have this comfort, for he has much to bear 
 with. In fact, my father, I wish we had but few houses 
 in Andalucia, for I believe they will do harm to those in 
 Castille.’* 
 
 The two saints were by birth Castillians, and 
 had a certain natural dislike to the Andalucians. 
 St. Teresa went to Andalucia against her will, and 
 
 * Letter 329. 
 
 L 
 
146 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 out of tiie foundation in Seville, the first made in 
 Andalucia—for that of Yeas was not in Andalucia, 
 though it was in the Carmelite province of Anda¬ 
 lucia—grew the troubles which so nearly brought 
 her reform to an end. She was never happy in 
 Andalucia, and she confesses that she was not so 
 < weak and cowardly’ anywhere as she was when 
 making the foundation in Seville.* 
 
 Fra Jerome was unable to grant the grace 
 which St. Teresa prayed for, and St. John of the 
 Cross returned to Baeza. In his absence a lay 
 brother had fallen ill, and the rector of the house 
 had sent him to the public hospital, partly because 
 of the inconvenience of nursing him in the in¬ 
 firmary, and partly because he could be better at¬ 
 tended to there. St. John of the Cross was greatly 
 displeased, and severely rebuked the rector. He 
 sent at once to the hospital, and had the lay 
 brother brought home, and attended to with as 
 much care as if he had been the provincial of the 
 order himself. 
 
 He resigned the government of the house 
 June 14th. At that time the priors were in office 
 only two years, and he had entered on his in July 
 1579, when the house in Baeza was founded. But 
 he was not allowed to rest, for the friars of Gra¬ 
 nada elected him prior, t 
 
 * Foundations, ch. xxv. § 1, p. 176, English transla¬ 
 tion. 
 
 1 According to Fra Jerome of St. Joseph, St. John of 
 the Cross was elected prior of Granada 14th June 1581. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 147 
 
 In Granada he succeeded one of his own no¬ 
 vices of Pastrana, Fra Augustin of the Kings, 
 who had remembered the lessons of his master. 
 Fra Augustin lived and died as a saint, and after 
 his death his body saw no corruption. Earnest, 
 simple, and fervent, he governed his house ac¬ 
 cording to the rule and constitutions; and St. 
 John had no changes to make, nor fallen discipline 
 to restore. The religious were docile and fervent, 
 and the order of the house was exact. 
 
 The province was very large, too large for one 
 visitor; so the provincial, Fra Jerome, chose three 
 vicars to help him. To Fra Nicolas of Jesu3 
 Maria he gave New Castille; to Fra Antonio of 
 Jesus, Old Castille; and Andalucia to Fra Diego 
 of the Trinity. The latter came down to Granada 
 to make his visitation, and the only thing he 
 found fault with was the great retirement in which 
 the fathers lived; the prior was never seen out¬ 
 side his monastery, and the visitor thought he 
 
 And Fra Antonio of St. Joseph, in a note to Lett. 31, vol. iii. 
 of the Letters of St. Teresa , quotes the order of Fra Diego 
 of the Trinity for the foundation in Granada, in which 
 Fra Diego, Nov. 13, 1581, describes St. John of the Cross 
 as rector of the College of St. Basil in Baeza. Fra 
 Francis of Santa Maria, the chronicler of the order, says, 
 vol. i. p. 428, that according to the register of Granada, St. 
 John was made prior there the first time in 1582; in p. 827 
 he speaks of him as prior of Granada when he was in 
 Veas, in October 1581; and 1582 is no doubt a misprint, for 
 in the second volume of the Chronicles, p. 40, he says that 
 he became prior of Granada in 1581.. 
 
148 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 showed a want of due consideration for the friends 
 and benefactors of the order. Indeed, some of 
 the friars themselves had more than once hinted 
 to the prior that he might return some of the visits 
 which the great people of the city had made, and 
 continued to make. 
 
 St. John of the Cross, having learnt the wishes 
 of his superior, the visitor, gave up his own 
 opinion; and it being Christmas time, made up 
 his mind to call upon the archbishop and the 
 president of the chancery. As the house of the 
 latter was the nearer of the two to the monastery, 
 he called there first, having one of his friars with 
 him. The president received him with the utmost 
 respect and courtesy; for the saint, if not seen 
 outside the monastery, was well known in.the city. 
 St. John, after the usual salutations, with great 
 humility begged the president to excuse him for 
 his past negligence. The president, in answer, 
 said that there was nothing to he excused; 'for we 
 like, father prior, to see you and your religious in 
 your own houses rather than in ours; in xhe first 
 you edify us, in the latter you entertain us.’ The 
 servant of God took his leave as quickly as he 
 could; and without making his visit to the arch¬ 
 bishop, returned to the monastery, saying to his 
 companion, ‘ This man has put us and the whole 
 order to shame ; I wish we had all of us heard 
 him, that we might be convinced how little we 
 gain by this folly of making visits, which is a 
 custom brought in by Satan under the cloak of 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF TIIE CROSS. 149 
 
 necessity.’ In the house he told the community 
 what had happened; and then added, ‘My fathers, 
 you cannot have a more trustworthy proof of what 
 people in the world ask of us than this given by 
 one of them; they do not want us as courtiers, but 
 as saints; and that not in their own houses, but 
 in ours, praying to God on their behalf.’ 
 
 His religious on the whole, no doubt agreeing 
 with him, were yet tempted from time to time to 
 urge upon him certain maxims of prudence and 
 discretion, which they regarded as eminently safe. 
 They were not ’Wholly weaned from the breasts of 
 worldly wisdom, and would ask leave occasionally 
 to pay certain visits which in their judgment were 
 demanded of them by Christian charity and con¬ 
 sideration for others, never for their own pleasure. 
 He answered by asking them wherein a religious 
 differed from people' in the world if he must still 
 do what they do. ‘If the world,’ he said, ‘has 
 brought in this custom of paying visits, our busi¬ 
 ness is to act otherwise, because we are under 
 another - law.’ He was always unyielding in 
 this matter, afraid that the spirit of prayer 
 would evaporate in the houses of people in the 
 world. 
 
 One day a certain personage in Granada tried 
 to move him from his course; he urged upon him 
 the advantage of calling on some wealthy persons, 
 who would then give him abundant alms, where¬ 
 with he might complete the building of the monas¬ 
 tery. The servant of God replied : ‘ These people 
 
150 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 will give their alms either for my sake or for the 
 sake of God; if the latter, there is no reason why 
 I should press them; if for my sake, I see no rea¬ 
 son why i should trouble them to give away their 
 
 goods for so poor an end. . 
 
 One night after compline, Fra Augustin ol bt. 
 Joseph, the procurator, came to him, and having 
 told him there was nothing in the house for the 
 next day, asked leave to beg for the necessary food. 
 
 ‘ Well,’ said the saint, 4 God'has plenty of time to 
 provide for us, we need not he in such a hurry to 
 make Him a defaulter; we have had our supper; 
 and He who gave us our supper to-night will give 
 us our dinner to-morrow.’ The procurator with¬ 
 drew, hut the next morning came hack with the 
 same request, and begged to he allowed to seek 
 relief from those without who could grant it. The 
 servant of God would not listen to him, notwith¬ 
 standing his importunity and the distress he was 
 in. The saint had put his whole trust in God, and 
 was not put to shame; for while the friars were 
 saying Prime, there came a man to the gate who 
 asked the porter what it was the religious were m 
 w T ant of; he had been unable to sleep the whole 
 night because of an interior voice which said: 
 
 ‘ Thou art at ease, and the friars in the Monastery 
 of the Martyrs are in want.’ The porter told him 
 that there was no food in the house, and the good 
 man immediately supplied it. 
 
 Another day, another procurator, Fra John of 
 the Evangelist, begged leave to go out for food, 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 151 
 
 i 
 
 there being none in the house. The saint as 
 usual refused; the request was made again some 
 time later, and the saint replied, ‘ Only one day; 
 shall we never he patient ? Go to your cell and 
 pray.’ The procurator went again and made the 
 same request, saying that the matter was pressing, 
 because some of the friars were ill and required 
 food. The saint hade him return, saying that he 
 had very little trust in God, for his duty was to 
 obtain succour for the house by prayer in his cell. 
 The procurator went away with a heavy heart, but 
 he soon came back, unable to bear the distress he 
 was in, and said to the saint, ‘Father, this seems 
 to be a tempting of God, who will have us do our 
 utmost in our necessities ; let me go out to beg.’ 
 The saint smiled and replied, ‘Well, then, you may 
 go; but you will be put to shame.’ The procura¬ 
 tor went out, and immediately met an officer of the 
 Chancery coming to the house with a good sum of 
 money, a fine inflicted by the court and given to 
 the friars in alms. 
 
 Fra John of the Evangelist, having received 
 the alms, went to the rector and told him how he 
 had fared. The servant of God showed no sign 
 either of pleasure or displeasure, but said to the 
 procurator, who was very much ashamed of 
 himself, that the alms would have given him more 
 satisfaction if he had waited in his cell. ‘ Learn 
 from this,’ he said, * that we are to live in poverty, 
 and that the relief thereof is to come, not from 
 our industry, but from our trust in God. Let us 
 
152 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 be really poor, for the religious who cast all their 
 care upon God will never be in want.’ 
 
 These lessons seem to have been forgotten from 
 time to time, for on another occasion when the 
 house was without food the procurator went in 
 search of the servant of God, and found him in 
 the church. He was hearing the confession of one 
 of the great ladies of Granada, great also in her 
 piety and goodness, Doha Juana de Pera^a. The 
 procurator interrupted the confession to tell the 
 saint that he had no food and no money to buy it. 
 The saint told him that the way to get food was to 
 withdraw into his cell, and there obtain it from 
 God by the hands of the faithful. The procura¬ 
 tor went away; but harassed by his anxieties re¬ 
 turned, and asked leave to go out to beg ; receiv¬ 
 ing no answer from the saint, he repeated his 
 request. Then the saint said: ‘ My brother, do 
 not trouble yourself; I do not wish you to go out, 
 neither is it necessary.’ Doha Juana in the con¬ 
 fessional heard all that passed, and asked the saint 
 why he would not let the procurator go out, seeing 
 that there was no other way of providing for the 
 house. The saint answered that he could not let 
 him go because there was a person coming to the 
 monastery with alms. Doha Juana soon after left 
 the church, and on her way home met a stranger 
 who asked her if the prior was in the Monastery 
 of the Martyrs. Doha Juana told her, and then 
 asked her why she wished to know; the stranger 
 replied that she was a suitor in the Chancery, and 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 153 
 
 was going to the monastery with alms for Masses 
 to obtain the help of God in her necessities. 
 Doha Jnana went home wondering; she believed 
 that the servant of God had seen the woman in a 
 trance into which he fell while she was in the 
 confessional. 
 
 The saint, though he hated begging, lived on 
 alms, and cherished his poverty as a special grace 
 from God. In populous and wealthy places, how¬ 
 ever, such as Baeza and Granada, he would allow 
 two of the brothers to go out twice in the week, 
 Wednesday and Saturday, to beg alms at the 
 doors of houses, hut it was done to keep people 
 from saying that the houses he governed were fed 
 by miracle.* He had given up the world; he made 
 his profession as a poor friar of our Lady of Car¬ 
 mel, and the rest of his life was spent in unceasing 
 efforts to keep that profession pure and undefiled. 
 He trusted in God; he was His servant in His 
 house, and ha knew that the Master would provide 
 for His household. But if he was thus hard with 
 the procurators of little faith, he was never hard 
 with any one in need. He would go into the 
 infirmary himself, and give their food and medi¬ 
 cine to the sick. Once when a lay brother was very 
 ill, and the physicians promised him only a little 
 relief from a most expensive remedy, the saint, 
 notwithstanding the poverty of the house, ordered 
 that relief to he given at whatever cost. 
 
 * Joseph de Jesus Maria, Historia , p. 211. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Anne of Jesus—The saint founds a house in Granada—is 
 insulted in the street—watches over the novices under 
 Anne of Jesus. 
 
 The people of Granada, edified by the friars, wished 
 to have the nuns of the new Carmel in the city, 
 and some of the chief personages in it, especially 
 two auditors of the Chancery, the Licentiate La¬ 
 guna, who died Bishop pf Cordova, and Don Luis 
 de Mercado, afterwards a member of the Supreme 
 Council of Castille, and a priest in 1591, pressed 
 the matter upon Fra Diego of the Trinity, pro¬ 
 vincial vicar of Andalucia. The vicar. gave his 
 consent, and when making his visitation of the 
 monastery of the nuns in Yeas, in the month of 
 October 1581, made the matter known to the Ven¬ 
 erable Anne of Jesus, lately made prioress of that 
 
 house. 
 
 On the 18th of November, Fra Diego ordered 
 St. John of the Cross, then in Yeas, to go to Avila, 
 where St. Teresa was staying, and bring her to 
 Granada, with the care and consideration ‘befitting 
 her person and her years.’ * St. John saw the 
 Mother of Carmel there for the first time since his 
 
 * Lettevs of St. Tevcsci, Lett. 363 ; note of Fra Antonio 
 of St. Joseph, p. 7, vol. iii. Lett. 31. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 155 
 
 imprisonment in Toledo, but she could not go to 
 Granada, because she was about to make a foun¬ 
 dation in Burgos. The two saints were as poor as 
 they well could be, for on the 29th November 1581, 
 the day on which she sent the nuns from Avila to 
 Yeas, for the foundation in Granada, she wrote 
 thus to the Father Provincial, whow T as also in dis¬ 
 tress in Salamanca: 
 
 ‘ Fra John of the Cross wished very much to send you 
 some money, and fully counted on it, if he could spare a part 
 of that which had been given him for his journey, hut he 
 could not. I think he will try to send you some. Anto¬ 
 nio Ruiz . . . has give me four scudi for you : I am waiting 
 for the means of sending them on. It is as much as I can 
 do not to keep them myself, for as matters are at present 
 I should not be surprised if I were tempted to steal.’* 
 
 St. John returned to Yeas with two nuns from 
 Aila, and another from Toledo, on the Feast of the 
 Immaculate Conception, and there the nuns re¬ 
 mained till the middle of January. On Monday, 
 January 15th, 1582, the Yenerable Anne of Jesus, 
 with her nuns, attended by St. John of the Cross 
 and Fra Pedro of the Angels, set out from Yeas, 
 in the cold of winter, at three o’clock in the morn¬ 
 ing. The company consisted of ten nuns, two of 
 them were lay sisters from Yillanueva, and while 
 they were on the road, an alderman of the city, 
 who had let them his house, broke the promise he 
 had made, saying that he did not know it had been 
 taken for the use of nuns ; he would not let them 
 have it. 
 
 * Letter 3G3. 
 
156 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 It was too late to stop tlie nuns who were on 
 the road, and there was no house to he had in which 
 they could he lodged even for a time. Their friends 
 were therefore in the greatest trouble, not know¬ 
 ing what to do, besides they had not obtained, and 
 could not obtain, the consent of the archbishop 
 to make the foundation, and he was resolved to 
 
 have no more nuns in the city. 
 
 Now there was in Granada a penitent of-St. 
 John of the Cross, Doha Ana de Penalosa, a widow 
 who lived in great retirement, mourning the loss 
 of her husband and an only daughter. She dwelt 
 in a good house, with her brother, Don Luis de 
 Mercado, who was one of the chief persons who 
 had urged the foundation, and on whom now 
 pressed the whole charge of the nuns. Don Luis 
 said to his sister, ‘ The nuns are on the road, and 
 it would be well if they could come here till they 
 can find a house.’ Dona Ana, knowing nothing oi 
 her brother’s trouble, not only gave her consent, 
 but busied herself in making the necessary ar¬ 
 rangements, especially in furnishing a room to be 
 used as a chapel. At three o’clock on the morning 
 of Saturday, January 20th, 1582, the two friars, 
 with the nuns, came to the door, and there stood 
 
 Dona Ana ready to receive them. 
 
 Anne of Jesus, of whom St. Teresa had just 
 written that she ‘would have everything under 
 her own control,’* took possession of the house, as 
 if it were her own, and began with the nuns to 
 * Letters of St. Teresa, Lett. 363, Nov. 20,1581. 
 
LIFE OF St. JOIIN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 157 
 
 sing Lauclate Dominion. She then ordered the 
 doors to be shut, and would not let any of the friars, 
 not even the vicar of the province, who was pre¬ 
 sent, say Mass before she communicated with the 
 archbishop. 
 
 St.John of the Cross, thus dismissed with the 
 provincial vicar, returned to his own house, and 
 left the matter in the hands of the Venerable Anne 
 of Jesus; but he had afterwards to supply her with 
 food and many necessary things ; for it happened 
 here, as in other places, that wealthy and generous 
 benefactors of the Carmelites never observed the 
 distress they were in. The people of the city also, 
 seeing daily crowds of the poor relieved at her door, 
 never suspected, any more than Dona Ana did her¬ 
 self, that the ten nuns within were in distress. 
 St. Teresa was left in want of food by her friend, 
 Doha Luisa de la Cerda, and again in Seville, 
 though her friends were rich and many. Doha 
 Ana saw the nuns always contented and cheerful, 
 and never suspecting that they were hiding their 
 needs from her, left them in sore distress, so that 
 St. John of the Cross, out of his poverty, had to 
 come to their help. 
 
 Soon after this the servant of God, coming out 
 from his monastery, was met in the street by a 
 woman with a child in her arms. She held out the 
 child before him, and asked him to maintain it, for 
 it was his own. The holy man bade her begone, 
 but she persisted in following him. At last he 
 . stopped, for a crowd was gathering, and calmly 
 
158 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 asked her who was the mother of the child. The 
 wretched woman answered it was a great lady in 
 Granada, against whom nothing could he said, for 
 nobody knew any evil of her. ‘ How long has she 
 lived in Granada? 5 asked the saint. The ansvei 
 was that she was born in the place, and had never 
 been half a league away from it all her life. ‘ How 
 old is the child ?’ asked the saint. The woman 
 answered, 1 About twelve months. c Ah, says 
 the saint, ‘ it is a grand miracle, for I have not 
 been a year in Granada yet, and in the w r hole 
 course of my life have never been within many 
 leagues of it.’ The people who had gathered 
 around laughed, and then hooted the woman, 
 though they were ready to hoot the saint a minute 
 before, while the man of God went calmly on his 
 way perfectly undisturbed. 
 
 At this time, in addition to the government of 
 his own house and the care of many penitents who 
 came to him, he had to watch and encourage the 
 nuns in the new foundation, begun, as usual, in 
 complete poverty. Many religious of all the orders 
 in the city, and devout people of great prudence 
 living in the world, visited the nuns from time to 
 time, and the sum of their conversation was the 
 rashness of beginning the foundation in such 
 poverty and utter absence of human comforts. 
 The Venerable Anne of Jesus was a child of St. 
 Teresa, and a penitent of St. John of the Cross, 
 so she remained unmoved by such wisdom as this. 
 
 After waiting for seven months the nuns found 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 159 
 
 a house, and meanwhile more than two hundred 
 persons sought admission into the community. 
 In all that number, however, Anne of Jesus says, 
 in her account of the foundation, there was not 
 one whom she could accept. Some of them she 
 refused at once, and others she recommended to 
 study their way of life, promising to try them as 
 soon as she found a house of her own. She ac¬ 
 cepted six novices at last, whom St. John of the 
 Cross watched over, and instructed in the way of 
 prayer and perfect detachment from all created 
 things. 
 
 Some of the novices grew alarmed at the 
 severities of their new life, and were tempted to 
 leave the monastery. One of these made up her 
 mind to depart; the life was so hard and the 
 temptation so strong. St. John of the Cross saw 
 her trials, and knowing also how long the tempta¬ 
 tion would last, said to her one day, *1 do not 
 wish to persuade you to take the veil, but I ask 
 you to consider yourself as being in prison on 
 account of your sins for the next two months, and 
 then you can go.’ The novice went her way re¬ 
 joicing, thinking that she could well bear her pain 
 for two months, if then it should he over; hut 
 when the two months had passed by, and the day 
 of her departure was come, she found herself un¬ 
 able to go ; she had changed her mind, and begged 
 to remain. She made her profession in due time, 
 and never forgot how much she owed to the wise 
 counsel of her confessor. 
 
160 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 Another novice kept secret from the prioress 
 and the other nuns the resolution she had formed 
 to quit the monastery. She, however, did not hide 
 it from St. John; hut he laughed at her, and said 
 that she did not know her own mind. Some time 
 after she was attacked hy a disease which was re¬ 
 garded as incurable, and then in her distress she 
 went to the saint and told him she was afraid the 
 nuns would simply keep her in the monastery out 
 of charity, hut would never suffer her to make her 
 profession. The saint asked her what had become 
 of her purpose to return to the world. She had 
 even forgotten that she ever had such a purpose, 
 and now had no wish to leave. The saint hade 
 her he of good cheer; as the temptation, so the ill¬ 
 ness passed away, and the novice was professed. 
 
CHAPTER X TTT. 
 
 / 
 
 « 
 
 Troubles in the order—Fra Nicolas of Jesus Maria—Chap¬ 
 ter of Almodovar—The saint opposes foreign missions 
 — Famine — Writings of the saint — Foundation in 
 Malaga—Restoration of a nun to health — Mary of 
 Christ. 
 
 The death of St. Teresa, October 4,1582, brought 
 out into clearer light the discontent of the friars, 
 who, disliking the gentle ways of Fra Jerome of 
 the Mother of God, their provincial, persuaded 
 themselves that he was a source of disorder and 
 of laxity, and that regular observance was failing 
 under his rule. While St. Teresa lived, the mur- 
 murings of the fathers were not loud, but they 
 were not unknown to her; and now that her de¬ 
 parture had come, the friars felt themselves free, 
 and made their grave apprehensions public. The 
 provincial was so tender-hearted that he could 
 scarcely be persuaded to visit any of his subjects 
 with chastisement, and that grave defect was not 
 counterbalanced by watchfulness in hindering dis¬ 
 orders which might need correction. He was un¬ 
 willing to refuse any man anything, and, on the 
 other hand, the friars wished to be ruled with a 
 
 M 
 
162 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 strong hand and a resolute will. St. Teresa, not¬ 
 withstanding her marvellous affection for. Fra 
 Jerome, was not blind to these shortcomings. 
 About a month before her death she wrote a long 
 letter to him : 4 You have great need of Fra 
 Nicolas’ (Fra Jerome had sent him to Eome), 4 for 
 I think it impossible for you to do all the work 
 yourself.’ She then goes on, and it must have 
 cost her much to say it: 4 Fra Juan de las Cuevas 
 thinks so too. ... He says you are going against 
 the regulations that have been made in not choos¬ 
 ing another fellow—I do not remember if he said 
 with the consent of the priors—and that he thought 
 it was not possible for you to do all that ought to 
 he done; that Moses had I know not how many 
 to aid him. To this I answered, that you could 
 not help it; you could hardly find friars enough 
 to he priors. His answer was, that your having 
 a fellow was the chief thing.’ 4 Since I came 
 here, to Yalladolid, I have heard that you are 
 accused of being unwilling to have any friar of 
 weight near you. I know the reason is that you 
 cannot help it; but as the chapter is near at hand 
 now, I wish they had nothing to say against you. 
 Look to this for the love of God, and consider how 
 
 you preach in Andalucia. * 
 
 The chapter of which the great saint spoke 
 
 was held in Almodovar on the 1st of May in the 
 following year, 1588. St. John of the Cross, as 
 prior of Granada, was present. Fra Nicolas of 
 * Lett. 400, Sept. 1, 1582. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 168 
 
 Jesus Maria had returned from Italy, whither he 
 had been sent to give the General an account of 
 the new province of the barefooted friars. He 
 was one of those who disliked the government of 
 Fra Jerome because of its ease and the risks of 
 laxity involved in it. 
 
 Fra Nicolas of Jesus Maria was one of the 
 most distinguished men in the order, and St. 
 Teresa herself held him in great respect, though 
 she did not like him as she liked Fra Jerome. She 
 wished very much that the two friars were friends, 
 and did all she could not only to keep the peace 
 between them, but also to make them respect and 
 cherish each other.* Fra Nicolas was a man of 
 strong will, perhaps stern, certainly unbending, 
 * while Fra Jerome was soft and tender, unable to 
 resist. Each had great gifts, but they were not 
 the same; and now, St. Teresa being dead, the two 
 friars came together, and there was no one to make 
 peace between them. 
 
 Fra Nicolas, on his way to Almodovar, travelled 
 on foot for the most part, with an ass to carry his 
 and his fellow v s mantle. In the inn at Toledo, 
 where they rested for the night, they "were over¬ 
 taken by Fra Jerome with his fellow, Fra Gregorio, 
 each on a mule well caparisoned. Fra Nicolas did 
 not like the sight, so he said to the provincial, as 
 if in jest, but really in serious earnest, ‘How came 
 your paternity and your fellow to break the rule 
 so lately made by yourself, that we are not to use 
 * Lett. 244, July 7, 1579. 
 
164 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CSOSS. 
 
 saddles ?’ The provincial answered in the only way 
 possible for him, he made a change in the saddle; 
 but Fra Nicolas was not satisfied; and the pro¬ 
 vincial at last, with his fellow, had his mule brought 
 down to the poor state of the wretched ass, whic 
 
 Fra Nicolas led on the way. „ 
 
 Ao'ain, there was more trouble on the road ; for 
 when°they arrived in Malagon, the nuns there, to 
 do honour to their friars, and especially to their 
 provincial, entertained them in their monastery, 
 and gave them a dinner which Fra Nicolas regarded 
 as wholly unbecoming the profession of poverty m 
 Carmel. He looked at the fat capons and the 
 partridges, with other meats of the like nature, and 
 then, unable to restrain himself, he cried out, ‘ Are 
 we, my fathers, going into chapter for the reform 
 of the order, and eating food like this? b or myparu 
 I shall have something else, if I can get it; let who 
 will eat meat, I will not.’ The friars were made 
 ashamed, and many of them withdrew from the 
 
 This was not a good preparation for the chapter. 
 The more austere friars were dissatisfied with Fra 
 Jerome, and turned their eyes towards Fra Nicolas 
 as the true guardian of the reform, which they fully 
 believed to be in great danger in the hands of Fra 
 
 Jerome. _ . _ ^ , 
 
 The chapter assembled on the third Sunday 
 
 after Easter, May 1, 1588, and having elected the 
 
 four definitors, discussed the election of the priors. 
 
 St. John of the Cross wished the election to be 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CEOSS. 
 
 165 
 
 made in the monasteries, and not in the provincial 
 chapter, but the chapter decided against him, and 
 keeping the rule it had made, elected him once 
 more prior of Granada. The provincial proposed 
 new foreign missions, hut St. John of the Cross 
 spoke very strongly against the proposal, and re¬ 
 minded the fathers of the duties of prayer and 
 retirement, which were theirs in a special way; 
 there were other orders, he said, to undertake the 
 missions, for which they were fitted, and for which 
 they might be said to have been founded. The 
 reform of Carmel was founded for another purpose, 
 and would be endangered if it did not keep its own 
 rule and foster the spirit thereof. The friars were 
 bound not to go abroad, but to remain at home in 
 their cells, meditating day and night in the law of 
 God, seeking their own sanctification, and striving 
 after perfection. Charity towards our neighbours, 
 he said, must be directed by the law of life under 
 which we are living; for if it were not, nothing 
 would come of it but confusion and the ruin of the 
 order. 
 
 Fra Jerome, the provincial, had set his heart 
 on the foreign missions, and was marvellously 
 given to external work, preaching everywhere, and 
 even lecturing. He did not think as St. John of 
 the Cross did, so he answered the saint; and in the 
 end his judgment prevailed. 
 
 Before he left Almodovar, the servant of God 
 took an opportunity ot speaking privately to the 
 provincial oithe danger he feared from his govern- 
 
158 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 meat of the order. In the chapter itself this 
 matter had been already entertained, and even the 
 deposition of the provincial had been spoken of a 
 a possible necessity. St. John now, fearless in his 
 charity, represented in all humility, as a su j 
 should, the great need there was of certain changes 
 end of greater strictness. Too much heed was 
 civen to the revelations and visions of nuns too 
 much license in going abroad to preach and hear 
 confessions, and then too much indulgence, made 
 perhaps necessary, to those who were wearied by 
 work which was not really the work of a friar of 
 the reform. The servant of God delivered his own 
 soul, and having done so went his way, but with 
 a heavy heart. 
 
 The next year, 1584, was a year of sore dis¬ 
 tress and famine in Spain, especially m Andalucia. 
 The people from the country around flocked 
 into Granada, the wealthy city, asking for the 
 bread which they could not find at home. St. 
 John, like his Master, had compassion on the 
 multitude struggling with hunger, and thoug 
 living upon alms himself, and with a large house¬ 
 hold to maintain, gave alms abundantly out of the 
 riches of his poverty. In the first place, he* em¬ 
 ployed as many men as he could, on the building 
 of the monastery, which he carried on during 
 famine, and with the money he received from the 
 charitable he bought all the corn lie could, an 
 charged the porter at the gate to distribute t to 
 the poor, and never to send any one emp y -y- 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 167 
 
 Tlie more he relieved, the more came from all 
 quarters of the city for relief, and at last many 
 even of the noble families confided to the saint 
 their state of helpless destitution. St. John’s 
 heart was full of tenderness for those who were 
 ashamed to beg. These also he relieved, and even 
 maintained, by means of two lay brothers whom 
 he sent out with the necessary succours; but he 
 himself dwelt within his monastery, in his cell in 
 prayer and in the discharge of his duties in the 
 community. 
 
 Though he ministered to the wants of so many, 
 he did not neglect the friars; he provided for 
 them as if there had been no famine in the land ; 
 while to human eyes all the resources of the house 
 were at the service of the multitudinous poor, who 
 but for his help and trust in God would have died 
 of hunger in the streets. 
 
 The great meekness of the saint was now 
 tested in Granada. He had to correct one of the 
 friars for some fault or other, and did so in his 
 accustomed way, very seriously bu£ very tenderly. 
 The poor friar utterly forgot himself, and instead 
 of receiving his correction meekly, burst out in a 
 flood of angry and unseemly language, and even 
 reviled his superior. The servant of God did not 
 check him, but threw himself on the ground, and 
 remained prostrate while the friar’s anger lasted, 
 and then rising, addressed him as he should have 
 addressed his superior, saying, ‘For the love of 
 God,’ and went away. The friar’s eyes were then 
 
168 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 opened to the extravagance of his fault, and with 
 recovered senses went and threw himself at his 
 father’s feet, confessing his wrong, and thanking 
 him for having borne so patiently with him in his 
 waywardness. 
 
 He was at this time writing the explanation of 
 the spiritual canticle Adonde Te escondiste , com¬ 
 posed in the prison in which the friars of the miti¬ 
 gation held him in Toledo. We owe this service 
 to the Venerable Anne of Jesus, whose importuni¬ 
 ties overcame the saint’s reluctance to write. At 
 the same time he occupied himself, at the urgent 
 request of his penitent. Dona Ana de Penalosa, in 
 writing his explanation of another of his hymns, 
 and the most wonderful of them all perhaps, O 
 Llama de amor viva. He yielded to the request of 
 Dona Ana with some reluctance, because the 
 hymn is of matters so interior and spiritual as to 
 he beyond the compass of human speech. He 
 wrote after earnest prayer, and without help from 
 any hooks whatever, and very slowly, lest he 
 should he carried away and make his work the 
 expression of mere human wisdom rather than 
 that of the Holy Ghost, whose work is never hur¬ 
 ried. 
 
 In December of this year, 1584, the provincial, 
 Fra Jerome of the Mother of God, sanctioned the 
 foundation of a monastery of nuns in Malaga, 
 where the friars had established themselves about 
 six months before. Fra Jerome could not go to 
 Malaga himself, so he sent St. John of the Cross, 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CK0SS. 169 
 
 who was at the time vicar provincial of Andalucia, 
 as well as prior of Granada. When the order of 
 the provincial was brought to St. John, the latter 
 was in constant attendance on the Sister Isabel of 
 the Incarnation, believed to be in her last illness. 
 The servant of God was therefore troubled, for he 
 must leave his penitent in the day of her greatest 
 distiess because of the order of the provincial. 
 Ixe betook himself to prayer, and while so employed 
 vas sent for to the sick nun, whom the physician 
 believed to be at the point of death. The saint 
 went to her at once, and having heard her confes¬ 
 sion gave her the last sacraments. But suddenly 
 inspired of God, he began to read the Gospel of 
 St. Mark, and when he came to the w T ords, * upon 
 the sick they shall lay their hands/ he laid his 
 hands on the sister who was in her agony, and the 
 sickness departed from her. The next day she 
 left her bed, the physicians confessing that her 
 healing was miraculous. 
 
 He now set out on his journey to Malaga, 
 with the nuns who were to be the founders of the 
 house there. Mary of Christ, the prioress, had a 
 grievous fall, which rendered her unconscious ; the 
 nuns around her seeing the blood flow abundantly 
 from her head, while she gave no signs of life, 
 began to bemoan her as one who was dead* Mean¬ 
 while, the servant of God came up to them, and 
 laid his hand on the wound; the sister rose up, 
 and went on her way with the others, as if no ac¬ 
 cident had taken place. 
 
170 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 • 
 
 They arrived in Malaga, seven nuns, one of 
 them being Antonia of the Holy Ghost, who in 
 1562 was with St. Teresa when she founded the 
 house of St. Joseph in Avila; and on the 17th o 
 February 1584 the new monastery was founded, 
 St. John of the Cross saying the first Mass. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The saint in the chapter of Lisbon—Election of a new 
 provincial—Prophecy of the saint—Mary of the Visi¬ 
 tation—The ..saint made vicar of Andalucia—corrects 
 certain abuses. 
 
 The provincial, being in Lisbon at this time, sum¬ 
 moned the chapter to meet there for the election 
 of his successor. On May 10, 1585, the priors and 
 their fellows arrived in Lisbon, and the next morn¬ 
 ing, Saturday, May 11, the provincial, Fra Jerome 
 of the Mother of God, was elected the first defini- 
 tor ; the second definitor was St. John of the Cross; 
 the third, Fra Antonio of Jesus, at that time prior 
 of Seville; but he begged to be excused on account 
 of his health, and his place was filled by the prior 
 of Malaga, Fra John of the Baptist, who became 
 the fourth definitor, the third being the prior of 
 Valladolid, Fra Gregory of Nazianzum. 
 
 There was no question about the reelection of 
 Fra Jerome as provincial, and he had to propose 
 his own successor. He knew there was no one in 
 the order, of one mind with him, whom the fathers 
 would accept as their provincial; and he knew 
 too that his successor, because of the differences 
 
172 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 that had grown up, would put an end to much 
 that he had established himself. Fra Jerome 
 was honest, and faithful to his trust, and proposed 
 as his successor the only friar in the order who 
 could in any way he regarded as his rival or his 
 opponent. This was Fra Nicolas of Jesus Maria, 
 then absent in Genoa, founding a house of the 
 order there. 
 
 Of the thirty priors and their fellows who came 
 to the chapter, two were not duly accredited, and 
 thus the election was made by twenty-eight voices. 
 Of these, twenty-six were given to Fra Nicolas, 
 the others were given to Fra Mariano of St. Bene¬ 
 dict and Fra Alonso of the Angels. The election 
 thus made, nearly with one consent, was, no doubt, 
 in unison with the wishes of the order generally ; 
 hut it was the beginning also of a great strife, and 
 St. John of the Cross said, ‘ The provincial has 
 elected the man who will drive him out of the 
 order.’ The prophecy was fulfilled, if prophecy it 
 was, for some have said that human sagacity alone 
 w T as enough to discern the ruin of Fra Jerome 
 through the fiery zeal of Fra Nicolas. The saint, 
 however, lived to see only the preparations for the 
 expulsion of Fra Jerome, who continued for nearly 
 three months in the order after the servant of God 
 had gone to his rest. 
 
 But if he did not speak in the spirit of pro¬ 
 phecy when he foretold the issues of this election, 
 his great gift in the discerning of spirits was re¬ 
 vealed again on this occasion. There was at this 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 173 
 
 time in Lisbon a nun whose fame was spread 
 abroad, and whose sanctity was taken for granted. 
 Her raptures, her colloquies with our Lord, and 
 the shining of her face filled people with wonder, 
 and the multitude of those, learned and'unlearned, 
 who were deceived has never been counted. Mary 
 of tne Visitation that was her name in religion— 
 was prioress of the Monastery of the Annunciation, 
 of the oidei of St. Dominic in Lisbon, and became 
 an object of curiosity, at least, to the Carmelite 
 Lia^a who had come together for the general 
 chapter; all of whom except St. John of the Cross 
 went to see her, and came away, as all the world 
 had done, fully persuaded of her supernatural 
 state. St. John of the Cross never went near 
 her, and one day Fra Augustin of the Kings 
 asked him to go with him to visit the famous 
 nun. The servant of God refused; ‘ for why should 
 he go,’ he said, ‘to see a woman who is full of 
 delusion ? Let us not speak of her \ God will scon 
 make her wickedness known.’ Even before this 
 time the wretched state of that nun had been 
 revealed to St. John of the Cross j for on one 
 occasion, when he was in Castille, Fra Bartholo¬ 
 mew of St. Basil showed him a small bottle, hold¬ 
 ing some of the water which the nun was in the 
 habit of blessing. The servant of God, unable to 
 control himself when he saw so saintly a man as 
 Fra Bartholomew treating with respect that which 
 was worthy ox none, took the bottle out of his 
 hand, and threw the water away. Yet he was 
 
174 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 habitually most cautious in bis treatment of all 
 persons whatever who were religious, and careful 
 of their good name. Soon afterwards the inquisitors 
 of Lisbon took the nun into their care, and after 
 diligently examining her, discovered the fraud. 
 The poor nun w T as not only deluded herself, but 
 was also deliberately deluding others. 
 
 The absence of the new provincial rendered it 
 impossible for the chapter to discuss the affairs oi 
 the order; accordingly, as soon as they had done 
 all that was necessary for the validity of the elec¬ 
 tion, they sent two of their brethren to Genoa, to 
 announce it to Fra Nicolas of Jesus Maria.. The 
 deputies reached Genoa on July 7, and in the 
 beginning of October 1585 Fra Nicolas returned 
 to Spain. He reassembled the chapter at once, 
 and the friars, October 17, met in Pastrana. . The 
 chapter divided the province into four vicariates, 
 to be governed by the four definitors elected in 
 Lisbon; that of Andalucia was given to St. John 
 of the Cross, while the former provincial, Fra 
 Jerome of the Mother of God, who had not yet 
 left Lisbon, was intrusted with the government 
 
 of the vicariate of Portugal. 
 
 These vicars had more authority now than 
 they had under Fra Jerome, for they were ap¬ 
 pointed in the chapter and by it; whereas, for¬ 
 merly, the vicars of Fra Jerome were merely his 
 delegates, and remained in office only so long as it 
 pleased him to retain them. Under Fra Nicolas 
 the government was stronger, and the law more 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 175 
 
 carefully observed; the growing laxness was cor¬ 
 rected, and men were brought back under his rigid 
 and unbending rule to the primitive customs which 
 had their beginnings in Duruelo and Pastrana. 
 St. John of the Cross was not less zealous than 
 the provincial, though less austere, more gentle 
 with others, but not less an enemy of all laxity. 
 
 From the chapter in Pastrana he returned to 
 Granada, charged with the care of thirteen monas¬ 
 teries, seven of men and six of women. These 
 he visited regularly and diligently, inquiring into 
 everything most minutely, and correcting with all 
 charity anything he found amiss. It w^as impos¬ 
 sible to resist him, for he lived in every house he 
 visited as the least of his brethren, sitting in the 
 lowest place, and taking his own only in the public 
 duties of the house and choir. He never allowed 
 the friars to minister to him apart from the others, 
 notwithstanding his office, and he w 7 as always with 
 the community, as one of the house. He went 
 over the whole monastery, and never left anything 
 unvisited; but he was specially attentive to the 
 sick. He did the work of the house too as if he 
 were a member of it, waited at table in the refec¬ 
 tory in his turn, heard confessions and preached, 
 and a stranger could not have distinguished the 
 vicar of the provincial from the other friars of the 
 house. 
 
 His example of perfect humility moved the 
 hearts of men, and he had no difficulty in com¬ 
 manding, for the obedience of his children was 
 
176 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 prompt; tho most stubborn had not the heart to 
 resist when tlie vicar was so detached from self. 
 Some murmurs may perhaps have been heard, 
 coming from those who had come to like their 
 ease, but they were soon hushed; for none could 
 withstand a visitor who read in the refectory, 
 made the beds of the sick in the infirmary, washed 
 the feet of the guests, and went to the garden 
 
 with the novices to dig. 
 
 There was one abuse which had crept in, by 
 degrees and day by day, under the rule of the 
 late provincial. The preachers of the order, 
 popular and learned men, had persuaded Fra 
 Jerome and themselves that what they were 
 doing for souls was a great work, before which, 
 the less important work of keeping the rule ought 
 to give way. St. John of the Cross did not under¬ 
 stand matters as they did; so he at once resolutely 
 set his face against these practices, which had be¬ 
 come too common. In Lent and Advent the iriars, 
 given to preaching, spent half their time out of 
 the m onastery, not to their own spiritual gain, and 
 to the scandal of people in the world. They were 
 absent from choir, for they must study in order to 
 preach, and they obtained dispensation from the 
 fasts of the order if not from those of the Church, 
 and from the abstinence from fieshmeat, because 
 they must keep their bodily strength. Thus one 
 good work destroyed another, and men gave up 
 their own duties in order to discharge duties 
 which were not theirs. The servant of God did 
 
177 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 not think as they did, for in his eyes the first 
 duty of the friars was to keep the rub. As he 
 never listened to those doctrines of charity which 
 tended to confusion, so he insisted upon having 
 everything in its place. The friars must first of 
 all discharge the duties laid upon them by their 
 religious profession; for unless these were dis¬ 
 charged faithfully, there could be no progress of 
 the soul in goodness, nor security for any good 
 
 work, and the vocation itself would be in danger 
 of being lost. ' 8 
 
 While travelling from one monastery to an¬ 
 other, he never went out of his way to see any- 
 t ing curious. Continually in the presence of God, 
 he was either silent in prayer or conversing with 
 his fellow of the things of heaven; sometimes, 
 like St. "VVulstan of Worcester, he would even 
 chant the psalms aloud. While making his visi¬ 
 tations, on arriving at a monastery he went straight 
 to the church to pray before the Most Holy, and 
 then to the infirmary to see the sick, if any sick 
 were there. One night after Compline, when the 
 law of silence prevails, he arrived at a house very 
 late. At the door the prior and all the religious 
 stood to receive him, and, in making manifest their 
 joy at seeing him, broke the silence; he looked 
 reproachfully at them, and went straight to his 
 cell, without uttering a word. If he was strict 
 with others, he was strict also with himself. 
 
 , tllis time he received in Granada a visit 
 irom the provincial of an order, a man of oreat 
 
 n 
 
 \ 
 
 N 
 
178 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 consideration for his office sake, and also for his dis¬ 
 tinguished birth. The servant of God must, for 
 some grave reasons, depart from his usual habit, 
 and visit in return the provincial, who had so 
 honoured him. After some conversation, the latter 
 asked the saint how he liked his monastery, which 
 was outside the city. 
 
 ‘ Well enough,’ answered the servant of God; 
 
 < for it is a lonely place, and I like solitude.’ 
 
 The provincial then said, ‘ Your reverence 
 must be the son of a farmer to like the country so 
 much.’ 
 
 f Ah, most reverend father, I am not so much 
 as that; my father was a poor weaver,’ was the 
 answer of the servant of God, true child of St. 
 Teresa, who, when she heard that Fra Jerome of 
 the Mother of God had been searching into her 
 pedigree on one occasion in Avila, said to him, in 
 some displeasure, that it was enough for her to be 
 a child of the Church, and that it distressed her 
 more to have fallen into one venial sin than it 
 could do to be the daughter of the lowest of the 
 people.* Fra Diego of the Most Holy Sacrament, 
 who w T as with the saint, and present at the time, 
 said that all who heard the conversation looked at 
 one another with amazement. They were pained 
 at the vanity of the provincial, who had left the 
 world, and wondered at the humility of the poor 
 Carmelite. On another occasion, some of his friars 
 told some people with whom they were conversing 
 ° Reforma de los Descalgos, i. p. 17. 
 
179 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 that St. John of the Cross had been prior of a 
 certain monastery; hut he, overhearing the words, 
 and afraid that his brethren were boasting, turned 
 round, and said, ‘I was also cook there.’ 
 
 God gave him light to enable him to discharge 
 his duties in a very wonderful way, as if in re¬ 
 ward of his great diligence in his work. On his 
 return from one of his visitations, he found Fra 
 Alonso of the Mother of God, the master of no¬ 
 vices in Granada, in great distress of mind. Fra 
 Alonso was so overcome by spiritual dryness and 
 interior darkness, that he thought he ought to 
 give himself up to the inquisitors; but before 
 doing so he laid bare the state of his soul before 
 the vicar of the province, St. John of the Cross. 
 The servant of God, when he had listened to his 
 story, smiled, and said, ‘Go, you silly one; all 
 that is nothing;’ and Fra Alonso went his way, 
 with a mind perfectly at rest. 
 
 Two novices had been received in the house 
 during his absence; one a priest, the other a 
 deacon. The servant of God went to see them in 
 the novitiate; and on coming out told the master 
 that the deacon would give them much trouble, 
 and at last leave the order. The prophecy was 
 
 fulfilled in due time, for the friars took the habit 
 from him. 
 
 On another occasion, on his return to the house, 
 the fathers asked him to admit a novice, of good 
 family and great learning. The servant of God was 
 most unwilling to do so, and warned the fathers 
 
180 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 of the consequences. The prior and the com¬ 
 munity thought they were in some way hound to 
 admit him, and did so \ hut soon after, his wife 
 and two children came to the monastery in quest 
 of the novice, who had abandoned them, and the 
 fathers were obliged to send him away. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Foundation in Segovia—The saint in Caravaca—visits 
 Penuela — founds a monastery in Cordova — visits 
 Seville Miraculous escape — Fra Martin and the 
 novices—Anne of Jesus goes to Madrid—Bujalance— 
 Caravaca. 
 
 Dona Ana de Mercado y Pehalosa, the penitent 
 of the saint, was a widow, and having now to 
 fulfil the testamentary dispositions of her husband, 
 Don Juan de Guevara, who had charged her to 
 found either a hospital or a monastery in Segovia, 
 the place of his birth, took the advice of her con¬ 
 fessor, St. John of the Cross, and, with the full 
 consent of her brother, Don Luis, auditor of the 
 Chancery of Granada, offered the provincial to 
 found a monastery of the friars of the reform of 
 Carmel. The provincial accepted the foundation, 
 and finding St. John of the Cross disliked enter¬ 
 ing the vicariate of Castille, within which Segovia 
 lay, he ordered the vicar, Era Gregorio Nazianzen, 
 to establish the house. Era Gregorio executed his 
 commission, and took possession May 3, 1586. 
 Meanwhile the servant of God was on his visita¬ 
 tion, and early in the year, at Caravaca, where 
 
182 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 a saintly penitent of his, the Mother Anne of St. 
 Albert, was prioress, to whom St. Teresa herse 
 had given the habit. Mother Anne spoke to him of 
 the loss it was to the community that there were 
 no friars of Carmel in Caravaca. The servant of 
 God replied, ‘ Why do you not bring them here ?’ 
 Mother Anne smiled, for she knew how difficult it 
 was, and how much beyond her strength. St. 
 John then bade her be of good courage, to pray to 
 our Lord, and make the community also pray, 
 promising to do the same himself. He knew that 
 the time was come; and he had had a revelation 
 when prior of Baeza that a monastery of friars was 
 
 to be founded in Caravaca. 
 
 He then left the mother prioress, and, having 
 vested himself, proceeded to say Mass. As soon 
 as he had ascended the steps of the altar, the 
 prioress saw a light around the servant of God, 
 which became more and more brilliant as he went 
 on with the Mass. At first it seemed to issue 
 forth out of the tabernacle, after the consecration 
 from the Sacred Host; and the priest in the midst 
 of it seemed to shine as a most clear sun. The 
 Mass lasted very long, but it was a wonderful joy 
 to all the nuns, whose tears flowed in the sweet¬ 
 ness which it brought them. 
 
 When the servant of God had made his thanks¬ 
 giving, he was called to the confessional, where he 
 found the mother prioress waiting for him, more, 
 liowever, for the purpose of hearing his confession 
 than of making her own. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CEOSS. 183 
 
 Father, she asked, ‘ why was the Mass so 
 long ?’ 
 
 The servant of God asked her how Ions it 
 lasted. ‘ B 
 
 ‘ When we taste divine things a long time 
 seems but short. Perhaps you had a vision,’ said 
 the prioress. 
 
 I saw, replied the saint, c what you, too, have 
 been allowed to see.’ 
 
 I should like to know,’ was the answer of the 
 prioress; ‘ for what I saw must have been very 
 little. At least, it hindered you in the saying of 
 the Mass, for you were a long time at the altar.’ 
 
 ‘ So it was, child,’ said the saint. And then 
 there was a silence; for he fell* into a trance. 
 But when he returned to himself, he said, ‘ God 
 showed great things to me, a sinner, and that in 
 
 such majesty that I was unable to go on with the 
 Mass.’ 
 
 The mother prioress still insisted, and asked 
 for more information; and then the saint, over¬ 
 come by her importunity, said, ‘ My soul is now 
 so full of heavenly consolations that I dare not be 
 alone and recollected; they are too much for my 
 strength. Now and then I refrain from saying 
 Mass, for I am afraid that something marvellous 
 will take place. I have asked our Lord to give 
 me more strength, or to take me away, but that 
 will not be while I have the care of souls.’ The 
 servant of God had prayed that he might not die 
 while holding any office in the order. 
 
184 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN* OF THE CROSS. 
 
 Dona Ana de Penalosa was now making her 
 preparations for the foundation to be made in 
 Segovia, w T riting from time to time to the vicar 
 provincial in Caravaca. One day, the saint hav¬ 
 ing written a letter to Dona Ana, and not ha\ing 
 the means of sealing it, gave it to the mother prior¬ 
 ess, and begged her to seal it, and send it. Anne 
 of St. Albert took the letter, and even read it. The 
 next day another letter was brought from Doha 
 Ana for the vicar provincial, and the messenger 
 waited for the answer. Having read the letter, he 
 gave it to the mother prioress—for it concerned 
 her also—and told her there was no necessity for 
 writing; the letter written the day before was a 
 sufficient answer. When the prioress had read 
 the letter from Doha Ana, she understood why 
 the saint would not write; he had written a full 
 answer to all her difficulties the day before when he 
 could have known them by no natural means. 
 
 About the middle of February of this year, 
 1586, he left Caravaca for Pehuela, the house of 
 strict observance and austerity. He remained 
 there during Lent, going to Linares three times 
 every week, on foot, to preach, returning in the 
 same way, not accepting even food in tne city. 
 Fra Marco of St. Francis thinks that he undertook 
 this work on behalf of one of the fathers of 
 Pehuela, who was hindered in some way from do¬ 
 ing it himself ; for it was much against his will 
 to be seen anywhere in public, unless occupied 
 m the duties of his state. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 185 
 
 From Peiiuela he went to Cordova, where a 
 house was offered him for a monastery, and he 
 gladly took possession of it May 18, 1586, the 
 Sunday after the Ascension. Having placed it 
 under the rule of his novice in Pastrana, Fra 
 Augustin of the Kings, as prior, he went to 
 Seville. There he found that the fathers were too 
 often and too long out of their monastery, es¬ 
 pecially during Lent and Advent. The excuse 
 for this was preaching, but the servant of God 
 would not accept it; so he ordered matters other¬ 
 wise,* and the rule he made is the groundwork of 
 that which was afterwards embodied in the consti¬ 
 tutions of the order, f 
 
 The nuns in Seville were lodged in an unfitting 
 place ; and St. Teresa herself had not been able to 
 find a house for them according to her desires. 
 But now, in the beginning of June 1586, they 
 had found a better house, and the vicar of the 
 province settled them in their new dwelling. 
 Among the nuns, and but lately professed, was a 
 sister of the late provincial, Fra Jerome, a nun of 
 great gifts and saintly life. Sister Juliana of the 
 Mother of God was not ignorant of the difference 
 between her brother and the provincial, Fra 
 Nicolas, and therefore not without fear for the 
 future. St. John of the Cross, spoke to her and 
 consoled her, exhorting her to perseverance, and 
 
 * See below, cli. xix. 
 f Be forma cle los Descnlcos, ii. p. 313 . 
 
186 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 bidding her be of courage, so as to stand firm 
 when the storm should burst. 
 
 From Seville the saint returned to Cordova, to 
 see the progress of the new foundation, which was 
 very great, and for which he gave God thanks. 
 The friars were held in great reverence by the 
 people; but he, in that clearness of vision which 
 humility gives, detected a spirit among his bre¬ 
 thren, hateful in itself, which he hated with his 
 whole heart: they wished to stand well with the 
 world, for the greater glory of God. 
 
 One day, a friar in his sermon spoke of the 
 gratitude of the community to the people of Cor¬ 
 dova for their generous support of the monastery; 
 his language was oratorical and somewhat extra¬ 
 vagant; and it brought down upon himself, and 
 the whole house, the sharp reprehensions of the 
 saint. The servant of God was full of gratitude to 
 all men who rendered the slightest service; never¬ 
 theless, he spoke with some severity to the friars, 
 and charged them on no account whatever to say 
 anything of the affairs of the house when handling 
 the words of truth. In doing so, they would be 
 probably praising themselves indirectly; and that 
 must be avoided, because unbecoming the sim¬ 
 plicity and sincerity which should be the dis¬ 
 tinctive mark of a religious. 
 
 At this time there were workmen busy in the 
 monastery; and, among other things, they had to 
 throw down a wall, in order to build the new 
 church. They had made their preparations for 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 187 
 
 throwing it down without any injury to the house, 
 but they made a mistake, and the whole mass fell 
 on the cell of St. John of the Cross. He was in 
 it at the time, and everybody believed that he was 
 crushed to death. The fallen mass was cleared 
 away in the utmost haste, but all were without 
 hope of seeing the servant of God alive. To their 
 amazement and joy, they found him in a corner of 
 the cell, standing. He had not been even touched 
 by the falling stones; he came forth, as soon as 
 they made way for him, smiling, and unhurt. 
 For a moment their joy was so great that they 
 could not speak; at last they asked him how it 
 was that he had escaped, and he simply replied, 
 
 ‘ She of the white mantle covered me with it;’ and 
 all understood that our Lady had been there to 
 save him. 
 
 When the wonderful escape of the servant of 
 God became known in the city, and in the country 
 around, a great many people came to the monas¬ 
 tery, begging to be received into the order. Of 
 these the saint accepted nine; tw r o for the house 
 in Cordova, the others he meant to send to Seville. 
 As the two whom he kept in Cordova were the 
 poorest in worldly goods, some of the fathers beg¬ 
 ged him to change them for others who could be 
 of service to their house, seeing that the com¬ 
 munity in Seville was not so poor as they were. 
 The man of God was not moved by their reason¬ 
 ing; but he told them that he had chosen the 
 poorest novices for the purpose of founding the 
 
188 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 bouse more securely, and keeping out of it all 
 human considerations whatsoever. 
 
 Thus the two novices were kept in Cordova, 
 and the other seven were to he sent away. The 
 vicar ordered Fra Martin of the Assumption, his 
 fellow, with a lay brother, to take them to Seville, 
 giving him nothing but a sorry mule to carry their 
 clothes. Fra Martin, though not unused to the 
 ways of the saint, was not a little alarmed, for he 
 was going without money on his journey; so he 
 begged the vicar provincial to let him ask the 
 prior for some provision for the road. He was 
 afraid that the novices might faint by the way, for 
 they had never been tried in the world as they 
 would be tried now. The saint smiled, and said, 
 
 4 Go, my son; our Lord has made everything ready; 
 you wull want nothing, and none of the novices 
 will faint by the way; they will reach Seville sound 
 and fervent.’ 
 
 Fra Martin was a true religious; he obeyed at 
 once, and set out with the seven novices, without 
 a penny to defray their expenses on the road. In 
 every place through which he passed he found no¬ 
 thing but kindness; people even pressed alms upon 
 him ; and thus helped, he arrived in Seville with¬ 
 out any inconvenience, but heartily ashamed of 
 himself for his want of faith. The novices too 
 were in perfect health of mind and body. On his 
 return he presented himself before the vicar, to 
 give an account of his journey, and, what was 
 harder to do, to bring forth’ the alms he had re- 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 189 
 
 ceived, but could not spend. He bad left Cordova 
 in doubt, without a penny; and he had now, to his 
 own shame and confusion of face, more than seven 
 pounds in his purse. The saint told him to give 
 the money to the procurator, adding, ‘I would 
 rather you had come back a greater saint, and that 
 you had suffered want and wrong for the love of 
 God, who provided for you so well.’ 
 
 Summoned by the provincial to Madrid, with 
 the other vicars, where they were to meet August 
 18, 1586, he set out on his journey. In Toledo 
 he fell ill, and was therefore unable to attend. 
 Fra Jerome of the Mother of God, the vicar of 
 Portugal, was also absent; but as their places were 
 filled by the priors of Madrid and Pastrana, the 
 provincial was able to transact the business on 
 account of which they had been summoned. It 
 was said at the time, but without truth, that the 
 illness in Toledo was more or less feigned, because 
 St. John of the Cross did not wish to be present 
 in an assembly wherein the conduct of the late 
 provincial was to be discussed. It is quite true 
 that the servant of God had a great affection for 
 Fra Jerome, but he was not blinded by his love, 
 and moreover he never shrank from duty, however 
 painful. When he had recovered his strength he 
 quitted Toledo, and travelled homeward to Granada. 
 On the road to Cuerva, from Toledo, he turned 
 aside to rest himself in a wood; he went into it a 
 good way, that he might be less disturbed, leaving 
 his fellow behind. After some time the friar went 
 
190 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 in quest of the servant of God, and searching for 
 him amid the trees, he saw him lost in prayer, 
 and raised in the air high from the ground. 
 
 Soon after his return to Granada he received 
 orders from his superior, Fra Nicolas of Jesus 
 Maria, the provincial, to bring Anne of Jesus, 
 prioress of Granada, to Madrid, where she was to 
 he prioress of the monastery about to be founded 
 there. In obedience to the order of the provincial, 
 he brought the Venerable Anne, with her com¬ 
 panions, to Madrid, and being there, he asked 
 and obtained leave of the provincial to found a 
 monastery in Mancha Eeal. He hastened to the 
 latter place, and took possession of the house, 
 October 12th, when High Mass was sung by the 
 archdeacon of IJbeda, who gave the house, the 
 deacon was one of his nephews, also a canon 
 of Toledo, and the sub-deacon was the vicar of 
 the provincial, St. John of the Cross. 
 
 During one of the many journeys he made 
 about this time to Mancha Eeal, he was accom¬ 
 panied by Fra Martin of the Assumption and 
 Fra Pedro of St. Mary, a lay brother. The latter 
 fell in going down the road from Porcuna towards 
 the river, and broke his leg. He was somewhat 
 in advance of the two fathers, and when the saint 
 and Fra Martin came up to him they found him 
 in sharp pain, for the shin-bone was broken in 
 two. Fra Martin held the leg, and St. John of 
 the Cross, wetting a piece of cloth with his mouth, 
 hound the limb; and then having put the poor 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 191 
 
 brother on a mule, they led it, one on each side, 
 supporting Fra Pedro as well as they could till 
 they came to an inn. There the saint had pro¬ 
 mised to find some relief for him, and haying 
 stopped, said they would help him to dismount, 
 that he might not be put to further pain. 
 
 ‘Pain,’ cried Fra Pedro, ‘I feel none;’ and, 
 leaping to the ground, danced before the vicar of 
 the province, in the fulness of his joy. 
 
 Fra Martin, seeing that the broken limb was 
 not only set but healed, cried out, ‘ A miracle, a 
 manifest miracle !’ 
 
 ‘Hush,’ said the saint; ‘what do these people 
 here know about miracles ?’ 
 
 He then charged the two friars, under pain of 
 disobedience, to hold their tongues, and keep 
 secret all they had seen. 
 
 During his stay in Mancha Eeal, two women 
 possessed of the devil were brought to him. One 
 was married; he would not exorcise her, and said 
 to those who had brought her to him that it was 
 not necessary to do so; her deliverance was near at 
 hand. They, believing him, went their way, and 
 not long after saw the prophecy of the servant of 
 God plainly fulfilled. The other was unmarried, 
 and he said that the priests who had begun the 
 exorcisms would work her cure. But they were 
 importunate with him, praying him not to leave 
 the poor woman in the power of Satan; he still 
 refused, and all they could obtain from him was 
 the humble confession that ‘ God would not have 
 
192 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 him interfere.’ The friars, knowing well that he 
 said so for good reasons, urged the continuance 
 of the exorcisms by the priests who had begun 
 them, and in the course of the following year the 
 poor woman was delivered out of the hands of the 
 enemy. 
 
 Fra Jerome of the Mother of God had, in 
 1585, accepted a monastery in Guadalcacar, of 
 which the friars took possession March 24th of 
 that year.* But for some reason or other, the 
 deeds concerning the foundation had not yet been 
 formally settled. The vicar of the province now, 
 by order of the provincial, w r ent thither to secure 
 the deeds. The founders received him with great, 
 joy, and all the difficulties feared by the friars 
 were overcome without any trouble. While there, 
 the servant of God was attacked by a most severe 
 pain in his side, and the physician who came to 
 his relief said that he could not recover. The 
 saint hearing this, said to Fra Martin, who was 
 with him: * The hour of death is not come for 
 me; I shall, however, have much to suffer in this 
 illness, for the stone is not yet sufficiently polished.’ 
 
 The physician ordered a certain ointment to be 
 prepared, and Fra Martin brought it to the saint 
 so quickly that he had not had time to preparenfor 
 it. Fra Martin began to apply it to his side, and 
 then discovered an iron chain around the body of 
 the saint, but he could see only parts of it, for the 
 flesh covered the rest. He took it away, and in 
 * Reforma tie los Descalgos, ii. p. 142 . 
 

 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 193 
 
 removing it lie tore the flesh, and the blood flowed 
 abundantly from the "wounds. The saint suffered 
 sharp pain during the sharp operation of the father, 
 but it was nothing in comparison with the pain 
 and the shame he felt at the discovery of his 
 penance. He then confessed to his faithful com¬ 
 panion that he had worn it for the last seven years 
 night and day; and every link in the chain had 
 two sharp points, which tore the flesh at every 
 movement of his body. 
 
 Fra Martin kept the chain as a precious relic, 
 and after the death of the saint God wrought 
 miracles by it. 
 
 About this time also he was travelling with Fra 
 Pedro of the Mother of God, when his further 
 course was stopped by the overflowing of a river, 
 whereby the ford had become dangerous. Many 
 people were there before him, waiting for the les¬ 
 sening of the waters, and he himself proposed 
 to wait with them. But he heard an inward voice 
 calling him away. He bade the brother stay where 
 he was; he -would cross notwithstanding the rush 
 of the waters. In midstream the feet of the mule 
 became entangled in some brushwood carried away 
 by the torrent, and both he and the mule sank 
 beneath the waters. The people, who had begged 
 him to wait, now cried aloud for help, but no 
 human help was possible. He, however, had re¬ 
 course to his unfailing protectress, and the people 
 amazed saw him rise, and, in spite of the current, 
 make his way to the opposite bank. The mulo 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 too escaped, and the saint, having mounted it, 
 hurried on to an inn on the road leading from 
 Yaena to Jaen. 
 
 In the inn was a man dying of wounds given 
 him in a brawl by the son of the innkeeper. The 
 saint went to him at once, and heard his confession. 
 The poor man was a religious who had gone astray, 
 who had cast behind his hack the obligations of 
 his rule, and was now an apostate from his pro¬ 
 fession. The holy man urged him to forgive his 
 murderer, and even to regard him as one who had 
 done him a great service. He remained with him 
 for two hours, and helped him to die the death of 
 a good Christian. 
 
 Towards the end of November, or the begin¬ 
 ning of December of this year, 1586, he went to 
 Bujalance, to make arrangements for the foun¬ 
 dation of a monastery there. On the road he said 
 to Fra Martin, ‘What would your reverence do if 
 we were now travelling amidst infidels, and they 
 were to set upon us and beat us ?’ 
 
 * Bear it patiently, I hope, by the grace of God,’ 
 was the answer of Fra Martin. 
 
 ‘ Bear it patiently/ replied the saint; ‘ is that 
 your way? Why not desire it for the love of Christ?’ 
 
 In Bujalance he received an order from the 
 provincial to come to Madrid. It was late at 
 night, hut the saint made his preparations at once 
 for setting out early the next morning, though 
 the season was cold and rain was falling after 
 heavy snow. His fellow and the innkeeper laboured 
 
195 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 to persuade him to delay his journey till the 
 weather grew better. He would not listen to their 
 entreaties, saying that ‘he could ill expect his 
 religious to obey him if he was disobedient him¬ 
 self/ Before dawn the next morning he was on 
 his way to Madrid. 
 
 Before he left Bujalance he commissioned Fra 
 Diego of the Conception to make the foundation in 
 Caravaca, concerning which the Mother Anne of 
 St. Albert had spoken to him in the beginning of 
 this year, and Fra Diego took possession of the 
 house December 18th. 
 
 l 
 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Miraculous light—The chapter of Valladolid—Election of 
 the saint to be prior of Granada—Picture of the saint 
 —Foretells the canonisation of St. Teresa—Fra Je¬ 
 rome of the Mother of God—Division of the province— 
 
 The saint elected prior of Segovia. 
 
 $ 
 
 The servant of God remained in Madrid till the 
 beginning of March 1587, vdien he went to Cara- 
 vaca. There he had to preside at the election of a 
 prioress in the room of Mother Anne of St. Albert. 
 On the morning of the day of the election he 
 said Mass in the church of the monastery, and 
 while he was saying it the nuns saw a wonderful 
 light around the saint. Two of them—the nearest 
 to the grating—thought the light came from the 
 tabernacle, and one of these, doubting the reality 
 of the vision, went to another grating nearer the 
 altar, and there saw the same sight. Now, this 
 nun could not make up her mind for whom she 
 should vote in the chapter about to be held, and 
 was in great perplexity and distress of mind; but 
 as she was looking on and marvelling at the 
 heavenly light, she heard an inward voice bidding 
 
 her do what the vicar provincial should suggest 
 
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 • . 
 
 . 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 197 
 
 to her. After Mass she went to him, and told 
 him how much she was troubled about the elec¬ 
 tion ; he listened to her, and then told her what 
 she was to do. All her scruples and anxieties 
 vanished in a moment, and she was conscious of 
 a great interior peace. 
 
 When the nuns were assembled in chapter, 
 the servant of God came in and preached to them 
 for some time. They saw again the wondrous 
 light which they had seen during Mass; the whole 
 choir was flooded with it, and the nuns were filled 
 with a wonderful joy. Then the election was made, 
 and made in great peace; and then, when all w r as 
 over, the servant of God said to thrm, ‘ Children, 
 God reward you, and I thank you, for you have 
 done according to His will.’ 
 
 A few days afterwards one of the nuns, Bar¬ 
 bara of the Holy Ghost, suffered much from 
 inward unrest, but she never spoke to any one of 
 her trouble. The man of God sent for her, and 
 said, ‘ Child, why do you hide your sorrows ? But 
 as you are silent yourself, I will tell them.’ He 
 told her all her troubles, to her amazement; and 
 then, when he had ended, hade her he of good 
 courage; all would end well, and her soul would 
 be in peace; and the prophecy was fulfilled to the 
 letter. 
 
 From Caravaca he went to Valladolid, sum¬ 
 moned thither by the provincial. There the de- 
 finitors, of whom he was one, met on the 7th of 
 April, and transacted certain business, by way of 
 
198 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 preparation for the assembling of the provincial 
 chapter, which was held on Friday the 17th. The 
 next day the definitors were elected, and a few 
 days later the vicars provincial. Certain abuses 
 which had crept in w r ere removed, and decrees 
 were made in virtue of which schools were to he 
 founded within the order : so that henceforth the 
 novices might he taught at home, and he no longer 
 sent, as they had hitherto been, to the universities 
 for their instruction in human learning. 
 
 When St. John of the Cross was released, as 
 he now was, from his duties as vicar of Andalucia, 
 he hoped that he might he allowed to live undis¬ 
 tinguished among his brethren. It w r as not to he 
 so yet; and he was elected prior of Granada. 
 W 7 hen he saw that the choice of the chapter had 
 fallen upon him, he fell on his knees before the 
 assembled fathers, and begged his brethren to 
 have pity on him, and suffer him to attend to his 
 own soul, without the charge of the souls of 
 others. He wept in the soreness of his distress ; 
 but the tears of the wearied saint did not move 
 his brethren. He was compelled to accept the 
 priorate; and so with a heavy heart went back to 
 Granada, but to the great joy of the friars and of 
 the nuns who were there. 
 
 Relieved from the visitation of the province, 
 he now gave himself up solely to his work in the 
 monastery, in which he was now prior for the 
 third time. He finished the building of the house, 
 supplied it with water, planted a vineyard, and 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 199 
 
 made it a pattern for all the houses of the order ; 
 in the whole of Spain there was not one to surpass 
 it in its fitness and convenience. He himself 
 laboured w r ith his own hands, mixed the mortar 
 and laid the bricks, choosing for himself, when it 
 could be done, that which workmen regard as the 
 least honourable part of their labours. He sent 
 to Medina for his brother, Francis de Yepes, em¬ 
 ployed him as a labourer; and whenever any of 
 the great personages of Granada came to the 
 monastery to visit the prior, the prior never failed 
 to show them his brother at his work, or if that 
 could not be done, he would find some excuse for 
 bringing him into the room, where he would speak 
 of him as the person the most dear to him upon 
 earth. 
 
 Some people at this time, wishing to have a 
 picture of the saint, begged the friars to help them 
 to obtain their desired end. The friars knew too 
 well that he would never consent to their wishes, 
 so they resolved to take his picture by stealth. 
 That was easy enough; they brought the painter 
 to his cell when he was in a trance, and in that 
 way the work was done. Some time afterwards 
 the saint found out what had been done, and was 
 greatly hurt and grieved; with the friars he was 
 even angry. In the processes of his canonisation 
 it was deposed that he had been three times dis¬ 
 turbed. This was one of them; another was when 
 the conversation fell upon what he and Fra Anto¬ 
 nio had done for the order in Duruelo; and the 
 
200 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 third time was in his last illness. The surgeon had 
 punctured his foot to obtain some relief for him, 
 and one of the punctures being in that part of the 
 foot which w T as pierced by the nail of the Cruci¬ 
 fixion, the friar who waited upon him said in jest, 
 but probably in real earnest, that our Lord had 
 admitted him to a share in His sufferings, of which 
 the wound in the foot was the outward sign. The 
 holy man, whose humility never slumbered, became 
 angry; for he thought the friar was comparing 
 him with St. Francis.* 
 
 If the servant of God, in his humility, tried to 
 hide the sanctity of his life from the eyes of men, 
 God Himself would make it manifest from time to 
 time. One day a great personage in Granada, 
 who did not know the saint, but who had heard 
 much of him, resolved to put the popular rumour 
 to the test. He went to the saint and laid before 
 him the state of his own soul. He then learnt so 
 much in that conversation and saw so much in the 
 servant of God, that he was afterwards w r ont to 
 say, ‘ 0, what treasures God has laid up in that 
 man ! I had heard much of him, but what I had 
 heard is as nothing to what I know.’ 
 
 The nuns too, in the monasteries which he 
 visited, gathered the fragments of liis food, and 
 treasured them as something divinely touched; 
 his very habit was fragrant. One of the friars 
 persuaded him to give up his habit, now worn 
 threadbare, and put on another which was new. 
 
 * Joseph de Jesus Maria, Hist, tie la Vitla, p.372. 
 

 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 201 
 
 Tlie prior consented, and the friar, out of devotion, 
 put on the discarded habit himself, hut it brought 
 down upon him the censures of his brethren. 
 They said he carried perfumes about his person— 
 a thing unseemly in a religious ; he defended him¬ 
 self as well as he could, and continued to wear the 
 habit. At last the friars ascertained the cause of 
 the strange fragrance, and then found that what¬ 
 ever touched the macerated flesh of the saintly 
 prior gave forth a delicious smell. 
 
 He foietold the canonisation of St.' Teresa at 
 this time, and before any steps had been taken in 
 the order or elsewhere for that end. It happened 
 in this way. 
 
 In March 1588, during recreation in the 
 monastery of Granada, Fra Juan of the Holy 
 Angels said he had dreamt the night before that 
 they were keeping the feast of their holy Mother, 
 and that they had sung the divine office in her 
 honour. He was laughing at himself and his 
 dream, but the prior spoke seriously to him, and 
 | • Pegged him not to make that a matter for mirth : 
 
 he would see his dream fulfilled before he died. 
 Ira Juan was no longer a young man, and gave 
 little heed to the words of the prior; but he lived 
 to be an older man, and saw not the beatification 
 only, but the canonisation also of St. Teresa, in 
 
 the year 1G22.* 
 
 Fra Joseph de Jesus Maria, p. G39. 
 
CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 The first general chapter of the reform—St. John of the 
 Cross prior of Segovia — Fra Nicolas — The discon¬ 
 tented friar—The disobedient preacher—Francis de 
 Urena—Death of Catherine Alvarez—Austerities and 
 prayer of the saint. 
 
 In June 1588 St. John of the Cross, obeying the 
 summons of the provincial, was present at the 
 chapter held in Madrid. A great change was now 
 made in the government of the order. His Holi¬ 
 ness Sixtus V., having received many petitions 
 from Spain, had sanctioned a further separation 
 of the friars of the reform from the friars of the 
 mitigated observance. The brief of the Pope, 
 dated July 10, 1587, was brought to Spain the 
 same year, and notice of it was given to the pro¬ 
 vincial by the Nuncio. The provincial then called 
 the definitors together, November 25, 1587, and 
 laid before them a copy of the brief, which was in 
 the hands of the Nuncio. They all agreed that a 
 chapter of the province should be held for the 
 formal acceptance and publication of it, and ac¬ 
 cordingly the chapter was summoned to meet in 
 Madrid, June 19, 1588. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CHOSS. 203 
 
 In that assembly of the defmitors in Madrid, 
 Fra Jerome of the Mother of God, the first provin¬ 
 cial of the order, and the friend of St. Teresa, was 
 deprived of all authority. He was declared unmeet 
 to give his voice in chapter or to be elected to any 
 office. He had broken in upon the established dis¬ 
 cipline by publishing a pamphlet without the leave 
 of his superiors, and his offence was the greater 
 because he had discussed in it the state of the 
 order. All those who knew how much he was dis¬ 
 liked by the provincial? Fra Nicolas, were not sur¬ 
 prised at the punishment, however much they may 
 have lamented it. Henceforward Fra Jerome is a 
 stranger among his brethren, and those who loved 
 him, and would have saved him if they could, 
 never found a single opportunity wherein they 
 could defend him. In the chapter held in Valla¬ 
 dolid, in April, he had been elected vicar provin¬ 
 cial of Mexico; and now, in November, he was 
 deprived of all authority in the order. 
 
 The chapter summoned in November now as¬ 
 sembled in Madrid, in June of this year, 1588, 
 and, after the reading of the Papal brief, pro¬ 
 ceeded to put it in execution. Having elected the 
 four definitors, of whom St. John of the Cross was 
 the first, it then proceeded to the election of the 
 vicar-general; for as the friars were now made 
 into a congregation, and the province was to be 
 divided, the superior was to be no longer a pro¬ 
 vincial, but the vicar of the general, having vicars 
 provincial under him. There was some little 
 
204 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 murmuring on the part of five or six of the fathers 
 who were friends of Fra Jerome, but the rest pre¬ 
 vailed, and Fra Nicolas, the late provincial, was 
 elected vicar-general, invested with the very au¬ 
 thority and power over the friars of the reform 
 which the prior-general himself had over the whole 
 order; but of the fifty-eight fathers who had the 
 right to vote in the election, there were twenty- 
 six who did not give their voices in favour of Fra 
 Nicolas* 
 
 The vicar-general being elected, the friars then 
 divided the province, no longer a province but a 
 congregation, into six provinces, and placed a 
 prior provincial over each; then came the discus- 
 * sion of the matter which had caused so much 
 division and heartburnings. Fra Nicolas had ob¬ 
 tained from the Pope the appointment of consul- 
 tors, one from each province, who were to aid him 
 in the government of the order, and to decide the 
 questions that came before them, without appeal. 
 
 There were to be six consultors, and of these 
 the first chosen was St. John of the Cross; he 
 w r as also elected prior of the house in Segovia 
 founded by his penitent, Doha Ana de Pehalosa ; 
 and as it was judged inexpedient that the con¬ 
 sultors should sit in Madrid, lest the court should 
 interfere with them and influence their reso¬ 
 lutions, Segovia w r as chosen to be the seat of the 
 council, and St. John of the Cross w r as to be the 
 president of it, in the absence of the vicar-general. 
 
 * Reforma, ii. 420. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 205 
 
 He went to Segovia in the beginning of 
 August, and entered on his work by rebuilding the 
 monastery in a more healthy spot. He himself, 
 one of the chiefs of the order and the prior of 
 the house, w T as to be seen daily among the work¬ 
 men, working with them. His own cell was the 
 poorest in the monastery—a small closet under the 
 staircase, dimly lighted, in which a place could 
 with difficulty be found for his bed, but none for a 
 table to write on. He had no books at any time 
 in his cell but the Breviary and the Scriptures. All 
 the time not occupied in the business of the 
 house he spent in the hollow of a rock which was 
 
 S in the garden, where he could neither sit nor 
 stand. Thus he gave his body no rest, though he „ 
 seemed in the eyes of the world to be always at 
 rest; for he never appeared in it. 
 
 In the beginning of the winter the vicar- 
 general of the order was in Segovia, about to make 
 his visitation. The weather w r as cold, so he fur- 
 nished himself and his fellow, to defend themselves 
 
 I against rain and snow, with two large oil-capes. 
 He had found fault with Fra Jerome on account 
 of the trappings of his mule; and so now he, in his 
 turn, fell into the hands of the prior of Segovia, 
 who told him that, in a person of his rank and au¬ 
 thority, the oil-capes might be an occasion of laxity 
 in the order, and a scandal to the weaker brethren. 
 Fra Nicolas was, though stubborn and hard, a 
 man of real humility, and. at once acknowledged 
 liis mistake; he left the oil-capes behind, and 
 
206 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 braved the rigours of tlie winter in the ordinary 
 dress of the barefooted Carmelites. 
 
 The servant of God spent all the time he 
 could spare from the duties of the house in the 
 narrow cave in the garden, but he never could re¬ 
 main long there; for the interruptions were many 
 and continuous, for people came to the monastery 
 to see the prior. He never at any time refused to 
 see them; but he would complain gently to the 
 father who called him of these hindrances to 
 prayer, and went with reluctance to converse with 
 men who came to break up his converse with 
 God. 
 
 Though thus continually giving himself up to 
 .prayer, he neglected nothing; and, as if to re¬ 
 ward him and to supply the seeming want of 
 watchfulness, God revealed to him the secrets of 
 men’s hearts, that his government of them might 
 be to His glory. One day he met two of his friars 
 talking together, and said to them, ‘ Why think 
 ye evil in your hearts?’ They defended them¬ 
 selves, for their conscience smote them ; but he 
 reproved them sharply, and told them they had 
 been rashly judging one of their brethren; which 
 was true. Another friar, deluded by Satan into 
 the belief that he was called to a higher life, re¬ 
 solved on leaving the monastery, and persuaded 
 Fra Barnabas of Jesus to go with him to the 
 Carthusians, where they could lead that perfect 
 life to which he was called. The servant of God 
 sent for Fra Barnabas, and, having told him all 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 207 
 
 that had passed between him and the other friar, 
 warned him against the conversation of his brother, 
 for he was under grievous delusions, and would 
 make shipwreck of his holy profession. Fra 
 Barnabas accepted the warning of the servant of 
 God, and persevered; but the other friar came to 
 a miserable end. 
 
 Another friar, tempted by Satan, was about to 
 leave the monastery one night when all in the 
 house were asleep. He had made all his prepara¬ 
 tions, and had even laid a ladder against the outer 
 wall of the enclosure. The saint, who had not 
 gone to sleep, but who w T as awake in prayer, know¬ 
 ing by revelation from God what the friar was 
 doing, went to the cell of one of the fathers, begged 
 him to go down into the garden and remove the 
 ladder, without speaking a word to any one, not 
 even if he found another friar near the ladder. The 
 father went down to the garden, and when he got 
 to the place the poor friar was there before him, 
 with one foot on the ladder, bent on going forth 
 into the "world he had left. But when he saw the 
 father lay his hand on the ladder as if about to 
 remove it, and at the same time seeming not to 
 recognise his presence, he knew in a moment what 
 had taken place; he felt that the father was there 
 by order of the prior, and that God had made his 
 sin known to him. He entered into himself, and, 
 bitterly repenting of his evil imaginations, Jed a 
 life of great penance afterwards, and persevered in 
 the order till his death. 
 
208 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 Pie was very patient with men. There was a 
 grand Mass with a sermon in the church of the 
 monastery in Piaster week 1589, and benefactors 
 of the house had been invited, with the foundress, 
 Dona Ana de Penalosa, and her brother. During 
 the Mass the saint was told that the friar whom 
 he had appointed to preach was unwell, and could 
 not appear. The saint asked if he was in bed, and 
 learning that he was not, and also knowing the 
 cause of the disobedience, sent him word that he 
 ought to consider well the disappointment of so 
 many people and the inconvenience it would be 
 to the community. The friar was unmoved; 
 having taken offence at some trifle or other, he 
 was now, like a child, resenting it. The servant of 
 God, showing no sign of disturbance, sent word 
 to the priest at the altar to continue the Mass 
 without interruption to the end. He said nothing 
 to the friar who had been so perverse, but gave 
 orders that as he was unwell no person should be 
 allowed to see him from without. He then betook 
 himself to grayer on his behalf, and begged he 
 might have grace to see the evil he had done and 
 the inevitable issues of the road on which he had 
 begun to run. At the end of a fortnight the friar, 
 still sullen, and unable to see one of his friends 
 whom he greatly cherished, began to feel the in¬ 
 convenience of his imposed illness. He now* 
 entered into himself, and saw what folly he had 
 committed, and into what danger he had wilfully 
 run. The servant of God, knowing the state he 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF TIIE CROSS. 209 
 
 was in, and knowing too that the time was come 
 when the mortified spirit could he really humbled, 
 rebuked him with grave severity in chapter before 
 all his brethren, and laid a sharp penance upon 
 him to make him remember his offence. The 
 friar submitted with tears of joy, for he knew that 
 he deserved a far more severe treatment, and was 
 never afterwards wearied of speaking of the tender¬ 
 ness and pity which the prior had shown him 
 when he least deserved it.* 
 
 Strict with himself, he was always thoughtful 
 about others. Francisco de Urena was the barber 
 of the monastery ; not, however, for money, for the 
 friars had little to give, but for the love of God. 
 One day, while on his way to the monastery, he 
 remembered that he wanted some article of dress, 
 for the old one was worn out. He said nothing, 
 however, to any one, but as he was about to leave 
 the house, the procurator met him and gave him 
 w r hat he w r anted. It was quite new, and the poor 
 barber declined such a gift. The procurator then 
 told him he must accept it, for it had been sent 
 by the prior. Francisco submitted when he heard 
 that, and went home marvelling within himself, 
 for he knew that God had made his thoughts and 
 necessities known to His servant. The saint was 
 one day hearing the confession of a nun in their 
 monastery in Segovia, and when she had finished, 
 asked her if she had anything more to say: 
 
 ‘ Nothing, father,’ was the answer of the nun. 
 
 * Fra Joseph de Jesus Maria, p. 384. 
 
 P 
 
210 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 ‘Be careful, my child,’ replied the saint; ‘I 
 know you have.’ 
 
 ‘ Certainly, I remember nothing more,’ per¬ 
 sisted the nun. 
 
 Then the saint reminded her of certain things, 
 which the sister instantly confessed; amazed at 
 the knowledge granted to the saint, hut full of 
 thanksgiving, as she afterwards said, for the great 
 mercy of God in thus bringing to her remembrance 
 what she had, but should not have, forgotten. 
 
 A lady came to his confessional, and when she 
 had finished, was told by the saint to confess also 
 some sin of which she had said nothing, and 
 which, unhappily,* she had been silent about in 
 former confessions. She humbled herself at once 
 without the least hesitation or explanation, and, 
 confessing all, went home with a tranquil con¬ 
 science. 
 
 A man went from curiosity to see the monas¬ 
 tery, and at the door met the saint, whose looks 
 so touched him that he asked him to hear his 
 confession. He had not thought of confessing 
 when he left his house, and his sins were many. 
 The servant of God led him into the church, and 
 not only heard his confession with the most com¬ 
 passionate gentleness, but also, to his great won¬ 
 der, helped him to make his confession, remind¬ 
 ing him of his sins, and speaking of them as if he 
 had been himself present when the poor man fell 
 into them. 
 
 Don Juan Orozco de Covarruvias, canon of 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 211 
 
 Segovia, went to the saint for advice, for he had 
 been told that he was about to be made a bishop. 
 The saint said to him that it would be better for 
 him to remain where he was, because the bishopric 
 would bring him nothing but sore trouble and 
 confusion. Some time afterwards the canon ac¬ 
 cepted a bishopric in Italy, though not without 
 fear, and learned by bitter experience how pro¬ 
 phetic were the saint’s" words. His troubles were 
 so heavy and so manifold that he even ran away 
 from his see back again to Spain. 
 
 At this time the mother of the saint died in 
 Medina del Campo, poor but not forgotten, because 
 St. Teresa had charged her nuns there to see that 
 the mother of her firstborn son in Carmel should 
 he provided with all that was needful for her sup¬ 
 port. The nuns fulfilled with the utmost faith¬ 
 fulness the charge laid upon them by St. Teresa, 
 and when Catharine Alvarez died, she was buried 
 with the religious of the house; and the monastery 
 regarded the possession of her body as the posses¬ 
 sion of a great treasure, so saintly was the life and 
 death of the mother of the servant of God.* It 
 does not appear that St. John of the Cross ever 
 saw his mother since he became a barefooted friar. 
 When he heard of her death, he sent for his 
 brother to Segovia; the two brothers loved one 
 
 * The mother of St. John of the Cross lies buried in 
 the cloister. Her name in religion was Maria de la En- 
 carnacion .—A Pilgrimage to the Shrine of St. Teresa de 
 Jesus, p. 8, by the Rev. Canon Dalton, 1873. 
 
212 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 % 
 
 another with a love passing the love of brothers, 
 for each helped the other to love God more and 
 more, and poverty itself above all earthly goods. 
 Francis came; and when the two brothers w T ere 
 speaking together they both fell into a trance, and 
 saw their mother in a vision, and heard her speak 
 of the glory to which God had raised ter.* 
 
 The servant of God had borne the heat of the 
 day in his order, constantly employed in govern¬ 
 ing others, and was now longing more earnestly 
 than ever for a little rest; *but there was to be 
 none for him, even when relieved from the burden 
 of office. He spent so little time in sleep, and 
 treated his body with such extreme severity, that 
 his brethren feared for his life. Every night, 
 before Matins and after, he would retire into the 
 most lonely part of the house, that he might take 
 the discipline unknown to others. But through 
 the silence of the night the sound of the lash 
 would reach the ears of the friars, who trembled 
 when they heard it, for they knew how merciless 
 * he was to himself. They could not venture to 
 interrupt him openly, for he was their superior; so 
 they had recourse from time to time to a little art, 
 and would carry a light into the neighbourhood, 
 and let the father be seen. This they did so 
 often that he at last complained of it to his old 
 friend and companion, Fra Martin of the Assump¬ 
 tion. ‘I am not a child,’ he said, ‘that cannot 
 
 0 Vida de Francis dc Tcpes, p. 37. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 213 
 
 take care of itself; wliy do you persecute me in 
 this way ?’* 
 
 The fathers continued their affectionate perse¬ 
 cution, and one of them from Andalucia wrote to 
 him a long and touching letter, begging him to 
 be more merciful to his body, for the sake of 
 others and the prosperity of the order. But he 
 
 wrote in answer that which he had said before to 
 
 <> 
 
 Fra John of St. Anne in Baeza.f 
 
 The servant of God was wasting away in the 
 furnace of divine love; he had done with the 
 world and all that is in it, and sought nothing 
 but the cross; he was now in the habit of re¬ 
 commending to certain of his penitents who had 
 climbed the heights of Carmel under his direction 
 to abstain, unless they were priests, from commu- 
 nion on Fridays, that'in their hunger and thirst 
 after the heavenly food they might enter the 
 more fully into the bitterness of that abandon¬ 
 ment which our Most Blessed Lord underwent in 
 His Holy Passion on the Cross. 
 
 When the saint was living in Granada, a large 
 and beautiful dove was seen over his cell, and 
 now in Segovia people beheld it again. The 
 dove was always silent, alone, never mingling 
 with its kind, and generally near the cell of the 
 saint or over it. It disappeared from Segovia, 
 as it had done from Granada, when the saint went 
 away, but was seen again in Andalucia, ■whither 
 
 * See chapter x. 
 
 f Marco de San Francisco, p. 214; see cli. x. p. 137. 
 
214 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 lie retired on the resignation of his priorate. So 
 continual was his prayer now, that he had to do 
 violence to himself when people came to speak to 
 him of their own affairs, and he was weary of all 
 that he had to do, except his duties in the com¬ 
 munity, wherein he never failed. One night, when 
 the religious were all in their cells, he went down 
 to the church, and prayed before a picture of our 
 Lord carrying His cross, the very sight of which 
 always moved the saint to great devotion. During 
 his prayer, a voice spoke to him, as if coming from 
 the picture, saying, 4 John, what shall I give thee 
 for all thou hast done and suffered for Me ?’ The 
 holy man was startled; but as he was not only 
 humble but also wary in the matter of revelations 
 and visions, he looked around to see if anybody 
 were in the church who could have uttered the 
 words, for he was always afraid of delusions. 
 
 He saw no one, and indeed he was the only 
 one there; but not trusting his ears, he returned 
 to his prayer, making no answer. The words were 
 again uttered, and the saint, still distrustful, con¬ 
 tinued in prayer. He heard the same words uttered 
 the third time, and then he made the wondrous 
 answer, ‘ To suffer and to be held in contempt for 
 Thy sake.’ It was what he always longed for, and 
 was the only wish of his heart on earth, and was 
 now about to be granted him. 
 
 He had many letters of St. Teresa in his pos¬ 
 session, written to him from time to time, and he 
 would also from time to time read them for the 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 215 
 
 spiritual consolation and joy which he always re¬ 
 ceived from them. But at last, finding that such 
 reading was sweet, and fearing that he was seek¬ 
 ing consolations out of God, the saint of detach¬ 
 ment burnt the letters,* to his own great gain we 
 cannot doubt, but to the great and irreparable loss 
 of all succeeding generations. 
 
 * Note of Fra Antonio to Lett. 40, vol. ii. of the Letters 
 of St. Teresa. * 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Discontent of tlie nuns — Resolution of tlie friars—Fra 
 Luis do Leon—Royal interference—St. John of the 
 Cross neglected by his brethren — retires to Pehuela 
 —illness—goes to Ubecla. 
 
 The new way of governing the order, on which 
 Fra Nicolas the vicar had entered, led at once 
 to great discontent, not only among the nuns but 
 also among the friars. The former believed them¬ 
 selves to have been seriously wronged, and were 
 not silent. They complained especially of the 
 council, before which every trifling fault of theirs 
 was brought. They had nothing to say against 
 the members separately, whom they respected, hut 
 they could not hear that their shortcomings should 
 he brought to the knowledge of seven friars instead 
 of one. They thought that a yoke which ought 
 not have been laid upon their necks. 
 
 In their distress they went out of the order for 
 help, expecting probably to find none among the 
 friars. Foremost among the discontented was the 
 Venerable Anne of Jesus, now prioress of Madrid. 
 In her judgment, the nuns should be under the 
 government of one man, not under that of many. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CHOSS. 217 
 
 To obtain her end, she proposed that the Chapter- 
 General of the order should elect a visitor of the 
 nuns, who should be the deputy of the vicar j it 
 being assumed that the vicar himself could not in 
 pe] son visit all the monasteries. But before ap¬ 
 plying to the Pope, she consulted two friends of 
 St. Teresa, and great friends of the order also, 
 Don Teutonio, Archbishop of Evora, and the great 
 Dominican doctor, Dominic Banes. Besides these, 
 she consulted also the Augustinian, Era Luis de 
 Leon, who had published the writings of St. 
 Teresa, the foundress of the reform. 
 
 These grave and learned men were asked two 
 questions. Eirst, ‘ Is it lawful for the nuns to 
 make known in Borne the troubles they are in ?’ 
 and secondly, 1 Is it expedient ?’ They answered 
 without hesitation that it is lawful, for every subject 
 may appeal to his superior always, and under all 
 circumstances; and expedient, because the troubles 
 and trials of the nuns would be thereby ended. 
 
 The Venerable Anne, now that her conscience 
 was safe, sent to Borne a grave and skilful priest, 
 Dr. Marmol, a relative of Era Jerome of the Mother 
 of God. He did his work so well that he obtained 
 all that Mother Anne desired, and the Pontiff issued 
 the brief in their favour on the 5th of June 1590, 
 confirming the constitutions of the nuns, and for¬ 
 bidding the friars to make changes in them. Fra 
 Nicolas, the vicar of the order, having discovered 
 w hat Mother Anne had done, summoned the pro¬ 
 vincials to Madrid, for the matter w r as very grave. 
 
218 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 The assembly was held on the eve of Pentecost, 
 June 9th, and St. John of the Cross was elected 
 first definitor and consultor. 
 
 Era Nicolas had called his brethren together 
 to determine what the order should do when the 
 nuns presented their brief—for he did not doubt 
 that a brief would he obtained—and to explain 
 certain difficulties which had arisen because the 
 powers of the council had not been accurately 
 defined. He had also determined to obtain their 
 consent to the recall of Fra Jerome from Portugal, 
 of whom his brethren sent many complaints to 
 Spain. The chapter resolved, that when the brief 
 came the order would cease to have anything to 
 do with the nuns, and would resign the direction 
 of them. It was a harsh decision ; for if the nuns 
 had done amiss, the friars of St. Teresa might 
 have been more patient with their elder sisters. 
 
 The brief was brought to Spain about the latter 
 end of August, shortly before the death of the 
 Pope, Sixtus V., and the execution of it was com¬ 
 mitted to Don Teutonio, Archbishop of Evora, and 
 Fra Luis de Leon, one of the professors of Sala¬ 
 manca and an Augustinian friar. The former 
 declined to act under the commission, and the 
 whole matter therefore remained in the hands of 
 Fra Luis, who determined to execute the brief at 
 once. Fra Nicolas, the vicar, having received 
 his orders, obeyed, and summoned the provincials 
 to receive the brief. But Fra Nicolas intended 
 to resist to the uttermost, and went to the king 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS, 219 
 
 with his grievance, complaining of the nuns and 
 of Fra Luis de Leon. Don Philip spoke to the 
 Nuncio, who for the sake of peace, and to give 
 time for the cooling of men’s tempers, com¬ 
 manded Fr!i Luis to wait till he received further 
 instructions. The delay was granted, and the 
 provincials who had come together at the sum¬ 
 mons of Fra Nicolas, the vicar, returned home 
 without formally assembling in chapter. Fra Luis 
 waited, but no instructions were sent to him, so 
 he determined to execute the brief of the Pope ; 
 he issued his orders once more to Fra Nicolas, 
 and the provincials were summoned as before. 
 The vicar would not yield, and went again to the 
 king for help against his own superiors in the 
 lawful exercise of their jurisdiction, and begged 
 him to use the civil power in a purely ecclesiastical 
 matter. The chapter having met, according to 
 the summons of the vicar, Fra Luis entered to 
 present the brief; but' before he could do so, one 
 of the king’s chamberlains came in, and charged 
 the fathers assembled, in the king’s name, to do 
 nothing till he, the king, heard from the Pope, 
 to whom he had sent an account of the whole 
 dispute. 
 
 It is true that some respect was shown to the 
 authority of the Pope, and that the king wished to 
 be thought even in this an obedient son of the 
 Ptoman Church; but in substance it was other¬ 
 wise, and Fra Luis de Leon on quitting the 
 chapter said aloud, that matters had conte to 
 
220 . LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 sucli a pass that no orders of his Holiness could 
 he executed in Spain. There was too much truth 
 in the words to he otherwise than displeasing, to 
 the king; for soon after this, when the Augus- 
 tinians of Castille were about to elect Fra Luis 
 as their provincial, the king sent a message to 
 the chapter forbidding the election, and the friars 
 did not think themselves strong enough to disobey 
 so unjust and unreasonable an order. 
 
 Fra Nicolas now brought the brief before the 
 council of six, and the members of that council 
 were unable to oppose him. St. John of the 
 Cross was suspected by his brethren of being in 
 league with the Venerable Anne of Jesus, and no 
 one would listen therefore to him. Fra Nicolas 
 prevailed in the debate ; the friars gave way before 
 his resolute will, and resolved that the order should 
 cease to have any relations with the nuns; the 
 direction of whom they resigned into the hands 
 of the Pope. This resolution amazed all people, 
 and the nuns were alarmed beyond measure; 
 the injustice of it was plain, for all the nuns had 
 never asked for the brief, nor perhaps wished to 
 be released from the authority of the council, yet 
 they were all abandoned, and in a sense cast out 
 of the order. 
 
 Dr. Banes, the Dominican, who had defended 
 St. Teresa in Avila when the city rose against her, 
 who was her friend all the rest of her life, and a 
 great help to her order everywhere, could not see 
 this •^unmoved, and so he went to Fra Nicolas and 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 221 
 
 represented to him the great disproportion between 
 the punishment and the offence. One monastery 
 had done wrong, and all the others, even those 
 who had no share in it, w r ere to he punished. 
 
 The iron will of Fra Nicolas was not to be . 
 broken by the great Dominican ; and the latter, on 
 taking leave, said he would do all he could to per¬ 
 suade his own order to receive the nuns now that 
 the Carmelites were sending them away. Fra 
 Nicolas shook hands at parting with him, and 
 courteously said, ‘ that it would be the best thing 
 that could happen to the nuns and to his own 
 friars, for if the Dominicans accepted them, they 
 would be under the care of an order in every way 
 so honourable.’* 
 
 This was reported to the king, who, disliking 
 the interference, asked who sent Banes to meddle 
 with matters not his own ? Perhaps they were 
 matters that belonged to Father Banes as much 
 as they did to Don Philip. 
 
 Fra Nicolas may at last have relented; 
 but the king certainly did so, for he saw that a 
 great scandal had been wrought: perhaps he was 
 not without some misgiving that he had had 
 too great a share in it himself. He asked the 
 council of the order to resume the government 
 of the nuns, and promised to obtain from his 
 Holiness, Gregory XIV., the cancelling of the 
 brief which had been the occasion of so much 
 strife and contention. The council yielded at the 
 * Reforma, cle los Descalqos , ii. p. 503 , 
 
222 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 lung’s request, but there were members of it who 
 yielded ungraciously, not because they disliked the 
 royal interference, but because they were angry 
 with the nuns; among these was Fra Augustin 
 of the Kings, who wished to punish the Venerable 
 Anne of Jesus and her monastery by driving her 
 and it out of the order. That, however, was not 
 done, for Fra Nicolas thought the chastisement 
 too heavy; and so Mother Anne of Jesus continued 
 a Carmelite, but her daring act was never for¬ 
 gotten, and she was ever afterwards more or less 
 suspected by the stern and resolute friends of the 
 strong-willed vicar. 
 
 His Holiness, Gregory XIV., to restore peace 
 in Carmel, cancelled the brief of Sixtus V., on the 
 25tli of April 1591; and at Pentecost Fra Nicolas 
 held a chapter of the order in Madrid. Peace was 
 then established between him and the nuns; but 
 not between him and Fra Jerome of the Mother 
 of God and his friends. 
 
 St. John of the Cross had much to suffer at 
 this time, and he seems to have suffered in silence. 
 The Venerable Anne of Jesus was a nun whom 
 he highly honoured, and in whom he had great 
 confidence, as she had in him. But as he was not 
 able to help her in the council, where the friends 
 of the vicar were too powerful, he submitted to his 
 superior. He was not disturbed when the troubles 
 began, for he knew by revelation that they would 
 pass quickly away. While he was yet in Segovia, 
 before he was summoned to Madrid, he said so to 
 
LIFE 05? ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 223 
 
 the prioress there ; who, being in great doubts and 
 fear, unable to sleep because of her distress, sent 
 for the servant of God, and begged light of biro in 
 the great straits she was in; for she must either 
 separate herself from her sisters, so she thought, 
 in the other monasteries, or seem to rise in rebel¬ 
 lion against her immediate superiors. The saint 
 bade her be of good cheer, the cloud would soon 
 be scattered, and the order would be in peace. 
 
 He spoke truly, but it brought no peace for 
 him. The vicar-general himself, and many of 
 the friars, distrusted the saint, suspecting him of 
 having fostered what they regarded as the spirit of 
 rebellion among the nuns. Their suspicions, ut¬ 
 terly unjust, were grounded on his friendship with 
 Anne of Jesus, and on her confidence in and great 
 respect for him, on the o’ne hand; and on the other 
 hand, on the fact that Fra Luis de Leon, who was 
 in the confidence of the nuns, while attempting to 
 execute the Papal brief, suggested to the friars the 
 election of either Fra Jerome of the Mother of 
 God or of St. John of the Cross as visitor of 
 the nuns. This showed, as many of the friars 
 thought, a disposition on the part of the nuns to 
 he on the side of Fra Jerome, against the vicar, 
 in whom the friars trusted more than in their 
 former provincial. St. John of the Cross also, 
 though not wholly approving of Fra Jerome’s ad¬ 
 ministration, had nevertheless always defended 
 him, and so far as he could had stood between 
 him and the ruin which he foresaw. 
 
224 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 Thus matters stood in the order when the 
 summons of Fra Nicolas reached St. John of the 
 Cross in Segovia, commanding his presence in the 
 chapter, which was to he opened on Whitsun-eve, 
 June 1, of this year, 1591. Before quitting Se¬ 
 govia he went to take leave of the nuns, know¬ 
 ing he should see them no more; and on their 
 saying to him that he would return from the 
 chapter as provincial, he replied pleasantly, hut 
 quite gravely, that God would not punish the 
 province so heavily by giving it to him; then he 
 added, that the chapter would make no account of 
 him, and would throw him into a corner out of 
 the way. To others he spoke of the troubles be¬ 
 fore him, and in such a way as to lead them never 
 to blame the order for anything it might do or 
 suffer to be done to him. 
 
 The first sign of the tempest was seen in the 
 elections made in the chapter; nobody gave his 
 voice for the first friar of the reform. He -was not 
 elected definitor, nor one of the council; neither 
 was he made a provincial. But his brethren con¬ 
 sented to his request that he might be elected 
 provincial of Mexico. Then, when the elections 
 were over, and the affairs of the order were dis¬ 
 cussed, St. John of the Cross represented that 
 the decrees and constitutions were too many, and 
 some of them at variance with the others. He 
 also spoke in favour of Fra Jerome, and.urged 
 upon his brethren the necessity of dealing tenderly 
 with the nuns. The order ought to remember, he 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 225 
 
 said, that they were the cherished children of St. 
 Teresa, and that great allowances should be made 
 for them in the troubles which had arisen. 
 
 This defence of the nuns confirmed the sus¬ 
 picions rife among the friars that the saint was 
 in league with the nuns. So Fra Nicolas, to put 
 an end to their expectations, immediately relieved 
 St. John of the Cross of the provincialate of Mexico. 
 If the brief should be put in execution, and the 
 king failed to have it cancelled, it would be then 
 impossible to make St. John of the Cross visitor 
 of the nuns; for the visitor must be a prelate in 
 the order, and the saint was now a simple friar, 
 without rank or authority among his brethren. 
 Thus Fra Nicolas was prepared for whatever might 
 happen. 
 
 The saint, finding himself at last in the very 
 state for which he had so earnestly longed, free from 
 the cares and honours of office, gave thanks to God, 
 for now his prayers were heard. He was no longer 
 in authority. He then begged the vicar to allow 
 him to live in Penuela, one of the most austere 
 houses in the order. The vicar gave him leave 
 to do so, but a few days later the friars learned 
 that the brief had been cancelled, and that there 
 could be no further opposition on the part of the 
 nuns. This changed the whole matter, and there 
 was no reason now for continuing the disgrace of 
 the saint. Fra Nicolas, the vicar, also relented, 
 and was very sorry that he had been carried away 
 by his zeal; and now, seeing that he had dealt 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 hardly with the saint, who was one of the pillars 
 of the order, and who had done so much for it, 
 tried to persuade him to return as prior to Segovia, 
 and forego his purpose of retiring to Penuela; 
 but he could not prevail. The servant of God 
 had obtained what he had so earnestly prayed for, 
 and he was now going to take possession of his 
 rest; to live unknown and despised, 'thirsting for 
 the chalice which our Lord had so lovingly pro¬ 
 mised him. 
 
 It cost him some trouble to resist the impor¬ 
 tunities of his friends, who wished him to return 
 to Segovia, though it is probable that Fra Nicolas, 
 the vicar, would not, of his own will, have pressed 
 him much. On the 6th of July the matter was 
 not settled, for on that day he wrote from Madrid 
 to one of the nuns in Segovia, saying that he feared 
 they would send him back, but that he would do 
 his utmost to escape from all charges in the 
 order. 
 
 At last he was free. He went to Segovia from 
 Madrid, but tarried there only a day or two. His 
 friends gathered around him, and begged him to 
 remain there; to all of them he replied, with his 
 wonted tenderness, that it was not possible for 
 him to do so. He must go to Penuela. Doha 
 Ana de Penalosa, his friend and penitent, entreated 
 him to remain, or at least promise to return, and 
 he was equally deaf to the prayers of that saintly 
 widow. At last he said to her, ‘ No, I shall never 
 return, but one day you will bring me back.’ The 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 227 
 
 words were afterwards fulfilled, as w T e shall see 
 later on. 
 
 Some time in July of this year, 1591, he 
 reached Penuela, to the great joy of the friars, who, 
 with their prior, Fra Diego of the Incarnation, 
 once his novice, contrived to become novices again 
 under him. The holy man was consulted by all 
 on all occasions, and the monastery renewed its 
 strength; but as he had come thither to take care 
 of his own soul, and had taken leave of honour and 
 of rank, he took his place as a simple friar in the 
 house, and submitted to its discipline like the rest, 
 asking for no dispensations. He spent his whole 
 time in prayer ; in the morning, after Mass, he 
 would ask leave of the prior to go forth into the 
 mountain, where he would remain till he heard 
 the bell of the monastery. He would then return, 
 and after Vespers wrnuld go out, again returning 
 for the evening prayer. He was found one day 
 on the mountain by one of his penitents, who said 
 to him, ‘ Is it possible you can always like to be 
 amid these rocks ?’ 
 
 The saint replied humbly, * You must not be 
 surprised, for I have less to confess when I am 
 amidst these rocks than when I am among men.’ 
 
 The prior of Penuela testified afterwards that 
 the servant of God lived in the house as obedient 
 as a novice, and that his austerities—he seems to 
 have tolerated them against his own judgment, out 
 of reverence for the saint—were so great, that his 
 continuing to live was itself a miracle. His sleep 
 
228 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 was so brief and bis prayer was so constant; for 
 whenever any one went to his cell he was always 
 found on his knees. 
 
 His strength was gone from him, and the 
 wasted body confessed that the spirit within was 
 stronger than itself. And now, when worn out 
 by his unceasing penances, he received an order 
 from the council to go, with twelve others, to the 
 Indies. His brethren in Pehuela, seeing how un¬ 
 reasonable, under the circumstances, such an order 
 was, begged him to represent to the friars who had 
 sent it the ruined state of his health. He would 
 not do it, and said that to die under obedience 
 would be his joy; and then, as if answering them, 
 —for the order was believed to be the result of a 
 wish to remove him from Spain, lest he should 
 defend Fra Jerome too well,—added, ‘Would you 
 have me not drink the chalice which my Father 
 has sent me ?’ His brethren could do no more, 
 and he at once wrote to Fra John of St. Anne to 
 find the twelve friars who would go with him to 
 the Indies.* . 
 
 But while Fra John was searching for the 
 friars, God Himself laid His hands on His servant, 
 and sent him a burning fever to consume his body, 
 as another fever was consuming his most pure 
 soul. He could not conceal his illness now; and 
 the provincial of Upper Andalucia, his old com¬ 
 panion in Duruelo, where the order began, Fra 
 Antonio of Jesus, having heard of it, wrote to him 
 * Joseph de Jesus Maria, p. 405. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 229 
 
 and begged him to remove to Baeza or to Ubeda, 
 where he could be attended to in his sickness 
 better than in so austere a monastery as that of 
 Penuela. He also charged the prior of Penuela 
 to see that his orders were obeyed. The prior 
 and the friars then begged the saint to choose 
 Baeza; they knew he would be taken care of there, 
 for he w T as the founder of the house, and its then 
 prior was Fra Angel of the Presentation, who had 
 a great affection for the servant of God. On the 
 other hand, the prior of Ubeda was known to be 
 otherwise disposed, and to be very unfriendly. 
 That was enough for St. John of the Cross ; as he 
 was allowed to choose, he chose to put himself in 
 the hands of the prior of Ubeda, and asked to be 
 sent thither; and thither he went, but with great 
 difficulty, because of his bodily weakness, on 21st 
 September 1591. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A great cross — Illness of the saint — Harshness of the 
 Prior of Ubeda—Visit of Fra Antonio. 
 
 W hile the saint was living in Penuela, his bre¬ 
 thren were preparing another cross for him, which 
 is one of the hardest to bear—the contradiction of 
 good men. His good name and spotless life were 
 made the sport of idle tongues, and one of the 
 members of the council went from monastery to 
 monastery gathering materials to bring grave 
 charges against him, hoping for his expulsion 
 fiorn the order which he had helped to found. 
 "When he heard of it, he not only made no com¬ 
 plaint, but even defended his persecutors, and 
 made what excuses he could for them, saying that 
 
 he was so unworthy himself that he deserved no 
 better treatment. 
 
 The souice of this trouble was Fra Diego of 
 the Evangelist, who, when he was a friar in Seville, 
 had to bear, and bore ungraciously, the correction 
 of the saint, then his superior. The servant of 
 God, elected vicar provincial in the chapter of 
 Pastrana in 1585,* found, in the discharge of 
 
 See ch. xiv. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 231 
 
 his duties, that strict observance was not kept in 
 the monastery of Seville. In that house were two 
 friars, great preachers, wise and discreet in the 
 estimation of people who could never see them too 
 often in their houses. The friars were certainly 
 men of zeal, and very readily gave themselves up 
 to good works with which they had nothing to do. 
 They were continually busy, absent from choir, re¬ 
 fectory, and recreation, scarcely ever in their cells, 
 and the more effectually to do good among people 
 in the world, dressed themselves not quite like the 
 other friars of Carmel. 
 
 St. John of the Cross came to Seville, and 
 understanding his vocation in a sense wholly the 
 reverse of that in which the friars understood it, 
 made use of the powers of his office, and recalled 
 them to the observance o. the rule and constitu¬ 
 tions. They had to preach fewer or no sermons, 
 for the saint did not think they were the only 
 preachers in Seville, and the} 7 had to be present 
 in choir, to take their meals with the community, 
 and to abstain from the flesh-meats which, to 
 avoid inconveniencing others, they ate in the 
 house of their friends. The discipline was sharp, 
 but it was submitted to,' though not with a good 
 will, and the two friars, unhappily, never wholly 
 forgot the author of their humiliation, for so they 
 regarded the observance of the rule. 
 
 One of them, Fra Diego, was now in the council 
 of the order; and St. John of the Cross, the merci¬ 
 less visitor, was a friar without rank or office. 
 
232 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 The-opportunity came, and Fra Diego did not ne¬ 
 glect it. He had authority from the vicar, Fra 
 Nicolas, to make certain inquisitions into the life 
 and conduct of Fra Jerome of the Mother of God, 
 whom his superiors now regarded as disobedient; 
 out he had no authority to make any inquiries 
 touching the life and conduct of St. John of the 
 Cross. Nevertheless he displayed as much zeal in 
 searching out proofs of shortcomings in the saint 
 as he did in searching for proofs against Fra 
 Jerome, and by threats and terrors extorted ad¬ 
 missions from some of the nuns which they after¬ 
 wards recalled. In some instances he represented 
 them as having said what they never even 
 imagined. The publicity with which Fra Diego 
 carried on his work caused some of the friars to 
 believe that he had a commission for the purpose, 
 and many of those, formerly friends of the saint, 
 and who had letters of his in their possession— 
 letters of spiritual advice—in their terror burnt 
 them, to the great loss of all men, lest they should 
 be molested themselves. 
 
 Fra Diego was carried away by passion, and 
 forgetting the holy life of the saint wdiom he was 
 accusing, scrupled not to speak against him even 
 in public; so confident w T as he that he would he 
 able to justify his suspicions. Fie w T ent so far as 
 to say that he would he sent to the galleys for the 
 wickedness of his life. Most people w r ere shocked 
 by so much malice; but the more timid gave w : ay, 
 afraid of Fra Diego. They did not like to resist 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 233 
 
 him, and deluding themselves into the belief that 
 he could not do what he was doing without good 
 reason, began to fear that the saintly life of the 
 servant of God had been a grand hypocrisy, un¬ 
 veiled at last. Others certainly there were who, 
 indignant at the proceedings, blamed even their 
 supeiiois, and especially Fra Nicolas, the vicar, 
 for they could not believe that Fra Diego was 
 
 acting thus publicly without authority from the 
 vicar. 
 
 When Fra Diego had collected his materials, 
 he sent them in to the council, and then Fra 
 Nicolas saw the papers. But the instant he ascer¬ 
 tained what they were, he would read no more, 
 saying that Fra Diego had acted without instruc¬ 
 tions. That was so, no doubt, but it was hoped 
 that the vicar would chastise the friar who had 
 caused so much scandal. Fra Nicolas did not 
 punish him, but he did reserve his fault for the 
 consideration of the next chapter. Into that 
 chapter Fra Nicolas never came, for he died before 
 it was assembled, May 9, 1594. His successor, 
 Fia Elias of St. Martin, burned the papers and 
 allowed none to see them. He was also displeased 
 with Fra Diego, though not so much so as to put 
 him to penance; nevertheless, he made him see in 
 some measure the evil he had done, for he refused 
 at first to confirm his election as provincial of 
 Granada. 
 
 But Fra Diego, notwithstanding all this, had 
 friends in the order, and these friends prevailed; 
 
284 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 the new vicar relented, and so, to the great terror 
 of the nuns, Fra Diego became provincial of Gra¬ 
 nada. He never exercised his office, for he was 
 taken ill in Alcala la Real on his way to the 
 province, and there died. 
 
 Fra Diego had been corrected for his inobser¬ 
 vances by the saint, and felt the smarting of the 
 scourge. Unhumbled he retaliated, and probably 
 found others of like mind to encourage him. Fra 
 Nicolas, the vicar, too, was not always well disposed 
 towards the saint, and he was afraid of him and 
 his influence in the order. But he had a reason 
 for his fear sufficiently strong to justify him; the 
 saint was always defending Fra Jerome of the 
 Mother of God, and Fra Nicolas felt that his af¬ 
 fection for that father was a real danger to the 
 order, and that laxity might creep in through the 
 influence of Fra Jerome and the perfect submis¬ 
 siveness to his superiors of St. John of the Cross. 
 Besides, Fra Nicolas so utterly disapproved of the 
 acts of the Venerable Anne of Jesus that he could 
 not help disliking St. John of the Cross, who was 
 her friend, and perhaps also had encouraged her, 
 according to his imagination, in the resistance she 
 made to the new form of government brought in 
 by himself. Fra Nicolas certainly was a noble 
 person, grand, austere, even if a little inconsider¬ 
 ate towards others. His life was spent in and for 
 the order, and the very saints of God in this 
 miserable life are not always able to understand 
 one another. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 235 
 
 The servant of God was in the furnace of this 
 persecution when God sent him his last illness in 
 Pehuela. He concealed his state for a fortnight 
 from all in the house, but at last the swelling of 
 his foot was discovered, and the friars were ex¬ 
 tremely distressed, and informed the provincial 
 of the state he was in. Fra Antonio could not 
 then go to Pehuela, but he wrote a consoling let¬ 
 ter to the saint, and begged him to leave Pehuela 
 for Baeza or Ubeda. The servant of God, thirst¬ 
 ing for the chalice of suffering, chose Ubeda, to 
 the great distress of Fra Diego of the Incarnation, 
 for the prior of that house was Fra Francis of St. 
 Chrysostom, the learned and popular preacher, 
 whom, together with Fra Diego of the Evangelist, 
 the saint had corrected in Seville when he was 
 visitor of Andalucia. 
 
 A lay brother, Francis of St. Hilarion, was also 
 unwell, and the prior wished to send him with the 
 saint to Ubeda. Brother Francis, knowing this, 
 went to St. John of the Cross, and begged him to 
 change his resolution and go to Baeza. The ser¬ 
 vant of God would not throw away the cross that 
 he felt within his grasp, and therefore would not 
 listen to the brother; but he would not take him 
 into the furnace against his will, so he persuaded 
 the prior to send Brother Francis to Baeza. 
 
 In a letter to his friend and penitent, Dona 
 Ana de Penalosa, written in Pehuela, September 21, 
 1591, he says : ‘lam going to-morrow to Ubeda, 
 to be cured of some slight attacks of fever of which 
 
236 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 I have been suffering daily for a little more than 
 a week.’ Though he made light of the fever, yet 
 he was obliged to w r rite but a short letter, saying, 
 ‘The fever will not let me write more;’ and in 
 truth the fever was a very serious one. 
 
 On the 22d day of September 1591, the ser¬ 
 vant of God went away from Pehuela in the charge 
 of a lay brother. It was his last Journey, and he 
 could not do it on foot, as he wished, for he was a 
 poor friar unto the end. Every step of the way 
 did but increase his sufferings, and make his 
 disease the more deadly. When they came near 
 the bridge over the Guadalimar, the brother said 
 he might dismount, and rest under the shadow of 
 the bridge, and take something to eat. 
 
 ‘ I should be very.glad,’ replied the saint, ‘ of 
 a little rest; but as for eating, I can eat nothing.’ 
 
 ‘ Is there nothing, then,’ asked the lay brother, 
 
 ‘ that your reverence could eat ?’ 
 
 The saint said that he could eat some aspara¬ 
 gus, ‘ but where to find them at this season of the 
 year ?’ 
 
 At the bridge he dismounted with the help of 
 the lay brother, and having sat down in the shade, 
 he continued his conversation, always marvellous, 
 about God. He was now moved by the beauty of 
 the running "water, and the solitude they were in, 
 to speak more wondrously still. TV liile looking 
 at the river, they saw on a jutting stone close by 
 them a bundle of asparagus, tied with twigs. The 
 lay brother was amazed at the sight, and took the 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 237 
 
 asparagus. The servant of God suggested to him, 
 lest he should discern the miracle, that somebody 
 might have left them there; and made him look 
 around to see whether there was any one in sight. 
 The brother obeyed, but he saw nobody, and in¬ 
 deed there was nobody to he seen. The saint then 
 consented to his keeping the asparagus, hut on the 
 condition of his leaving some money on the stone, 
 by way of compensation to the owner if any should 
 appear. The lay brother did as he was hid, and 
 took the asparagus to Ubeda, where the friars 
 looked at them with wonder. 
 
 The saint was very ill on his arrival, hut the 
 prior was not moved to compassion when he saw 
 him. He had neither forgotten nor forgiven the 
 saint; and he was now the less disposed to serve 
 him, for the order seemed to be weary of him, and 
 a member of the council was seeking proofs of 
 grave charges against him for the purpose of driv¬ 
 ing him out. Thus the saint came under a cloud 
 to the house of an unfriendly prior, in great bodily 
 sufferings, and beyond the reach of all the friends 
 who could have succoured him had they been near, 
 at hand. 
 
 • The journey had made him much worse, and 
 the next day there were no less than five running 
 sores on his foot. The surgeon, Martin de Villa- 
 roel, saw no way of relief but in cutting the flesh, 
 which he did, and thereby laid bare the very bones 
 within. The saint seemed to suffer no pain, and 
 the bystanders observed no sign of suffering. 
 
238 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 When the surgeon had done, he asked him when 
 he was going to begin. The surgeon, in astonish¬ 
 ment, replied that he had finished. The saint 
 had been in an ecstasy during the operation, and 
 now, even when awake, he felt no pain, and did 
 not even know what the surgeon had done. So he 
 said to him that he was ready to suffer if more 
 suffering were in store for him. 
 
 The pain of his disease seems to have grown 
 more and more, yet he never spoke hut to give 
 thanks unto God. For every little help given him 
 by the infirmarian he was always grateful, begging 
 his forgiveness for the trouble he gave him ; but 
 when the pain was more severe than usual, he 
 would say, 4 This is my rest for everas ix pray¬ 
 ing God never to let him he at ease again in this 
 world, so great was his thirst for suffering. Those 
 who saw him at first did not know how much he 
 suffered, for he hid from them the knowledge of 
 his state. But one day Fra Bartholomew of St. 
 Basil discovered accidentally what nobody had 
 suspected. He had lifted him up from the bed 
 whereon he was lying, and had laid him on a 
 mattress that he might rearrange it. Having made 
 the bed ready, he went to the saint, and as he was 
 stooping down to lift him up, the servant of God, 
 hardly able to move, begged him to let him get 
 into his bed as well as he could by himself. Fra 
 Bartholomew yielded, but he asked the saint why 
 he thus mortified him by refusing his help when 
 it was so needful. The saint told him that he 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 239 
 
 could not bear being touched, and then Fra 
 Bartholomew found a huge abscess between the 
 shoulders, which being cut the next day, .dis¬ 
 charged abundant matter. 
 
 The surgeon wondered at the patience of the 
 saint, for he did not think that man could bear 
 such sufferings and live; the servant of God made 
 light of them, partly to hide them from others, 
 and partly because he thirsted for more, and his 
 holy conversation with the surgeon bore good fruit, 
 for he became another man from that time forth. 
 
 The prior of the house, blinded by his passion, 
 refused even the ordinary succours to the saint. 
 He would go to see him from time to time, but 
 not to comfort him; nor did he conceal from him 
 that he had not yet forgiven him the correction 
 ministered in Seville. Besides, when any charit¬ 
 able person sent anything for the use of the saint 
 to the monastery, the prior would send it back, 
 saying that nothing was wanting, and then would 
 tell the saint what he had done, for the purpose 
 of increasing his distress. At another time he 
 would accept the gifts sent in, and tell him that 
 he had done so, but even on such occasions none 
 of them were even offered to the servant of God; 
 the prior refused him all but the ordinary food of 
 the house. 
 
 Not satisfied with mortifying the saint, as he 
 thought, in this way, he laboured to make his 
 brethren think ill of him. He would speak of him 
 as of one who consulted his own interests and 
 
240 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 sought his own comforts, as an enemy to strict 
 observance and given to laxity; hut during his 
 whole illness the servant of God never asked for 
 anything, and never complained of the absence of 
 all things, and the infirmarian had to watch him 
 carefully in order to discover, if possible, what he ( 
 might he at any time in need of. Some pious 
 ladies, when they heard of his painful illness, 
 undertook to wash the linen used in dressing his 
 sores, for the monastery could not do it so well. 
 This act of charity became known to the prior, and 
 was instantly forbidden; he would not allow such 
 excessive indulgence; it was against the poverty 
 of the order. The friars were greatly hurt at this 
 unnecessary strictness, and, on the urgent repre¬ 
 sentations of some of them, the prior consented to 
 leave that matter alone. 
 
 The' friars had been strictly forbidden by the 
 prior to visit the saint in his sickness without his 
 leave, and that leave he refused absolutely to all 
 whom he thought the saint would he glad to see. 
 The prior of Pehuela came to Ubeda to see the 
 saint, and was greatly distressed at the treatment 
 he was undergoing. He knew that it was an act 
 of great forbearance on the part of the saint that 
 the harsh prior had not been more severely pun¬ 
 ished in Seville for his careless life. And now the 
 prior was returning evil for good to one of the 
 chief pillars of the reform. So completely satis¬ 
 fied was the prior w T ith himself, that he actually 
 complained to the prior of Pehuela of the diffi- 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 241 
 
 culties lie had in providing for his friars, because 
 so much had to he done for St. John of the Cross. 
 The prior of Pehuela was surprised and vexed at 
 so much heartlessness, and undertook at once, 
 out of his own poverty, to send provisions from his 
 own house for the friars who were supposed to be 
 ill-fed, while the saint w r as neglected in the in¬ 
 firmary. 
 
 At last the prior of Ubeda, to harass the saint 
 still further, removed the infirmarian from his 
 office, and charged him to do nothing more for 
 the service of the sick. Fra Bernardo obeyed, as 
 he was bound to do, but he found means to send 
 a message to Fra Antonio, the provincial, the old 
 companion of the saint, and to let him know how 
 the first friar who put on the habit of the reform 
 was treated in the monastery of Ubeda. 
 
 B 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Fra Antonio visits the saint — The prior relents—Dona 
 Clara de Benavides—Ines and Catherine de Salazar. 
 
 Fra Antonio of Jesus, when he received the mess¬ 
 age of Fra Bernardo, came in all haste to Ubeda, 
 greatly displeased with the prior, and full of sorrow 
 on account of the servant of God. He reprimanded 
 the prior with great severity, and went to the in¬ 
 firmary to console the suffering saint. He saw 
 there a sight which moved him profoundly, and 
 which he wished all the world to see as w T ell as 
 himself. The door of the infirmary was thrown 
 open, and all the friars were bidden to enter that 
 they might see their brother. * He then told the 
 prior that they ought to open even the gates of 
 the monastery, so that all the w^orld might see a 
 saint. Fra Antonio knew the treasure which the 
 house possessed, though the prior could not. He 
 told the infirmarian to see that all the wants of 
 the servant of God were supplied, and to supply 
 them even if the prior should fall back again into 
 his former hardness of heart; he, Fra Antonio, 
 w r ouJd find means to defray all the charges, what- 
 evei they might be. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 243 
 
 Fra Antonio, having remained about four or 
 five days in the monastery, went his way. But 
 his visit wrought a change in the prior which was 
 felt throughout the community. The friars had 
 been always uneasy and discontented under his 
 government, for they suffered from his overbearing 
 temper and inexperience in authority. Now, after 
 the reprimand of the provincial, he entered into 
 himself, and resolved on leading a life of greater 
 circumspection. He went to the infirmary, and 
 there, with tears in his eyes, begged the saint's 
 forgiveness, and finally his counsel in the direc¬ 
 tion of the house. He seemed a changed man, 
 inwardly as well as outwardly ; and truly sorry for 
 his past neglect, treated the servant of God with 
 great reverence, and indeed, after his death, he 
 carried relics of him for a time about his person. 
 But he did not persevere; the old habit of going 
 about the country preaching, and the old zeal for 
 good works which were not his own, reasserted its 
 ancient sway. 
 
 He obtained privileges and dispensations, gave 
 himself up to good works outside his monastery, 
 and to which he was not called, because he was 
 called to Carmel, and in the end the unhappy 
 man died far away from any of his brethren, and 
 was thus deprived of the help which they might 
 have given him in the hour of his greatest danger. 
 
 Now that the prior himself treated the saint 
 with some consideration, the infirmarian asked to 
 be allowed to have some music in another room, 
 
244 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CP^OSS. 
 
 where the servant of God could hear it, and thereby 
 forget for a while the great pain he was suffering. 
 The servant of God would not consent to any such 
 devices; he w r ould suffer thankfully as God willed 
 ' it, and seek no means of relief till it pleased God 
 Himself to send them. The infirmarian, however, 
 repeated his request, and received the same answer, 
 but on his making it a third time the saint con¬ 
 sented. The musicians were brought in, and when 
 they had played for some time the infirmarian went 
 in to the saint and asked him how he liked the 
 music. The servant of God said he had not heard 
 it, and it appeared that he had been in a trance 
 the whole time, occupied with God in prayer, and 
 his ears closed to all earthly sounds. He then 
 begged that the musicians might not he further 
 troubled; he was very grateful to them for their 
 kindnesses, and to the father who had brought 
 them into the house. He would not mix, he said, 
 the consolations of earth with the consolations 
 of heaven. And then added in the words of the 
 Psalmist: ‘I shall he filled, when Thy glory shall 
 appear.’ 
 
 He was no longer cut off from his brethren, 
 and these were allowed to visit him in his sickness 
 ever since the visit of the provincial. The friars 
 that went to see him were filled with wonder at 
 his serenity, for his whole body was now covered 
 with sores, and they would say one to another 
 that he was another Job on a dunghill, and wanted 
 nothing hut a shell to scrape the corruption. One 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 245 
 
 clay the saint, answering their thoughts, spoke of 
 the sufferings of Job, who, 4 with a shell, scraped 
 the corruption, sitting on a dunghill.’ When he 
 had uttered these words, he turned to the fathers 
 who were present and said, ‘Ah, that was suffering 
 indeed! But I am lying on a good bed, not on a 
 dunghill, and, instead of a shell, they give me 
 clean linen to cleanse my sores. My sufferings 
 are nothing ; our Lord has laid His hand lightly 
 upon me—yea, rather one of His fingers, and He 
 has but gently and leniently touched me.’ To him 
 his sufferings were a joy, and he not only accepted 
 them as great graces from our Lord, hut had been 
 praying for them nearly all his life. 
 
 The sores in his body discharged matter con¬ 
 tinually, and in most strange abundance, but there 
 was nothing offensive in it; none were ever con¬ 
 scious of any unpleasant odours, while many per¬ 
 ceived the most delicious fragrance arise from the 
 vessels and the linen that, in any other case, would 
 have been loathsome. 
 
 One of the principal ladies in the place, Doha 
 Clara do Benavides, wife of Don Bartholomew cle 
 Ortega, heard of the illness of the saint, and of 
 his wonderful patience in his trials. She had 
 never seen him—perhaps had not even heard of 
 him before the medical men told her of his suffer¬ 
 ings. Doha Clara, though her own husband, 
 whom she loved exceedingly, was ill at the time, 
 wished to be of service to the saint, and asked 
 her husband’s permission to send him some pro- 
 
246 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 visions out of their house. Don Bartholomew, 
 who was a good Christian, instantly consented, 
 and Dona Clara sent food to the monastery. In a 
 day or two the saint found out that the food could 
 not have been dressed by the brothers in the 
 kitchen of the house; so, when it was brought to 
 him, he would not take it. His death, he said to 
 the priors, for want of food would be a less evil to 
 the order than the laxity that might creep in if he 
 consented to so great a comfort as having his food 
 dressed outside the monastery. Dona Clara, on 
 being told of his resolution, submitted; but she 
 sent to the monastery, nevertheless, everything 
 that could be wanted, trusting in the skill of the 
 cook to dress it so that the servant of God might 
 be able, in his great weakness, to eat it. She 
 sent also lint and cloths for the service of the 
 dying saint. 
 
 Dona Clara had troubles of her own ; her 
 husband, Don Bartholomew, was ill, and his 
 illness at another time would have been a great 
 grief to her. Now, when occupied with the care 
 of a poor friar whom she had never seen, she 
 scarcely knew what that trouble was. The very 
 servants in the house were glad to do anything 
 for the saint, and were sorry when their labours 
 were lessened. Afterwards, in calling to mind 
 the events of those weeks, they remembered that 
 whenever anything was wanted for the dying 
 saint, they found it at once; hut when anything 
 was wanted for Don Bartholomew, their master, 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 247 
 
 it was found with great difficulty, in spite of their 
 zeal. 
 
 Doha Clara was near her confinement ; and 
 on hearing that the saint was so grateful for her 
 charitable services, of which she herself made lit¬ 
 tle account, sent to beg him to pray for her in her 
 coming illness. She dreaded it very much, and 
 her heart grew sad as the time drew near. The 
 servant of God went to his prayer, and then sent 
 her word to cast away all her fears, for her pains 
 would be few, and her child would be admitted to 
 the vision of God. The w~ords of the saint were 
 fulfilled after his death. Doha Clara’s illness was 
 light, and within a year the little girl whom she 
 had brought into the world left it for her everlast¬ 
 ing home. 
 
 Two pious ladies in the neighbourhood, having 
 heard of the saint’s distressing illness, and know¬ 
 ing that the monastery could scarcely provide for 
 him in one way, offered to take all the soiled linen 
 and cloths to their own house and wash them. 
 Their offer was accepted, and accordingly all the 
 linen necessary for the service of the saint was 
 taken from time to time to the house of these 
 ladies, Ines and Catherine de Salazar. They were 
 delicate women, and not accustomed to what they 
 saw when the linen was brought to them from the 
 monastery. The clothes were saturated with 
 corruption, and in some of them even pieces of 
 flesh. The two ladies, instead of the natural 
 odours on such occasion, and contrary to their 
 
248 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CEOSS. 
 
 expectations, perceived a perfume of most won¬ 
 drous fragrance; they were filled themselves with 
 a strange joy, for which they could not account, 
 and thus a labour which they knew beforehand 
 must be at least irksome became to them the 
 most agreeable occupation of their time. 
 
 One day Ines de Salazar not only missed the 
 accustomed fragrance, but perceived a most un¬ 
 pleasant and offensive smell, which made her ill 
 She was unable to do her work, and went to her 
 mother, Mary de Molina, and told her that either 
 St. John of the Cross must be dying or the 
 friars had sent cloths used by some other person. 
 Soon after a lay brother came to the house, who, 
 on being asked if the bandages used by any other 
 father had been sent with those of the saint, con¬ 
 fessed that the friars had sent some which were 
 for the service of Fra Matthew of the Blessed Sa¬ 
 crament, who had a sore on one of his shoulders. 
 These the sisters separated without difficulty from 
 those of the saint, which still sent forth the fra¬ 
 grance of flowers, as before. 
 
 The two sisters nearly quarrelled over their 
 work, each wished to have it all to herself; but 
 their mother interfered, and made them take it in 
 turns, if they could not help one another. Dona 
 Clara, too, and her servants wished to share the 
 labours of the two sisters, if they could not have it 
 all to themselves, and made an attempt to carry 
 the cloths to the house of Don Bartholomew. The 
 two sisters would not yield, and maintained their 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 249 
 
 right, pleading possession. The matter was laid 
 before the saint himself, and Dona Clara eagerly 
 pressed her claim. The saint sent her word that 
 he was pleased with the way in which the two 
 sisters served him, and he hoped that Dona Clara 
 would be content with all the troubles she had al- 
 leady had, and not add to them. Dona Clara 
 yielded at once, and the two sisters remained in 
 possession. 
 
CHAPTER XXL 
 
 The approach of death—The saint’s humility—Fra Air 
 tonio’s visit—The last sacraments—Death. 
 
 The saint was now nearly worn out and wasted 
 away; God had heard his prayer, and had thrown 
 him into the furnace to try him. There he lay 
 from the end of September, and it was now the 
 7th day of December, Saturday, the eve of the 
 Immaculate Conception, 1591. The surgeon in 
 attendance on that day told him that he had hut 
 few days to live. The saint answered with a joyful 
 face, in the words of the Psalmist, Lcetatus sum 
 in his quce dicta sunt mihi, in domum Domini 
 ibimus,— c I have been made glad by what they 
 have said to me; we shall go into the house of 
 our Lord.’ He then, after a momentary pause, 
 added, ‘ Since I have heard these good tidings, I 
 feel no pain whatever.’ The surgeon thought the 
 end so near that he advised the friars to give him 
 the last Sacraments without delay; but the saint, 
 when they repeated this to him, asked them to 
 wait a few days; he would warn them in time. A 
 messenger w*as sent at once for the provincial, Fra 
 Antonio, who, with the saint, had begun the reform 
 
 \ 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 251 
 
 in Duruelo; and the old man came, in obedience 
 to the summons, hut he did not reach Ubeda be¬ 
 fore the afternoon of Friday. 
 
 In the beginning of the following week he 
 asked the friars what day it was; and a little later, 
 how long it was to Saturday. He then saw that 
 they had guessed his meaning; and do turn their 
 attention away, he added, that he was thinking 
 how, on that day, our Lady helped her religious in 
 a special way. But his explanation had no effect 
 on the minds of his brethren, for they believed 
 then, and their belief was afterwards strengthened, 
 that our Blessed Lady, whom he had so constantly 
 served, had made known to him that he would die 
 on Saturday within the octave of her great feast. 
 
 On the Thursday morning he asked Fra Bar¬ 
 tholomew of St. Basil, who was continually with 
 him during the latter part of his illness, to take a 
 small bag that was under his pillow, and burn the 
 papers that were in it. These w r ere letters he had 
 received from his friends; and he would not leave 
 them behind, lest they should be troubled on his 
 account. The saint was dying under a cloud in. 
 the Older he had almost founded, the first novices 
 of which he had trained; for the inquisition made 
 by Fra Diego of the Evangelist, without authority, 
 into his life and conduct was still fresh in the 
 mmds of his brethren, and none of them knew 
 
 liow r much or how little the vicar was concerned 
 in it. 
 
 W hen the papers had been all destroyed, he 
 
252 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 asked for tlie viaticum; and in the evening, at the 
 hour in which our Lord instituted the Holy Mass, 
 the friars brought Him to His servant, wdio, be¬ 
 fore he received Him, begged his brethren to for¬ 
 give the bad example he had given; and then, not 
 seeing the prior among them, sent him a message, 
 begging him, for the love of God, to come to 
 him. The prior came, and the saint whom he had 
 wronged asked his forgiveness, and begged him to 
 overlook all his faults. He was sorry, he said, for 
 the trouble he had given, and for the expense to 
 which he had put the house; but he would do all 
 he could to make compensation, and prayed our 
 Lord to repay them after his death. His prayer 
 was the prayer of the just, for the house prospered, 
 and soon became one of the best in the province. 
 Indeed, the saint had before this told the sub¬ 
 prior that the house would prosper, and it was 
 then believed in the monastery that the servant of 
 God had received from our Lord an assurance that 
 his prayer would be heard. 
 
 The prior’s heart now melted within him, and 
 his tears flowed, at the remembrance of his harsh 
 - treatment of the servant of God, and of the patient 
 endurance with which that treatment was borne. 
 The saint begged one further grace of him, namely, 
 a habit to be buried in—that was all he asked: he 
 possessed nothing himself. So when the friars 
 asked him to distribute among them those things 
 which might be said to belong to him, such as his 
 Breviary, his rosary, and his habit—they wished to 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 253 
 
 have something of his in their possession as relics 
 —he answered them simply, ‘ I am poor, and have 
 nothing of my own ; everything about me belongs 
 to the superior; ask him.’ He remembered his 
 vow even when dying, for he had faithfully kept 
 it all his life. 
 
 On Friday, Dec. 13, the Feast of St. Lucy, he 
 asked them who w T ere with him what day of the 
 week it was. They told him Friday; he never 
 asked again the name of the day, but only from 
 time to time w 7 hat hour it was. At one in the 
 afternoon, when they told him in answer to his 
 question what hour it was, he said, ‘I asked be¬ 
 cause, glory be to God, I have to chant Matins in 
 heaven to-night.’ He now became more deeply 
 recollected, and was from time to time in a trance ; 
 his eyes were generally closed, that he might be 
 the more intent upon heavenly things. Now and 
 then, however, he opened them, only to look most 
 lovingly on the crucifix before him. 
 
 That Friday was spent on the cross with our 
 Lord, for the servant of God entered into the night 
 of spiritual desolation; in addition to his great 
 bodily pain his soul w 7 as filled with darkness. He 
 lay on his poor bed, the very poorest of men, ut¬ 
 terly detached from all things, and cleaving only 
 to God, who visited him in His love, and wound¬ 
 ing him anew, left him alone in the most terrible 
 abandonment, beyond the reach of all possible con¬ 
 solation. On that day the provincial, Father An¬ 
 tonio of Jesus, arrived, and went at once to see 
 
254 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 him. St. John of the Cross was very glad to see 
 him, but he could not speak, because of the pain 
 he was in both in soul and body. At last, lest the 
 provincial should be distressed, he turned to him 
 and begged him to forgive his silence, which was 
 caused by the great severity of his sufferings. Fra 
 Antonio then tried to console him, and spoke of 
 his labours in the order, and of the great reward 
 he was about to receive. Thereupon the saint 
 stopped his ears with his feeble hands, and cried, 
 
 ‘ 0, my father, do not speak of that; speak rather 
 of my many and grievous sins; I think only of them 
 and of the merits of my Redeemer.’ A little later 
 Fra Augustin of St. Joseph came in to console 
 him, and when he had said that he would soon be 
 rewarded for what he had done, the saint cried out 
 as before in great distress, ‘ 0, my father, do not 
 speak of that; for there is nothing that I ever did 
 that is not a source of shame to me at this mo¬ 
 ment.’ 
 
 About five o’clock in the evening he asked for 
 the last anointing, during the ministration of 
 which he made all the responses himself. Some 
 time afterwards he asked them what hour it was, 
 and on being told it was nine o’clock, he said, ‘ Ah, 
 I have three hours to wait;’ and then, in a voice of 
 most touching humility, he repeated the words of 
 the Psalmist, Incolatus mens prolongatus est. He 
 remained silent now, but hearing a bell ringing at 
 ten o’clock, he asked what it was; they told him 
 that it was the bell of a neighbouring monastery of 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 255 
 
 nuns ringing for Matins; lie answered, ‘ I too, by 
 the goodness of God, shall sing them with our 
 Lady in heaven.’ And then addressing himself to 
 her, said: ( I thank thee, 0 my Lady and my Queen, 
 because it pleases thee to let me quit this world 
 on Saturday, thine own day.’ 
 
 Soon after this he seemed so weak and faint 
 that the friar who was with him, thinking the last 
 moments had been reached, was about to ring the 
 bell to summon the community. The saint, know¬ 
 ing his purpose, called him back, and said there 
 was no reason for disturbing the house at that 
 time; he would give him due warning. Then at 
 eleven o’clock he sat up in his bed, and said, 4 ITow 
 ivell I am!’ He seemed to be in perfect health 
 of body, and asked them to sing the praises of God 
 with him. He was exultingly joyous, and those 
 who were present—there were even seculars watch¬ 
 ing with the religious—formed themselves into a 
 choir. The saint began the Miserere , and they 
 answered; this done, they recited other psalms in 
 the same way; the saint from time to time kissing 
 the crucifix which he held in his hands. 
 
 At half-past eleven he said it was time to call 
 the community; the bell was rung, and the friars 
 came in with the provincial, his old friend and 
 companion, Father Antonio of Jesus. The old 
 man of fourscore years and more fell on his knees, 
 
 • and for himself and the whole community, also on 
 its knees, begged him, their father, to bless them 
 before he went, and to remember them when he 
 
250 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 should see the face of God. The saint said he 
 should never forget them, hut as for blessing them 
 he could not do it—that belonged to the father of 
 them all, the provincial there present. But the 
 friars asked him again, and then the provincial 
 commanded the dying saint, as his subject, to satisfy 
 his and their desires. He then, obedient to the 
 end, lifted up his hand and made the sign of the 
 cross, the whole assembly weeping tears at once of 
 sorrow and of joy. 
 
 Fra Alonso of the Mother of God began now to 
 make the recommendation of his soul, and when 
 he had gone on for a little while, the saint turned 
 towards him and said, ‘ Go on, pray for me to God, 
 for I must needs rest awhile.’ He then pressed 
 the crucifix with his hands, and closed his eyes in 
 prayer. In a few minutes he asked them to read 
 the Canticle for him; the prior took the book, and 
 as he read, the dying saint would murmur from 
 time to time, ‘ 0 what pearls!’ A little before 
 twelve o’clock he gave the crucifix to a secular 
 much attached to him to hold for a moment. He 
 then put both his hands underneath the bedclothes, 
 and arranged his habit, and having put all in order, 
 held out his hand for the crucifix. He who held 
 ' it gave it, and in doing so kissed the hand of the 
 saint. The servant of God looked at him and said, 
 
 ‘ Ah, you should not have had it if I had known 
 it would cost me so much.’ 
 
 It was now close upon midnight, and among 
 the friars around him he saw Fra Francis, whose 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 257 
 
 duty it was to ring the bell for Matins. Mindful 
 of regular observance to the last, be said to him, 
 ‘ Go, and ring the bell for Matins.’ In a minute 
 or two afterwards, waking up from a deep sleep, he 
 asked what the bell was ringing for; they answered, 
 ‘For Matins;’ be looked at them and smiled, as if 
 taking leave of them, and said, ‘ I am going to sing 
 them in Paradise.’ 
 
 He then kissed the crucifix, and with closed 
 eyes, saying, ‘In manus Tuas, Domine, commendo 
 spiritum meum ,’ passed away as a child falling 
 asleep in its mother’s arms. There was no agony 
 nor struggle, nor the semblance of pain. God took 
 him gently to Himself, on Saturday morning, Dec. 
 14, 1591, in the fiftieth year of his age. He had 
 been twenty-eight years in religion, five of which 
 he spent in the old observance, and twenty-three 
 in the reform of St. Teresa. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Tlie funeral—Sermon—Incorruption of the body — re¬ 
 moval of it to Madrid and Segovia — contest for the 
 possession of it—Canonisation. 
 
 The religious and the seculars present in the in¬ 
 firmary, when they saw that the saint was dead, 
 fell upon him with one consent, and having kissed 
 his hands and feet, began to rob him of the habit 
 he wore and of the linen rags that served t© cover 
 his sores. They took away from his head, which 
 ' was almost bald, the little hair spared by the ton- 
 sure. Even the rope that hung from the ceiling, 
 by which he used to move himself in his bed, was 
 taken down, and seized upon with eagerness as relics 
 and memorials of a saint. The prior saved the 
 leathern girdle from the common destruction, and 
 afterwards gave it Dona Clara. To her husband, 
 Don Bartholomew de Ortega, he gave the Breviary 
 which the saint had used in his lifetime. 
 
 While the friars were thus occupied, the death 
 of the saint became known in divers places. Doiia 
 Clara, asleep in her bed, awoke suddenly, and 
 rousing her husband, told him that St. John 
 of the Cross was dead. She did not see him, she 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CBOSS. 259 
 
 said, but she was sure that he had been in the 
 room. Don Bartholomew made light of it, and 
 attributed it all to her imagination; but at that 
 moment the bell of the monastery broke the si¬ 
 lence of the night, and Don Bartholomew believed 
 what his wife had said. The tolling of the bell 
 disturbed the whole town; the instant the people 
 heard it, they knew that it announced to them the 
 departure of the saint. They hurried to the mon¬ 
 astery, and clamoured to be let in. As the night 
 was cold and the rain was falling, the friars had 
 pity on the men, and had great difficulty in hinder¬ 
 ing the women also from entering within the en¬ 
 closure. Those who went in begged to be allowed 
 to see the body ox the saint, and on being allowed 
 to do so, followed in the footsteps of the friars, 
 and began to rob him of the little which the friars 
 had left him, that they might possess something 
 that had once touched that temple of the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 Early in the morning the monastery was filled 
 again, and the body of the saint was brought down 
 into the church for burial. The people fell on their 
 knees, kissed the feet, and then touched the body 
 with their rosaries. Some cried out that they had 
 had a great saint among them and that they knew 
 him not, and then bewailing their loss, for he was 
 gone before they knew him. Father Sotomayor, 
 the Dominican, came in, and fell on his knees be¬ 
 fore the saint. He was one of those who had seen 
 his face shining in Baeza, and the vision was the 
 
260 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CKOSS. 
 
 beginning of bis conversion. When he had knelt 
 down he fell as one dead over the body; the friars 
 removed him as quickly as they could, and v r hen 
 they saw he had recovered himself, asked him wdiy 
 he had fainted away. He told them that he had 
 made up his mind to cut off one of the fingers, 
 and that, on his laying hold of it, the saint had 
 drawn it back out of his hand, as if he had been 
 still living. 
 
 The whole neighbourhood w r as stirred, and the 
 church filled from end to end. Clergy, secular 
 and regular, noblemen, and persons of less honour 
 in the w r orld, came together uninvited to see and 
 venerate the body of the poorest man in all Spain. 
 Mass was sung, and a grave and learned priest, 
 the Hr. Bezerra, preached a sermon ; at the close 
 of which he said : 4 1 do not ask you, as the cus¬ 
 tom is, to pray to God for the soul of the departed, 
 for he who is gone from us is a saint, and his soul 
 is in Paradise; but what I ask is this : I ask you 
 to follow in his footsteps, and I ask him to obtain 
 for us from God the grace to do so.’ Then, when 
 the body had to be borne to the grave, there arose 
 an eager contest among the religious present for 
 the honour of carrying it to its place of rest within 
 the church. 
 
 The people crowded daily into the church to 
 pray to the saint, for they had no doubts about 
 him; but they w T ould not tread on that part of 
 the pavement underneath which the body of the 
 saint was lying. The friars, his brethren, w r ere 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 261 
 
 less reverent, and on the Monday night following 
 the funeral, when about to take the discipline as 
 usual, and when the lights had been either put out 
 or made dim, they were suddenly surprised by a 
 great light which filled the whole church. Some 
 thought that all the lights had not been put out, 
 and the. prior gave orders in that sense ; hut those 
 who were near the grave were seized with a holy 
 fear, for they saw that it had come from the tomb 
 of the saint, whose sepulchre it pleased our Lord 
 to make thus glorious before their eyes. In a few 
 minutes the light disappeared, and the friars un¬ 
 derwent the discipline as usual in the dark. 
 
 At the end of nine months the grave was 
 opened, and the body of the saint was found incor¬ 
 rupt. Dona Ana de Penalosa and her brother, 
 Don Luis de Mercado, auditor of the royal coun¬ 
 cil, and now a priest, both then living in Madrid, 
 obtained an order from the vicar, Fra Nicolas of 
 Jesus Maria, for its removal from Ubeda to Segovia. 
 Dona Ana had a great devotion to the servant of 
 God, and, as the foundress oi the monastery in 
 Segovia, wished to have the body of the saint placed 
 there, in the house she had founded under his 
 direction. Dona Ana and her brother waited, how¬ 
 ever, for nine months before they attempted to re¬ 
 move it, and then sent to Ubeda an officer of the 
 court, with orders to bring away the remains, for 
 by that time they thought that the flesh had wasted 
 away. 
 
 Francis de Medina Zavallos went to Ubeda, 
 
262 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 and haying seen the prior, Fra Francis of St. 
 Chrysostom, told him the reason of his coming, 
 and produced the order of the vicar, who on his 
 part enjoined obedience and absolute silence on 
 the prior. It was then settled that the latter 
 should admit Zavallos into the church at eleven 
 o’clock at night, unknown to the community; 
 and that two lay brothers should open the grave 
 and raise the body. So it was done. When 
 they had removed the stone they perceived a most 
 fragrant perfume, and when they reached the body, 
 they found it to their surprise, and_ to the dis¬ 
 appointment of Zavallos, perfectly fresh and sup¬ 
 ple ; there w r as no trace of corruption in it. It 
 was impossible to take it away; and, indeed, the 
 order was for the removal of the bones. The 
 prior and Zavallos, in their difficulty, forgot them¬ 
 selves and opened the body, took out the entrails, 
 and then putting quicklime—which they found 
 within the monastery, for there were workmen 
 daily there employed in building the church— 
 both within the body and around it, replaced the 
 sacred relics in the grave they had so uselessly dis¬ 
 turbed. But before it was put back, the prior, at 
 the request of Zavallos, cut off one of the fingers of 
 the right hand, that he might give it to Bona 
 Ana as a proof of the story he had to tell. The 
 hand w r as full of blood, and the blood flowed as 
 freely as from the hand of a living man. 
 
 Bona Ana and her brother waited nine months 
 more, and Zavallos was sent again to Ubeda. The 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 2 63 
 
 grave was opened, and the body was found nearly 
 as they left it; the lime had indeed dried it, but 
 had not consumed the flesh. While they were 
 opening the grave, Fra Bartholomew of St. Basil 
 was roused from his sleep, and heard distinctly 
 the words, ‘ If thou hast a mind to see the holy 
 body of John of the Cross, arise, for they are 
 about to take it away.’ Fra Bartholomew hurried 
 down to the church, but the prior met him at the 
 door and ordered him not only to return to his cell, 
 hut to say nothing of what he might have heard 
 or seen. Zavallos took the body away in a cloak- 
 bag, and the better to escape pursuit, should the 
 people of Ubeda discover the theft, went out of 
 his road; near Martos he and his fellows were 
 suddenly confronted by a man, who cried out, 
 
 ‘ Whither are you going with the body of the 
 saint ? Let it remain where it was.’ Zavallos and 
 his companions nevertheless passed on — not 
 however without anxiety, for people asked them 
 wherever they halted what it was they had with 
 them, the perfume of the body was so wonderful 
 and agreeable—and having reached Madrid with 
 their precious burden, gave it to the safe keeping 
 of the Carmelite nuns. There Bona Ana had one 
 of the arms cut off for a relic, but afterwards sent 
 it, as she thought at the time, to Segovia, but in 
 reality to the monastery of the nuns in Medina 
 del Campo, for she had scruples about keeping it. 
 
 In the monastery of the nuns the body was 
 treated with more reverence; it was put in a 
 
264 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 coffin, covered with flowers and branches of laurel, 
 that it might be sent the more reverently to Segovia. 
 Those who were charged with the duty of carrying 
 it from Madrid had been ordered by the superiors 
 of the order to keep the secret and avoid all pub¬ 
 licity, in order that there should be no gathering 
 of people when the sacred relics should reach 
 Segovia. This became impossible, for before they 
 arrived near the city the secret was revealed; people 
 were attracted by the wondrous fragrance; and 
 though the persons in charge of the body -went to 
 the monastery without going through the city, 
 they were followed by a great multitude of men 
 and women. 
 
 The friars of Segovia received the body wdth 
 all honour and respect, removed the lime which 
 the prior of Ubeda had applied to it, and much of 
 which still cleaved to it. When they had cleansed 
 the holy body, they vested it in the habit of the 
 order and placed it in a fitting coffin. The prior 
 had it then laid up reverently in the sacristy, and 
 to avoid all confusion and indiscreet worship of a 
 saint not yet canonised, ordered the doors of the 
 church to be closed. 
 
 But the moment it became known that the 
 church was to be shut, the whole city flocked 
 tumultuously to the doors of the monastery, knock¬ 
 ing thereat and shouting ; the crowd insisted on 
 being admitted into the church and on being 
 allowed to see the body of the saint whom they 
 had known in the flesh. 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 265 
 
 Then the bishop, with many of the dignitaries 
 and canons of the cathedral church, the chief 
 magistrates of the city, and many noblemen, came 
 to the monastery and demanded admission. The 
 prior, who had resisted thepnultitude, was forced 
 to yield now, and the body was brought from the 
 sacristy into the church. Some of the friars had 
 to stand continually near it, and others near the 
 rails, to keep back the crowd. Rosaries and hand¬ 
 kerchiefs were given to the friars that they might 
 touch the body with them, and these the people 
 treasured as precious things. The throng that 
 gathered before the church was so great as to 
 make the street impassable. This continued for 
 eight days, when at last the council of the order 
 and the vicar commanded the prior to restrain the 
 zeal of the people, and to refuse them the sight of 
 the body; it being unlawful to venerate as a saint 
 whom the Sovereign Pontiff had not canonised. 
 
 The prior obeyed, but the people flocked into 
 the church, and in spite of the resistance of the 
 friars, broke into-the chancel and demanded the 
 body of the saint. The prior could not grant 
 them their demands, hut he took an old habit 
 left behind in the monastery, once worn by the 
 servant of God, and having torn it into shreds, 
 divided it among them to keep them quiet. 
 
 When Francis de Ycpes heard that the body 
 of his brother had been brought to Segovia, he 
 went thither in the hope of seeing it; but the 
 friars would not satisfy his desires because of the 
 
266 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CKOSS. 
 
 orders of the vicar and his council. He then 
 went to Madrid and saw Dona Ana. She had now 
 conceived some scruples about retaining the arm 
 in her possession; so she gave a piece of the flesh 
 to Francis, and asked him to carry the arm to 
 Segovia, that it might be laid up in the same place 
 with the body from which it had been taken. 
 Francis, having placed the flesh in-a glass, took the 
 arm to Segovia, and his journey was one of won¬ 
 ders. The prior of Segovia did not receive him 
 very kindly ; so Francis took the arm to Medina 
 and gave it to the Carmelite nuns who had been 
 so generous to his and the saint’s mother. Fran¬ 
 cis carried about his person the glass in which he 
 had placed the flesh, and soon afterwards, when in 
 
 m ' 
 
 great distress of mind, longing to see his brother, 
 he gazed at the flesh, and to his amazement saw, 
 as if painted on it, the very likeness of the saint, 
 not once but ever afterwards. Our Lady also ap¬ 
 peared in the same way, with the Infant in her 
 arms; and this was seen not only by Francis de 
 Yepes, but by many others. Some, however, who 
 gazed at the relic saw nothing; for the vision was 
 not granted to all. Some saw our Lord on the 
 cross, others a dove; some saw the saint himselr 
 on his knees before the crucifix. • There were 
 others who saw angels; some saw St. Peter, others 
 Elias the prophet; some saw St. Teresa, others 
 St. Francis; and others again saw St. Francis 
 Xavier; but amid these great diversities no one 
 saw anything that was not holy or divine. Some 
 
LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CHOSS. 2G7 
 
 again saw at one hour and not at another; some 
 saw always the same vision, and to others the vision 
 was changed. All were always impressed, and 
 numerous miracles were wrought. Gnce a Ma¬ 
 hometan woman, then a slave in Spain, who had 
 obstinately refused to become a Christian, was 
 shown the relic. She looked at it out of pure 
 curiosity, and then cried out, ‘ 0, beautiful Lady, 
 beautiful Boy.’ She was touched by divine grace, 
 was converted and baptised. 
 
 The people of Ubeda, when they discovered 
 that the body of the saint had been taken away, 
 were moved to great indignation, for they felt that 
 a great wrong had been done to them. The coun¬ 
 cil of the city resolved to apply to the Pope for 
 redress, and immediately deputies were sent to 
 Piome to ask his Holiness to order the restitution 
 of the body. The people of Segovia also sent 
 deputies when they heard what the city of Ubeda 
 had done; and Doha Ana de Penalosa and her 
 brother Don Luis exerted themselves to the ut¬ 
 most to show that Segovia had better claims than 
 Ubeda. The dispute was carried before his Holi¬ 
 ness Clement VIII., for it was now a suit at law; 
 and the Pontiff, after the case had been pleaded, 
 decided that the body should be restored to Ubeda! 
 The decision was recorded in a brief dated Sep¬ 
 tember 15, 1596. 
 
 lhe heads of the order, lamenting the dispute 
 between the people of Ubeda and Segovia, laboured 
 to effect a settlement which should not eave any 
 
268 
 
 LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 
 
 heartburnings behind. The executors of the Pa¬ 
 pal Brief were also willing to see an arrangement 
 made. At last Ubeda, though victorious in the 
 lawsuit in Borne, consented to accept a part of 
 the whole. One foot had been left there, for the 
 prior had retained it; and now the other and one 
 arm were to be given also. The other arm Bona 
 Ana had taken. There remained therefore in 
 Segovia the head* with the trunk. Thus the body 
 was divided ; and in both places chapels were 
 built for the preservation of-the sacred remains. 
 
 He was beatified in 1674, by Clement X., and 
 canonised by Benedict XIII., December 27, 1726, 
 
 THE END. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abiuuam, 34. 
 
 Accusations, false, brought 
 against St. Teresa, 87, 97; 
 against St. John of the Cross! 
 232. 
 
 Adonde Te escondiste, 98, 168. 
 Aimeii, Patriarch of Antioch 
 3. 
 
 Albert of Parma, Patriarch of 
 Jerusalem, 3, 28. 
 
 Alcala de Henares, college 
 founded in, 57; the saint 
 made rector of, 57; observ¬ 
 ance, 59. 
 
 Almodovar del Campo, chapter 
 of, 84, 162,164; arrival of the 
 saint in, 112. 
 
 Alonso, Fra, of the Mother of 
 Cod, 1/9 ; at the deathbed of 
 the saint, 256. 
 
 Alvarez, Catherine, mother of 
 the saint, 13 ; marriage of, 
 14 ; poverty of, 14 ; distress 
 of, 15; works for her bread, 
 17; comes to Medina del 
 Campo, 17; holy death of, 
 211 . 
 
 Al/arez, Don Alonso, takes 
 Juan de Yepes into his ser¬ 
 vice, 21; offers to give him a 
 benefice, 24; present at the 
 profession of the saint, 27. 
 
 Andalucians, the, not liked by 
 St. Teresa and St. John of 
 the Cross, 145. 
 
 Andrew, St., college of, in Sala¬ 
 manca, 30. 
 
 Angel, Fra, of St. Gabriel, 57; 
 indiscretions of, 59; com¬ 
 plains to St. Teresa, 61. 
 Angel, Fra, of the Presentation, 
 Prior of Baeza, 229. 
 
 Ana Maria, Dona, a nun of the 
 Incarnation, 88. 
 
 Anna, mother of Tobias, 17. 
 Anne of Jesus, 25; prioress of 
 Veas, 119 ; goes to Granada, 
 155 ; persuades the saint to 
 write, 168; discontented, 216; 
 disliked by some of the friars’ 
 222 . 
 
 Anne of St. Albert, mother, 
 182. ’ 
 
 Anne of the Mother of God 
 108. 
 
 Antonia of the Holy Ghost, 39 
 170. 
 
 Antonio of Jesus, Fra —see He¬ 
 redia. 
 
 Apostate, an, converted by the 
 saint, 194. 
 
 Arevalo, 17, 18. 
 
 Ascent, the, of Mount Carmel, 
 
‘270 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Asparagus, miraculous, 236. 
 
 Augustin, Fra, of St. Joseph, 254. 
 
 Augustin, Fra, of St. Joseph, 
 procurator of the house in 
 Granada, 150. 
 
 Augustin, Fra, of the Kings, 
 147 ; prior of Cordova, 185 ; 
 wished to punish Anne of 
 Jesus, 222. 
 
 Avila, 4; monastery of St. 
 Joseph, founded in, 6; birth¬ 
 place of St. Teresa, 13. 
 
 Aylesford, priory of, 2. 
 
 Baeza, 130 ; university of, 131; 
 college founded in, 133. 
 
 Baltasar, Fra, of Jesus, 51; 
 founds a college of the order 
 in Alcala, 57 ; fall and re¬ 
 pentance of, 87. 
 
 Banes, Fra Dominic, letter of, 
 C2; consulted by Anne of 
 Jesus, 217 ; defends the Car¬ 
 melite nuns, 220. 
 
 Barbara of the Holy Ghost, 197. 
 
 Barnabas, Fra, of Jesus, 206. 
 
 Bartholomew, Fra, of Jesus, 
 144. 
 
 Baithclomew, Fra, of St. Basil, 
 173 ; attends the saint in his 
 last illness, 238, 251; warned 
 in his sleep of the removal of 
 the faint’s body, 263. 
 
 Bautista, Fra Juan, a novice in 
 Duruelo, 53. 
 
 Beatriz of Jesus sees St. Teresa 
 and the saint in a trance, 68. 
 
 Begging disapproved of by the 
 saint, 126, 135, 150, 151; al¬ 
 lowed by the saint in wealthy 
 places, 153. 
 
 Benavides, de, Doha Clara, 
 245 ; sends food for the saint, 
 
 296 ; miraculously warned of 
 the saint’s death, 258. 
 
 Bernardo, Fra, infirmarian of 
 Ubeda, 241. 
 
 Bezerra, Dr., preache3 at the 
 saint’s burial, 260. 
 
 Brocardo, second prior of the 
 Carmelites, 3. 
 
 Bujalance, the saint in, 194. 
 
 Calvary, Mount—see Coren^u- 
 ela. 
 
 Cano, Melchior, 30. 
 
 Caravaca, the saint visits the 
 nuns of, 139; presides at an 
 election in, 197. 
 
 Caravajal, da, Doha Philippa, 
 supplies the friars of Coren- 
 <?uela with food, 127. 
 
 Carleval, de, Bernardin, 133. 
 
 Carmel, 1; friars of, 2 ; reform 
 of, 5; contemplatives of, 9, 
 85 ; the saint enters the order 
 of, 26. 
 
 Carthusians, the, Fra Antonio 
 wished to join, 10 ; the saint 
 wished to join, 34, 36; two 
 friars in Segovia tempted to 
 enter among, 206. 
 
 Catherine of Jesus, the saint 
 writes to, 145. 
 
 Cells of the saint made into 
 chapels, 31. 
 
 Cerda, de la, Doha Luisa, 157. 
 
 Chapter, of Piacenza, 81,82 ; of 
 Moraleja, 82 ; of Almodovar 
 del Campo, 84; of Lisbon, 
 171; of Valladolid, 197 ; of 
 Madrid, 202, 223, 224. 
 
 Clement VII., 8. 
 
 Columna, de la, Miguel, 87. 
 
 Confessions, imperfect, revealed 
 to the saint, 209. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 271 
 
 Constitutions, the, respect of 
 St. Teresa for, 123, 124. 
 Consultors, the six, 204. 
 Cordova, the saint in, 185; re¬ 
 turns from Seville to, 186; 
 novices in, 187. 
 
 Corenfjuela, monastery of, 120; 
 regular discipline of, restored 
 by the saint, 121. 
 Covarruvias, de, Don Juan Oroz¬ 
 co, troubles of foretold by 
 the saint, 211. 
 
 Crucifix, a, of St. Teresa, 102. 
 Cuevas, de las, Fra Juan, prior 
 of the Dominicans, 142, 162. 
 
 Diego, Fra, of the Conception, 
 i95. 
 
 Diego, Fra, of the Evangelist, 
 230 ; brings false accusations 
 against the saint, 232, 251; 
 not corrected for his excesses, 
 233. 
 
 Diego, Fra, of the Incarnation, 
 prior of Peiiuela, 227, 235; 
 visits the saint in his last ill¬ 
 ness, 240. 
 
 Diego, Fra, of the Most Holy 
 Sacrament, 178. 
 
 Diego, Fra, of the Trinity, sent 
 to Rome, 141; made vicar of 
 Andalucia, 147; visits Gra¬ 
 nada, 148; orders the saint 
 to found a monastery of nuns 
 in Granada, 154. 
 
 Disputations, public, 32. 
 
 Doria, 87 ; elected fellow of the 
 Provincial, 143; made vicar 
 of New Castille, 157; dis¬ 
 liked the rule of Fra Jerome, 
 163 ; zeal of, for strict observ¬ 
 ance, 163, 164; elected pro¬ 
 vincial, 172; returns to Spain, 
 
 174; makes Anne of Jesus 
 prioress of Madrid, 190; 
 elected vicar-general of the 
 reform, 204 ; corrected by the 
 saint, 205 ; invokes the civil 
 power in an ecclesiastical 
 question, 219; persuades his 
 council to abandon the nuns, 
 220; deprives the saint of 
 the provincialate of Mexico, 
 225; orders an inquiry into 
 the conversation of Fra Je¬ 
 rome, 232; not always friend¬ 
 ly to the saint, 234; gives 
 leave for the removal of the 
 saint’s body from Ubeda to 
 Segovia, 261. 
 
 Dove, a, seen near the cell of 
 the saint, 213. 
 
 Duruelo, 38; visited by St. 
 Teresa, 39, 49; the saint 
 arrives in, 42; beginning of 
 the monastery of, 43; austere 
 observance in, 49 ; the friars 
 abandon, 53. 
 
 Election of priors, 165. 
 
 Elias, 1, 2, 101; well of, 3. 
 
 Elias, Fra, of St. Martin, the 
 second vicar of Carmel, 233. 
 
 Eliseus, 1, 101. 
 
 Eugenius IV. mitigates the 
 Carmelite rule, 4, 8, 28, 29. 
 
 Fernandez, Fra Pedro, visitor 
 of Carmel, 55; saying of, 
 
 59; makes St. Teresa prior¬ 
 ess of the Incarnation in 
 Avila, 65. 
 
 Francis, Fra, of St. Chrysos¬ 
 tom, 229, 231; receives the 
 saint ungraciously in Ubeda, 
 
 ‘ 237 ; harsh to the saint, 239 ; 
 
INDEX 
 
 J72 
 
 reprimanded by Fra Antonio, 
 242; cuts off a finger of the 
 saint, 262, 
 
 Francis, Fra, of St. Hilarion, a 
 lay brother, 235. 
 
 Francis, Fra, of the Conception, 
 57; prior of Penuela, 132. 
 
 Freeborn, Ralph, returns to 
 Europe from Mount Carmel, 2. 
 
 Gabi’iel, Fra, of the Assump¬ 
 tion, 57. ' • 
 
 Galves, 15. 
 
 German, Fra, of St. Mathias, 
 66; sent away from the mon¬ 
 astery of the Incarnation, 82; 
 made a prisoner, 89 ; sent to 
 Moraleja, 90; escapes from 
 prison, 94. 
 
 Gomez, Ruy, duke of Pastrana, 
 52; comes to Alcala, 57; 
 visits the saint in Pastrana, 64. 
 
 Gonzalez, Fra Alonso, provin¬ 
 cial of Carmel, 40; sings 
 mass in Manzera, 53. 
 
 Granada, the saint elected prior 
 of, 146, 165, 198; distress in 
 the city of, 166. 
 
 Gratitude of the saint, 186. 
 
 Gregorio, Fra, 181. 
 
 Gregory XIII. severs the friars 
 of the reform from those of 
 the mitigation, 141. 
 
 Gregory XIV. restores peace in 
 Carmel, 221, 222. 
 
 Grey, Lord, of Codnor, 2. 
 
 Guadalcanal*, the saint’s illness 
 in, 192. 
 
 Guevara, de, Don Juan, 181. 
 
 Heredia, de, Antonio, prior of 
 Medina, 10; accepted by St. 
 Teresa as a friar of the re- | 
 
 form, 11, 37; provides five 
 hour-glasses, 44; arrives in 
 Duruelo, 45; found by St. Te¬ 
 resa sweeping the door of the 
 church, 49 ; preaches in Man¬ 
 zera, 51; prior of Manzera, 
 55 ; elected definitor, 84; 
 summons a chapter in Almo¬ 
 dovar, 116; elected provin¬ 
 cial, 117 ; ordered into prison 
 by the nuncio, 119 ; made vi¬ 
 car of Old Castille, 147; begs 
 the saint to leave Penuela, 
 229.; hears of the ill-treat¬ 
 ment of the saint in Ubeda, 
 241, 242; visits the saint, 
 251,253; commands the saint 
 to bless his brethren, 256. 
 
 Honorius III. confirms the Car¬ 
 melite rule, 3. 
 
 Hontiveros, birthplace of the 
 saint, 13, 14, 17. 
 
 Hulne, priory of, 2. 
 
 Illness of the saint, in Toledo 
 misunderstood, 189; in Pe¬ 
 nuela, 228. 
 
 Incarnation, monastery of the, 
 4, 5; St. Teresa made prioress 
 of, 65 ; St. John of the Cross 
 made confessor of, 66; trou¬ 
 bles of the nuns in the, 88. 
 
 Innocent IV. modifies the Car¬ 
 melite rule, 3, 28. 
 
 Isabel of St. Jerome, 51. 
 
 Isabel of the Incarnation sees 
 St. Teresa and the saint in a 
 trance, 38. 
 
 Isabel of the Incarnation in 
 Granada healed miraculously 
 by the saint, 169. 
 
 Iznatorafe, a man possessed in 
 127. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 273 
 
 Izquierda, Anne, wife of Fran¬ 
 cis de Yepes, 17. 
 
 Jerome,.Fra, of the Mother of 
 God, 81,93 ; holds a chapter 
 in Almodovar, 84; disobeys the 
 nuncio, 112; deprived of his 
 faculties, 113 ; submits, 114 ; 
 elected provincial of the re¬ 
 formed Carmel, 141; charac¬ 
 ter of, 142, 161; the friars 
 discontented with, 144, 162 ; 
 summons a chapter to be held 
 in Lisbon, 171; expulsion of, 
 from the order foretold by the 
 saint, 172; made vicar of Por¬ 
 tugal, 174; not present in the 
 chapter of Madrid, 189; de- I 
 prived of all rights in the or¬ 
 der, 203; recall of, from Por¬ 
 tugal determined on, 218; al¬ 
 ways defended by St. John of 
 the Cross, 223, 224. 
 
 Job, the saint compared with 
 245. | 
 
 John, Fra, of Jesus, prior of 
 Manzera, 114; softens the 
 anger of the nuncio, 115 ; re 
 primanded by the nuncio, 116; 
 imprisoned by his brethren, 
 117 ; sent to Rome, 141. 
 
 John, Fra, of St. Anne, advice 
 of the saint to, 137, 213; 
 asked by the saint to find 
 twelve friars to go to the In¬ 
 dies, 228. 
 
 John, Fra, of St. Mary, treats 
 the saint kindly in prison, 
 102 . 
 
 John, Fra, of the Evangelist, 
 procurator of the house in 
 Granada, 151. j 
 
 >hn of the Cross, birth of, 13 ; | 
 
 falls into a pond and miracu¬ 
 lously rescued, 20; appren¬ 
 ticed, 21; falls into a well, 21; 
 taught in the school of the 
 Jesuits, 22; serves in the 
 hospital, 23; devout to our 
 Lady, 24; vocation of, 25; 
 profession of, 27; sent to Sa¬ 
 lamanca to study, 29; peni¬ 
 tential life of, 31; ordained 
 priest, 33 ; trance of, in Ma- 
 lagon, 38; goes to Valladolid, 
 40; to Duruelo, 42; puts on 
 the habit, 44 ; preaches in the 
 country round Duruelo, 48; 
 removes to Manzera, 53 ; sent 
 to Pastrana, 55, 59; trains the 
 college in Alcala, 58; made 
 confessor of the nuns of the 
 Incarnation in Avila, 65 ; mor¬ 
 tifies St. Teresa, 68; sent 
 away from the monastery of 
 the Incarmation, 82; in the 
 chapter of Almodovar del 
 Campo, 84; returns to Avila, 
 86; made prisoner and scourg¬ 
 ed, 89; sentence of the judges 
 of, 93; harsh treatment of, 
 in prison, 95; escapes out of 
 prison, 105; disapproves of 
 the acts of the chapter of 
 Almodovar, 117; made vicar 
 of the priory of Mount Cal¬ 
 vary, 118; restores regular 
 discipline in Coren^uela, 122, 
 124; founds the college in 
 Baeza, 132; elected definitor, 
 141; visit of, to the president 
 of the chancery of Granada, 
 148; outraged by a woman in 
 Granada, 157; watches over 
 the novices, 159; reelected 
 prior of Granada, 165; wrote 
 
274 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 slowly, 168; attends the chap¬ 
 ters of Lisbon and Pastrana, 
 171, 174; on his visitations, 
 177 ; afraid to say mass, 183 ; 
 establishes the nuns in a 
 good house in Seville, 185; 
 accompanies Anne of Jesus to 
 Madrid, 190; reconciles a 
 dying apostate, 194; elected 
 prior of Granada the third 
 time, 198; portrait of, taken 
 by stealth, 199; foretells the 
 canonisation of St. Teresa, 
 201; elected prior of Segovia, 
 204; neglected in the chapter 
 of Madrid ,n 224 ; retires to 
 Penuela, 227; ordered to the 
 Indies, 228 ; in Ubeda, 237 ; 
 last illness of, 250; receives 
 the Viaticum, 252; and the 
 last anointing, 254; death of, 
 257. 
 
 Joseph, Fra, of Christ, 45, 46. 
 
 Joseph, Fra, of Jesus Maria, 
 visits the cell in which the 
 saint had been imprisoned, 94. 
 
 Juan de la Miseria, Fra, takes 
 the habit in Pastrana, 52. 
 
 Juan, Fra, of the Holy Angels, 
 dream of, 201. 
 
 Juan of Avila, converts Baeza, 
 130. 
 
 Juliana of the Mother of God, 
 185. 
 
 Lady, our, protects the saint, 20, 
 21, 100, 187. 
 
 Laguna, the Licentiate, 154. 
 
 Leiva, de, Dona Isabel, 51. 
 
 Leonor of Jesus, sister, 108. 
 
 Letters, of St. Teresa, burnt by 
 the saint, 214; of the saint 
 burnt by his Mends, 232. 
 
 Light, miraculous, 99, 100,107, 
 196. 
 
 Linares, the saint preaches in, 
 184. 
 
 Lisbon, chapter of, 171. 
 
 Lopez, Don Rodrigo, chaplain 
 of Paulo III., 130. 
 
 Luis, Fra, de Leon, Augustinian, 
 217; attempt to execute a 
 Papal brief, 219; complains 
 of the king, 220. 
 
 Malaga, the saint sent to make 
 a foundation in, 168. 
 
 Malagon, the nuns of, entertain 
 the friars, 164. 
 
 Maldonado, Fra Fernando, 
 prior of Toledo, 88; impri¬ 
 sons the saint, 89; makes the 
 saint wear the habit of the 
 mitigation, 90. 
 
 Mancha Real, the saint founds 
 a monastery in, 190. 
 
 Mantius de Corpore Christi, 30. 
 
 Manzera, the friars invited to, 
 51; monastery founded in, 53; 
 the saint elected prior of, 88. 
 
 Marco, Fra, of St. Francis, bio¬ 
 grapher of the saint, 184. 
 
 Mariano, Fra, of St. Benedict, 
 takes the habit, 52; in the 
 chapter of Lisbon, 172. 
 
 Marmol, Dr., sent to Rome by 
 Anne of Jesus, 217. 
 
 Martin, Fra, of the Assumption, 
 journey of, to Seville, with no¬ 
 vices, 188; witnesses a mi¬ 
 racle wrought by the saint, 
 190,191; detects a penance of 
 the saint, 192; rebuked by the 
 saint for lukewarmness, 194. 
 
 Mary of Christ, prioress of Ma¬ 
 laga, 169. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 275 
 
 Mary of the Visitation, the de- I Ojeda, de, Pedro, 133. 
 
 luded nun, 173. Ordination of the saint, 33. 
 
 Maizelo, Alvaro Nunez, sends Ormaneto, Monsignore, protects 
 alms to the saint, 133. the reform, 83 ; death of, 86. 
 
 Mass, first, of the saint, 33 ; of Orozco, Fra Pedro, 11, 34. 
 the saint in Baeza, 138; in Ortega, de, Don Bartholomew, 
 Caravaca, 182. 245. 
 
 Mathias, St., Juan of see John Ortega, de, Isabel, penitent of 
 of the Cross. St. Peter of Alcantara, 7. 
 
 Medina del Campo, 9 ; Hospital Pastrana, duke of—see Gomez, 
 of the Conception in, 21; the Buy. 
 
 saint takes the habit in, 26 ; J Pastrana, foundation of, 51; in¬ 
 arm of the saint brought to, discreet austerities of, 55, 59 : 
 263, 266. chapter of, 174. 
 
 Meekness of the saint, 167. Paz, de la, Maria, a penitent of 
 Mendicants, obligations of, 85. the saint, 139. 
 
 Mendoza, de, Don Alvaro, bi- Pedro, Fra, of St. Mary, breaks 
 shop of Avila, ^6, 40. . his leg, 190. 
 
 Mendoza, de, Dona Maria, sister Pedro, Fra, of the Angels, goes 
 of the bishop, 40. with the nuns from Veas to 
 
 Mendoza, de, Don Pedro Gon- GranadaJ 155. 
 
 zalez, canon of Toledo, 110. Pedro, Fra, of the Angels, 120; 
 Mercado, de, Don Luis, 154,181, fall of, prophesiedby the saint, 
 
 266. 118. 
 
 Mexico, the saint elected pro- Pedro, Fra, of the- Mother of 
 vincial of, 224. God, 193. 
 
 Missions, foreign, opposed by Penalosa, de, Dona Ana, a peni- 
 the saint, 165. tent of the saint, 156; per- 
 
 Moraleja, chapter of, 82 ; de- suades the saint to write, 168; 
 
 crees of, against the friars of founds amonasteryin Segovia, 
 
 the reform, 83. 181,184, 204; prophecy of the 
 
 Muriel, Fra Pedro, 52. saint to, 226 ; brings the body 
 
 of the saint to Segovia, 261. 
 
 Nicolas, Fra, of Jesus Maria— Penuela, monastery of, 120; the 
 see Doria. saint in, 184. 
 
 Night, the obscure, 128. Perapa, de, Dona Juana, a peni- 
 
 Novice, a,, enters the order by tent of the saint in Granada, 
 fraud in Granada, 180. 152. 
 
 Nun, a learned, 71. Peter, Fra, of the Angels, a lay 
 
 brother, 53, 55. 
 
 Obedience, 195. Peter, St., of Alcantara, prophecy 
 
 Ocampo, de, Maria, niece of St. of, 7. 
 
 Teresa, 5 ; vision of, 6. | Philip II., Don, interferes with 
 
276 
 
 INDEX 
 
 the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 
 113, 219. 
 
 Piacenza, chapter of, 81; the 
 decrees of, notified to the 
 saint, 92. 
 
 Pius II., 4. 
 
 Possession, 70, 71, 127, 191. 
 
 Preachers, the saint’s watchful¬ 
 ness over, 136, 176. 
 
 Priesthood, the, the saint shrinks 
 from, 24. 
 
 Provincial, a, visit of, to the 
 saint, 177, 178. 
 
 Rachel, prayer of, 12. 
 
 Religious, visits of, 149. 
 
 Requena, birthplace of Fra An¬ 
 tonio, 10. 
 
 Roman, Dr. Pedro, 132. 
 
 Rossi, Fra Giovanni Battista, 
 General of the Carmelites, 7 ; 
 allows St. Teresa to found 
 two monasteries of friars, 8,40. 
 
 Salamanca, the saint in, 30; a 
 doctor of, novice in Manzera, 
 53. 
 
 Salazar, de, Fra Angel, receives 
 the profession of the saint, 
 27; consents to the founda¬ 
 tion in Duruelo, 40; made 
 superior of the friars of the 
 reform, 129; sends the saint 
 to Baeza, 132. 
 
 Salazar, de, Ines and Catherine, 
 247 ; devotion of, to the saint, 
 248. 
 
 Salcedo, de, Don Francis, 41,42. 
 
 Sega, Monsignore, nuncio of his 
 Holiness, 86; prejudiced a- 
 gainst the reform, 87, 97,112; 
 appoints visitors of the reform, 
 113; rails against St. Te¬ 
 
 resa, 114 ; quashes the acts of 
 the chapter of Almodovar, 119. 
 
 Segovia, monastery of, 181, 
 184; the saint elected friar 
 of, 204; the body of the saint 
 brought to, 264. 
 
 Segovia, the saint in, 79; seat 
 of the council of the order, 204; 
 the saint made prior of, 205. 
 
 Seville, the saint in, 185. 
 
 Sixtus IV., 4. 
 
 Soto, de, Dominic, 30. 
 
 Sotomayor, Father, Dominican, 
 259. 
 
 Stock, St. Simon, elected gene¬ 
 ral of the Carmelites, 3. 
 
 Teresa, St., first foundation of, 
 in Avila, 4; receives a visit 
 from the general, 7; allowed 
 to found monasteries, 7; in 
 Medina del Campo accepts 
 Fra Antonio into her reform, 
 
 10 ; sees St. John of the 
 Cross, 12, 36 ; goes to Duru¬ 
 elo, 38, 49 ; makes the habit 
 of the first friar of the re¬ 
 form, 40, 44; gives the habit 
 to two friars in Pastrana, 52 ; 
 prioress of the Incarnation in 
 Avila, 62, 65 ; elected prioress 
 of the Incarnation, 88; say¬ 
 ings of, concerning the friars 
 of the mitigation, 38, 91; 
 anger of, at the imprisonment 
 of the saint, 91, 111; pro¬ 
 cures the election of Fra Je¬ 
 rome as provincial, 142 ; asks j 
 Fra Jerome to let St. John of 1 
 the Cross return to Castille, 
 145 ; death of, 161; canonisa¬ 
 tion of, foretold by the saint, • 
 201 . 
 
4 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Teutonic), Don, Archbishop of 
 Evora, 217. 
 
 Toledo, de, Doha Ana, made 
 prioress of the Incarnation, 
 68 . 
 
 Toledo, de, Don Luis, offers the 
 friars a church in Manzera, 
 51. 
 
 Toledo, the saint imprisoned in, 
 91; falls ill in, 189. 
 
 Tostado, Fra Jerome, 81; dis¬ 
 allows the election of St. Te¬ 
 resa, 88. 
 
 Trinity, the Most Holy, Mass of, 
 138. 
 
 Ubeda, the saint removes to, 
 229, 237; the people of, de¬ 
 mand the restoration of the 
 body of the saint, 267. 
 
 Ulloa, de, Fra Miguel, 82. 
 
 Ureha, de, Francisco, barber of 
 Segovia, 209. 
 
 Valdemoro, 82. 
 
 Yaldiera, de, Diego Perez, 133. 
 
 Valladolid, the saint in, 48; 
 chapter of, 137. 
 
 Yeas, the saint visits, 119; 
 trance of the saint in, 120; 
 the saint hears., the confes¬ 
 sions of the nuns of, 128. 
 
 Velasquez, Don Rafael Mejia, 
 
 277 
 
 offers his house in Duruelo 
 to St. Teresa, 38. 
 
 Vesci, Lord, 2. 
 
 Villaroel, de, Martin, 237. 
 
 Visits, 149. 
 
 Vittoria, a, Francis, 30. 
 
 Wulstan, St., of Worcester. 
 
 Yepes, de, Don Gonzalo, 13; 
 marries, 14; pious death of, 15. 
 
 Yepes, de, Francis, 14; nurture 
 of, in poverty, 15; neglect of, 
 by an aunt, 16; in Duruelo, 
 48; settles in Arevalo, 17; 
 holy life of, 18; sent for to 
 Duruelo by his brother, 48; 
 in Pastrana, 64; employed as 
 a workman in Granada, 199 ; 
 with the saint in Segovia, 211; 
 visits the body of his brother, 
 265; receives a relic of the 
 saint from Dona Ana de Pena- 
 losa, 266 ; holy death of, 19. 
 
 Yepes, de, Juan—see St. John 
 of the Cross. 
 
 Yera, de, Doha Maria, a nun of 
 the Incarnation, 66; death 
 of, 67. 
 
 Zavallos, Francis de Medina, 
 sent to Ubeda for the body of 
 the saint, 262 ; brings the 
 body to Madrid, 263. 
 
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