This revised edition of The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross was produced to mark the fourth centenary of the death of St. John of the Cross (1542–1591). The result is an English translation of his writings that preserves the authentic meaning of the great mystic’s writings, presents them as clearly as possible, and at the same time gives the reader the doctrinal and historical information that will lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of the teachings of the Mystical Doctor. Included in The Collected Works are St. John’s poetry, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, The Dark Night, The Spiritual Canticle, and The Living Flame of Love, as well as his extant letters and other counsels. More Information: In addition to the respective page listings in the contents, this new edition features gray page tabs that separate the individual works, enabling the reader to more easily locate a desired section of the book. Complementing St. John’s writings are a comprehensive General Introduction for the entire work, as well as brief, enlightening introductions for each specific work, explaining theme and structure. These are enhanced by new and expanded footnotes, a glossary of terms, and general and scriptural indices. About the Translators Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. Father Kieran, a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, made his profession as a Discalced Carmelite in 1947. He has held several important positions within the order, including prior, formation director, and provincial councilor. A founding member of the Institute of Carmelite Studies, he subsequently served as its chair, as well as publisher of ICS Publications. Father Kieran’s major contributions in the field of Carmelite studies are his translations from the Spanish of the works of St. Teresa of Jesus and St. John of the Cross, in collaboration with Father Otilio Rodriguez. He also was the English translator of God Speaks in the Night: The Life, Times and Teaching of St. John of the Cross, a pictorial biography of St. John of the Cross commemorating the 400th anniversary of his death, published in several languages. In addition to translations, Father Kieran is also the author of two ICS Publications’ study editions of the works of St. Teresa, and has written several other books on St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross. Father Kieran has lectured and written widely on the teaching of both of these Carmelite saints. He is a member of the Discalced Carmelite community in Washington, D.C. Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D. Father Otilio was born in Mantinos, Palencia, Spain, and was a Carmelite for more than fifty years. He was provincial of the Burgos province several times and also served as rector of the Discalced Carmelites’ international pontifical theological faculty, the Teresianum, in Rome. Father Otilio was one of the founders of the Institutum Historicum Teresianum and was a member of the Institute of Carmelite Studies. Both internationally and throughout the United States he gave retreats and lectures on Carmelite history and spirituality and wrote extensively on Carmelite subjects. Father Otilio died in Rome in 1994.
Collected here in this omnibus edition are all three of St. John of the Cross' major works as well as twenty of his magnificent poems. The Ascent of Mount Carmel is the third major work of St. John of the Cross and is considered to be the introductory work on mystical theology. Dark Night of the Soul is one of the greatest religious poems ever written. This masterpiece of Mystic Christianity examines faith and how to keep faith when all seems lost. Think of it as guide to making it through the dark night of the soul to the brighter, happier, faith filled tomorrow that awaits. In A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ, St. John states: "I do not purpose here to set forth all that greatness and fullness the spirit of love, which is fruitful, embodies in it. Yes, rather it would be foolishness to think that the language of love and the mystical intelligence - and that is what these stanzas are - can be at all explained in words of any kind, for the Spirit of our Lord who helps our weakness.
St. John narrates this journey of the soul, which requires death to self and detachment from the world. In a step-by-step process, he shows how God can use this "dark night" to eventually bring our human spirits into great illumination, revealing: *Divine wisdom and the passion of divine love. How the soul can walk securely through the darkness and the wonderful effects that are wrought in the believer as a result of the dark night. *Includes CD of selected excerpts from book. Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591) was a poet, priest, philosopher, and mystic who helped to bring about reform within the Roman Catholic Church during the sixteenth century. A member of the Carmelite Order, he worked diligently with Saint Teresa of Avila to return their order to its proper foundation, a deep devotion to Jesus Christ. As a result of their efforts, John was imprisoned. Central to Saint John's beliefs are the death of the self-life, the mortification of the flesh, and overcoming the devil, the world, and all temptations so that the soul can be completely united to God and His love.
The attraction to Pope John Paul II was an attraction no just to the human charism and magnetism of the Pope. It was an attraction to a profoundly spiritual human being, who lives Christ, radiates Christ, and resounds Christ. All of the speeches, homilies, letters and the encyclical "Jesus Christ the Redeemer of Man" are a proclamation of Christ--the Way, the Truth, and the Light. The Pope is, in name and in fact, an "Alter Christus--Another Christ" as well as the Vicar of Christ. To help us appreciate this basic spiritual element in our Holy Father, the gifted American Dominican theologian Jordan Aumann, former Director of the Institute of Spirituality at St. Thomas Aquinas University, Rome, has translated the Holy Father's doctoral thesis on "Faith According to St. John of the Cross". It is my fervent hope that the reading of this translation will help many not only to know God better, but to live His divine life--to that fullness of life promised by Christ."-- John Cardinal KrolArchbishop of Philadelphia (from the Foreword)
San Juan de la Cruz, the great sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, is regarded by many as Spain's finest poet. Passionate, ecstatic, and spiritual, his poems are a blend of exquisite lyricism and profound mystical thought. In The Poems of St. John of the Cross John Frederick Nims presents his superlative translation of the complete poems, re-creating the religious fervor of St. John's art. This dual-language edition makes available the original Spanish from the Codex of Sanlúcon de Barrameda with facing English translations. The work concludes with two essays--a critique of the poetry and a short piece on the Spanish text that appears alongside the translation--as well as brief notes on the individual poems.
The Ascent Of Mount Carmel is part of four works by St. John dealing with the "Dark Night of the Soul," when the individual Soul undergoes earthly and spiritual privations in search of union with God. The Ascent Of Mount Carmel is regarded as one of the greatest works of mysticism in Christianity. The book is divided into three sections and is presented as a commentary on four poetic stanzas by John on the subject of the Dark Night. He shows how the Soul sets out to leave all worldly ties and appetites behind to achieve "nothing less than transformation in God." Dark Night of the Soul is a theological commentary on the poem explaining the meaning of St. John of the Cross' poem of the same name. The book describes its meaning by stanza. Dark Night of the Soul narrates the journey of the soul from bodily home to union with God. In A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ, St. John states: "I do not purpose here to set forth all that greatness and fullness the spirit of love, which is fruitful, embodies in it. Yes, rather it would be foolishness to think that the language of love and the mystical intelligence - and that is what these stanzas are - can be at all explained in words of any kind, for the Spirit of our Lord who helps our weakness." The Poetry of St. John of the Cross includes 25 of his most inspirational poems including What is Grace, By the Waters of Babylon, My Soul is a Candle, Within the Trinity and more. John of the Cross was a major figure of the Counter-Reformation, a Spanish mystic, Catholic saint, Carmelite friar and priest. He is considered, along with Saint Teresa of Avila, as a founder of the Discalced Carmelites. His poetry and his studies on the growth of the soul are considered the summit of mystical.
St. John (San Juan de la Cruz) is one of the greatest mystics and poets in any language. This is a new introduction and translation of St. John'' poetry (presented in both Spanish and English) and prose commentaries that includes his biography, providing an integrated vision that resurrects the power of his poetic voice.
The first complete English translation in 40 years. Jones has produced a version aimed at those who wish to pray through the poems, the source of all of St. John's work. It is also a literary delight: simple, direct, and close to the popular romance meter beloved of St. John himself. Spanish and English on facing pages.
St. John of the Cross was founder (with St. Teresa) of the Discalced Carmelites, doctor of mystic theology, b. at Hontoveros, Old Castile, 24 June, 1542; d. at Ubeda, Andalusia, 14 Dec., 1591.It has been recorded that during his studies St. John particularly relished psychology; this is amply borne out by his writings. He was not what one would term a scholar, but he was intimately acquainted with the "Summa" of St. Thomas Aquinas, as almost every page of his works proves. Holy Scripture he seems to have known by heart, yet he evidently obtained his knowledge more by meditation than in the lecture room. But there is no vestige of influence on him of the mystical teaching of the Fathers, the Areopagite, Augustine, Gregory, Bernard, Bonaventure, etc., Hugh of St. Victor, or the German Dominican school. The few quotations from patristic works are easily traced to the Breviary or the "Summa". In the absence of any conscious or unconscious influence of earlier mystical schools, his own system, like that of St. Teresa, whose influence is obvious throughout, might be termed empirical mysticism. They both start from their own experience, St. Teresa avowedly so, while St. John, who hardly ever speaks of himself, "invents nothing" (to quote Cardinal Wiseman), "borrows nothing from others, but gives us clearly the results of his own experience in himself and others. He presents you with a portrait, not with a fancy picture. He represents the ideal of one who has passed, as he had done, through the career of the spiritual life, through its struggles and its victories".His axiom is that the soul must empty itself of self in order to be filled with God, that it must be purified of the last traces of earthly dross before it is fit to become united with God. In the application of this simple maxim he shows the most uncompromising logic. Supposing the soul with which he deals to be habitually in the state of grace and pushing forward to better things, he overtakes it on the very road leading it, in its opinion to God, and lays open before its eyes a number of sores of which it was altogether ignorant, viz. what he terms the spiritual capital sins. Not until these are removed (a most formidable task) is it fit to be admitted to what he calls the "Dark Night", which consists in the passive purgation, where God by heavy trials, particularly interior ones, perfects and completes what the soul had begun of its own accord. It is now passive, but not inert, for by submitting to the Divine operation it co-operates in the measure of its power. Here lies one of the essential differences between St. John's mysticism and a false quietism. The perfect purgation of the soul in the present life leaves it free to act with wonderful energy: in fact it might almost be said to obtain a share in God's omnipotence, as is shown in the marvelous deeds of so many saints. As the soul emerges from the Dark Night it enters into the full noonlight described in the "Spiritual Canticle" and the "Living Flame of Love". St. John leads it to the highest heights, in fact to the point where it becomes a "partaker of the Divine Nature". It is here that the necessity of the previous cleansing is clearly perceived the pain of the mortification of all the senses and the powers and faculties of the soul being amply repaid by the glory which is now being revealed in it.St. John has often been represented as a grim character; nothing could be more untrue. He was indeed austere in the extreme with himself, and, to some extent, also with others, but both from his writings and from the depositions of those who knew him, we see in him a man overflowing with charity and kindness, a poetical mind deeply influenced by all that is beautiful and attractive.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.