John of the Cross
Named the stretch where prayer stops working, and argued it was not a reason to stop.
- Lived
- 1542 – 1591
- Feast
- December 14
- Tradition
- Western
- Veneration
- Canonized 1726; named a Doctor of the Church in 1926
- Patron of
- Contemplatives, mystics, Spanish poets
In December 1577, John was seized by friars from his own order, who objected to the reform he and Teresa were pushing. They locked him in a room in Toledo six feet by ten and beat him in front of the other friars most weeks. He was there nine months. With no paper for much of it, he composed poems in his head and held them there. In August 1578 he got out by unscrewing the lock on his door.
What came out of that room is the reason he is worth reading now. He gave a name — the dark night — to the stretch where the practice stops paying out: no feeling, no clarity, nothing to show. His argument was that this is not failure and not a signal to quit. Something is being taken away so that you stop mistaking the feeling for the thing.
He put it plainly elsewhere: the Word is spoken in silence, and in silence it has to be heard.
- Died: Úbeda
- Born: Fontiveros
2 · churches recorded in Wikidata — the map is as complete as that record, which leans European