Selected Writings

338 Pages·1988·140.825 MB·English

by  John of the Cross, Kieran Kavanaugh

THE CLASSICS
CFWESTERN
SPIRITUALITY
Ui
<u
o

THE CLASSICS OF WESTERN SPIRITUALITY
A Library of the Great Spiritual Masters
President and Publisher
Kevin A. Lynch, C.S.P.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Editor-in-Chief
John Farina
Editorial Consultant
Ewert FI. Cousins—
Professor, Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y.
John E. Booty—
Professor of Church History, Episcopal Divinity
School, Cambridge, Mass.
Joseph Dan—
Professor of Kaballah in the Department of Jewish
Thought, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
Albert Deblaere—
Professor of the History of Spirituality, Gregorian
University, Rome, Italy.
Louis Dupre—T.L.
Riggs Professor in Philosophy of Religion, Yale
University, New Haven, Conn.
Rozanne Elder—
Executive Vice President, Cistercian Publications,
Kalamazoo, Mich.
Anne Fremantle—
Teacher, Editor and Writer, New York, N.Y.
Karlfried Froehlich—
Professor of the History of the Early and
Medieval Church, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N.J.
Arthur Green—
Associate Professor in the Department of Religious
Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.
Stanley S. Harakas—
Professor of Orthodox Christian Ethics,
Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Seminary, Brookline, Mass.
Jean Leclercq—
Professor, Institute of Spirituality and Institute
of Religious Psychology, Gregorian University, Rome, Italy.
Miguel Leon-Portilla—
Professor of Mesoamerican Cultures and
Languages, National University of Mexico, University City, Mexico.
George A. Maloney, S.J.—
Director, John XXIII
Ecumenical Center, Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y.
Bernard McGinn—
Professor of Historical
Theology and History of Christianity, University of Chicago
Divinity School, Chicago, III.
John Meyendorff—
Professor of Church History, Fordham
University, Bronx, N.Y., and Professor of Patristics and Church History,
St. Vladimir’s Seminary, Tuckahoe, N.Y.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr—
Professor oflslamics, Department of Religion,
Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa., and Visiting Professor, Harvard
University, Cambridge, Mass.
Heiko A. Oberrnan—
Director, Institute fuer Spaetmittelalter und
Reformation, Universitaet Tuebingen, West Germany.
Alfonso Ortiz—
Professor of Anthropology, University of New
Mexico, Albuquerque, N. Mex.; Fellow, The Center for Advanced Study,
Stanford, Calif.
Raimundo Panikkar—
Professor, Department of Religious Studies,
University of California at Santa Barbara, Calif.
Jaroslav Pelikan—
Sterling Professor of History and Religious Studies,
Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Fazlar Rahman—
Professor of Islamic Thought, Department of Near
Eastern Languages and Civilization, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
Annemarie B. Schimmel—
Professor of Hindu Muslim Culture,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Sandra M. Schneiders—
Assistant Professor of New Testament
Studies and Spirituality, Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, Calif.
Huston Smith—
Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion,
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y.
John R. Sommerfeldt—
Professor of History, University of Dallas,
Irving, Texas.
David Steindl-Rast—
Monk of Mount Savior Monastery,
Pine City, N.Y.
William C. Sturtevant—
General Editor, Handbook of North
American Indians, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
David Tracy—
Professor of Theology, University of Chicago Divinity
School, Chicago, III.
Victor Turner—
William B. Kenan Professor in Anthropology, The
Center for Advanced Study, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.
KallistOS Ware—
Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford;
Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies, Oxford University,
England.

IOHN of the CROSS
I
SELECTED WRITINGS
EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
KIERAN KAVANAUGH, O.C.D.
PREFACE BY
ERNEST E. LARKIN, O. CARM.
PAULIST PRESS
NEW YORK • MAHWAH
Cover art: JOHN LYNCH, a Capuchin Franciscan friar, is a seminarian at Garrison N.Y.
He obtained his degree in commercial art from Dutchess Community College in Poughkeep­
sie N.Y., and his degree in psychology from Iona College in New Rochelle, N.Y.
Copyright © 1987 by
the Washington Province of Discalced Carmelite Friars, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any in­
formation storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
John of the Cross, Saint, 1542-1591.
St. John of the Cross.
(The Classics of Western spirituality)
Translated from the Spanish by the editor.
Bibliography: p.
Includes indexes.
Contents: The ascent of Mount Carmel—The dark
night—The spiritual canticle—[etc.]
1. Mysticism—Catholic Church. 2. Spiritual
life—Catholic authors. 3. Catholic Church—
Doctrines. I. Kavanaugh, Kieran, 1928—
II. Title. III. Title: Saint John of the Cross.
IV. Title: Selected writings. V. Series.
BV5080.J642 1987 248.2'2 86-30421
ISBN O-8O91-2839-X
Published by Paulist Press
997 Macarthur Boulevard
Mahwah, New Jersey 07430
Printed and bound in the United States of America
Contents
Foreword 1
Preface 3
General Introduction 7
The Ascent of Mount Carmel 41
The Dark Night 155
The Spiritual Canticle 211
The Living Flame of Love 285
Selected Bibliography 317
Index 323
• a
Vll
Editor of this Volume
KIERAN KAVANAUGH was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in
1928 and entered the Discalced Carmelites in 1946. After ordination
and completion of theology at the Teresianum in Rome, he spent a year
in the Carmelite “desert” in France. Since his return to the United
States in 1957, he has taught spiritual theology within his order and at
Catholic University.
His major academic effort has been an English translation of the
works of both St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. In 1982,
he lived with the Carmelites in Avila, Spain, and also traced the jour­
neys of Teresa and John through the various towns and cities where
they lived and made foundations. He was a founder and past president
of the Institute of Carmelite Studies and continues to be actively en­
gaged in its work of publishing and scholarly research.
Author of the Preface
ERNEST E. LARKIN, O. CARM. has spent practically all of his forty
years as a Carmelite priest in educational work. He taught in his own
major seminary and at Catholic University for twenty years before
going to Phoenix, where he helped found the Kino Institute. Since 1981
he has been active in retreats, workshops, and writing, especially in
promoting contemplative prayer and popularizing the teachings of the
two Carmelite saints, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. He is the
author of Silent Presence (1981) and Christ within Us (1984).
• • •
Vlll
Foreword
A public lecture on St. John of the Cross makes you almost sense in the
air an impending question. How must one go about reading this awe­
some mystic? The answers might be as varied as the question sure to
come. In sorting out these selections from John’s complete works, I
have had foremost in mind the need that such a question discloses. The
themes and essential points of any spiritual synthesis may be illus­
trated, but John shows a tendency to illustrate with a kind of detail that
he himself sometimes hesitates over. This tendency presses him on, es­
pecially in The Ascent of Mount Carmel > into a labyrinth of divisions and
subdivisions, in which the reader may well bog down, although John’s
admirers would never want that he had written a word less. Each of the
works contains the nucleus of his synthesis; each contains as well a par­
ticular perspective, its own thrust and style, and as a result John pro­
pounds in each certain aspects of spiritual development more carefully
than in the other works. This fact makes it possible to present the major
works in a certain sequential order so that the first prepares the reader
for the lure of the next, and so on with the others. In choosing these
selections, then, I have sought those texts that concentrate on the core
message and main spiritual situation found in the individual work. In
a word, I am presenting this volume as one possible and, I hope, fruitful
way for beginners to read St. John of the Cross. But seasoned readers
might also profit from this opportunity to limit their attention to these
substantial passages. No choice of selections should mean that what is
not included is unimportant, and readers may have favorite passages
that they regret are absent from these pages; let them know I share this
regret.
Another question sure to come forth in the public lecture on John’s
writings concerns commentaries. Are there any good commentaries we
might read? The truth of the matter is that little has been published in
1