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St John of the Cross - a general introduction
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Conflicts of Jurisdiction
King Philip II was himself curiously
involved in the reform of religious orders and this led to a chain of misunderstandings,
to a dark night for the small friar. Fernández had exercised his authority
prudently and in harmony with the Carmelite provincial of Castile. In the
south, proceeding independently, Francisco Vargas requested the discalced
friars to make foundations in Sevilla, Granada, and La Peńuela (all in
Andalusia), an action contrary to the prior general's explicit orders against
the expansion of the discalced friars into that region. At a chapter of
the order convened in Piacenza (Italy) in May 1575, the Carmelite order
came to some strong decisions about all that they had heard was taking
place in Spain, particularly in Andalusia. Unfortunately the two provincials
from Castile and Andalusia, who might have been able to cast some light
on the events, were absent. So the ordinances stipulated that those who
had been made superiors "against the obedience due superiors within
the order itself, or who had accepted offices or lived in monasteries or
places prohibited by the same superiors should be removed, with the aid
of the secular arm if necessary. " Those resisting would be considered
disobedient, rebellious, and contumacious, and were to be severely punished.
Jerónimo Tostado was appointed the order's visitator to Spain, with full
powers to carry out the decrees of the chapter.
In a papal brief in August of the previous year, at the request of the
Carmelite order Gregory XIII had declared an end to the Dominican visitation
and had ordained that from then on the Carmelites should be visited by
the prior general and his delegates, leaving in effect what had been established
by the visitators. But the king was not pleased. Why hadn't this matter
been presented to him first for his royal placet? In due time the papal
nuncio Nicolás Ormaneto, working closely with the king, received assurance
that as nuncio he still had powers to visit and reform religious orders.
Ormaneto appointed Jerónimo Gracián (a learned priest from the university
of Alcalá who had entered the discalced Carmelites and became a close collaborator
with Teresa in many of her business affairs) as the new visitator to the
Carmelites in Andalusia.
After Teresa's term as prioress at the Incarnation ended, John was ordered
by the nuncio to remain at the Incarnation because (it seems) of the excellent
work he was doing there. In view of the chapter of Piacenza, John realized
that his presence was a cause of tension and sought a change. In fact,
he was arrested by the Carmelites of the observance in January 1576, but
then released through the nuncio's intervention. Whatever the reason, he
remained on, and when Ormaneto, the nuncio, died in June 1577, John was
without a defender and his presence in Avila was increasingly resented
by those who held that it contradicted the ordinances of Piacenza. It wasn't
long before something was done. On the night of December 2, 1577, a group
of Carmelites, lay people, and men-at-arms broke into the chaplain's quarters,
seized Fray John, and took him away. By a secret journey, with orders from
Tostado, they carted him off, handcuffed and often blindfolded, to the
monastery in Toledo, the order's finest in Castile, where nearly 85 friars
lived. The acts of the chapter in Piacenza were read aloud to John by which
he stood accused of being rebellious and contumacious. He would have to
submit, or undergo severe punishment. But the accused friar reasoned that
the chapter acts did not apply to him because he was at the Incarnation
by order of legitimate authority, and he certainly was not obliged to renounce
the way of life he had embraced along with Teresa. The punishment he received
was imprisonment, according to the constitutions.
His accusers locked him first in the monastery prison, but at the end
of two months, for fear of an escape, they moved him to another spot, a
room narrow and dark, without air or light except for whatever filtered
through a small slit high up in the wall. The room was six feet wide and
ten feet long. There John remained alone, without anything but his breviary,
through the terribly cold winter months and the suffocating heat of summer.
Added to all this were the floggings, fasting on bread and water, wearing
the same bedraggled clothes month after month without being washed - and
the lice. Teresa wrote to the king and pleaded that for the love of God
he order Fray John set free at once. In the midst of this deprivation,
Fray John was seeking relief by composing poetry in his mind, leaving to
posterity some of the greatest lyric stanzas in Spanish literature - among
them a major portion of The Spiritual Canticle. These verses suggest that
in that cramped prison, stripped of all earthly comfort, he was touched
with some rays of divine light. The cramped conditions faded, the friar's
awareness expanded. "My beloved, the mountains. " Here
too, in the dark emptiness, a spiritual synthesis began to flower. "Faith
and love will lead you along a path unknown to you, to the place where
God is hidden. Everything else gone, no one could divest him of these,
and they gave him God.
Taking advantage of a new jailer who was kinder and more lenient, John
managed to get paper and ink so as to write down his poems. He also had
the opportunity, during a daily reprieve from his cell, to familiarize
himself with the monastery surroundings. Then, one hot night in August,
after being held prisoner for nine months, emaciated and close to death,
John chose life and undertook a dangerous escape he had plotted during
the short periods out of his cell. He had discovered a window that looked
down on the Tajo river, and underneath the window was the top of a wall.
But, of course, there was a lock on his prison door. He solved that problem
by loosening the screws of the lock while his jailer was absent. When the
friars seemed to be asleep and the house all still, he pushed hard on the
door of his prison and the lock came loose. This enabled him to leave his
prison and find his way in the dark to the window. By means of a kind of
rope made out of strips torn from two old bed covers and attached to a
lamp hook, he escaped through the window onto the top of the wall. The
wall encircled the monastery and its garden, so he walked around the top
of it until he came to what he thought was the street side. There he jumped
from the wall, only to find himself in another bad predicament. He had
landed inside the courtyard of the Franciscan nuns of the Conception monastery
that was adjacent to that of the Carmelites. Fortunately, in one corner
of the nuns' garden he found that the stones in the wall could be used
as steps, allowing him to climb over the wall to the city street and to
his freedom. Some claimed his escape was miraculous. At any rate he was
able to find refuge first with Teresa's nuns in Toledo and then, through
their intervention, at the nearby hospital of Santa Cruz, where he was
cared for secretly. The new nuncio, Felipe Sega, not at all like his predecessor,
showed displeasure with Teresa, and especially her friars, who already
numbered more than 300 members. With Tostado's help he explored ways to
bring about some kind of order. In October 1578, nearly desperate, the
discalced friars convened a chapter in Almodóvar del Campo, southwest of
Toledo, despite doubts about its legality. They merely wanted, they claimed,
to execute what they had agreed on in a previous chapter called by Gracián
in 1576, while Ormaneto was still alive. The fugitive Fray John of the
Cross was appointed vicar of El Calvario, a monastery situated in a mountainous
solitude near Beas in Andalusia. Here he would be safer against any attempts
to recapture him.
When Sega learned of the chapter at Almodóvar he declared it null and
void, angrily sent Gracián and others to prison, and placed the discalced
friars and nuns under the authority of the provincial of the observant
Carmelites. But the king had already set up a manoeuvre to dampen Sega's
ardour: a commission to study the accusations against the discalced. In
April 1579 the commission reached its decision, appointing Angel de Salazar,
a former provincial of the observant Carmelites, in charge of Teresa's
friars and nuns. Teresa rejoiced in the appointment, and Gracián praised
Salazar as a gentle and discreet man whose main concern was to console
the afflicted and promote peace.
Purchase the official
English translation of the Collected Works of St John of the Cross, at ICS Publications,
Washington DC.
 Now
also on CD-Rom - Digital Library
The following information has been provided courtesy of ICS Publications. The
copyright of all materials is held by the Washington Provinceof the Discalced
Carmelites. Permission is hereby granted solely for private use of these texts
on which ICS Publications hold the copyright.
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