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Guided by a Saint

I have always loved mountain climbing, and my experiences climbing in the Alps remind me of the ascetical demands of discipleship. My alpine mountain guide filled me with enthusiastic desire for the summit, taught me to rise early and to climb while fasting, not taking large strides when small steps would do. He insisted that I never stop but rather develop a rhythm in the climb, so that after a while climbing becomes automatic. I remember how often I wanted to pause, perhaps drink from a mountain stream, but my guide discouraged all digression, insisting that the peak alone merited our concentration. I found that you soon lose sight of the peak when climbing, as some shoulder of the mountain or an outcrop of rock intervenes, and you set your sights on each crest in the climb. After but a little climbing, you lose sight of where you have come from and where you are going the guide is particularly helpful at that time. I remember once taking four hours and twenty-five minutes to get part way up a glacier and, threatened by a storm, coming down in twenty minutes how painfully slow to climb up, and how quick to lose the gains made! I have climbed alone, with a guide, or roped with six others. Sometimes the latter were helpful, as the members of the group aided each other, but I have also slipped hundreds of feet, dragged down by someone else I was tied to. Climbing is never easy, and no matter how much you think ahead about the climb, nothing substitutes for the real thing. But there are few experiences in life that compare with the thrill of reaching the summit, and people who have never endured the climb, and felt the exhilaration, have lost one of life's great gifts. When you have climbed to a significant peak you see the world below you in a way no one else can; but more significantly, the conquest of a climb helps you see life in a different way. I feel not only grateful but deeply indebted to my guide. As I think over those significant times, I am sitting in front of a blazing log fire in a campground. The day was tiring and exciting; the climb arduous and rewarding; the fire warm and transforming; the night is ahead. So many of John's images cascade before me.

John was an outstanding spiritual guide, who knew well the way to the top of Mount Carmel and the characteristics of both determined travelers and curious spiritual tourists. He was totally dedicated to the former, and all his works focus on their needs. Though aware of the latter, he does not ordinarily include them in his system. This should be constantly kept in mind when reading John, since readers frequently assume John is criticizing others, when in fact he is speaking of the faults of religiously dedicated people like themselves.

John warns all potential directees neither to presume that their experiences are equal to union with God, nor to conclude that God is absent from their lives if they are without special spiritual communications. "If a person experiences some elevated spiritual communication or feeling or knowledge, it should not be thought that the experiences are similar to the clear and essential vision or possession of God.... It should be known too that if all these sensible and spiritual communications are wanting and persons live in dryness, darkness, and dereliction, they must not think that God is any more absent than in the former case" (C, 1, 4). John had reason to dispute the high value placed on extraordinary experiences in his "Censure and Opinion on the Spirit and the Attitude in Prayer of a Discalced Carmelite Nun," and to encourage Doña Juana de Pedraza when she suffered from dryness (Letter 19).

John sees the dedicated individual as a special charge to the spiritual director. Such a "thirsting soul" is "the bride," and will find that "God...is hidden" within, where he must be sought with love (C, 1, 6). This soul, "most beautiful among all creatures," seeks God and his rewarding fullness but finds God to be ever elusive. John advises the anxious searcher, "your desired Beloved lives hidden within your heart" (C, 1, 9), and thus, he insists that one focus attention on the inner search. "And what else do you search for outside, when within yourself you possess your riches, delights, satisfactions, fullness, and kingdom your Beloved whom you desire and seek?" (C, 1, 8). John fills people with the thrill of the quest and, knowing what lies ahead, encourages them to remember constantly that God is always present to them. "It brings special happiness to a person to understand that God is never absent, not even from a soul in mortal sin (and how much less from one in the state of grace)" (C, 1, 8).

Journeying to God within requires expert guides who are both enlightened and experienced (A, Prologue, 4). Those directors who lack the necessary skills harm their directees (A, Prologue, 3 5; 2, 18; F, 3, 27 62). Moreover, journeying without a guide, some individuals "work and tire themselves greatly, and yet go backwards" (A, Prologue, 7). John is an expert guide who brings to his direction years of spiritual guidance of others, together with a solid grasp of theology. He details the lot of beginners, proficients, and the perfect (A, 1, 1, 3), points out the weaknesses and strengths of each stage, and indicates signs to look for when someone is ready to move to a new stage (A, 2, 13 15; N, 1, 9). Moreover, we need only to read a few chapters of any of John's works to arrive at the firm conviction that this guide knows exactly what he is doing, and where and how he is leading his directees.

However, not only is John one of the most knowledgeable spiritual directors in the history of Christian spirituality, one who has influenced most succeeding syntheses, but his system claims our confidence for another reason: It produced a great saint. Excellent works of systematic theology can be produced by individuals who are themselves failures in their dedication to the Lord. Sanctity is not a requirement for an accurate understanding of academic theology. It is, however, for spiritual theology and mysticism. John guides searchers to God, and we need to be assured that his way is successful. John must not only be knowledgeable; he must be a saint. Great as he is, he never imposes his ideas on anyone. His humility toward his own insights reminds us not to be fundamentalists or literalists in our use of his vision and teaching.

Not only did John attain a high degree of personal holiness, as we have seen, but the church, on both the official and popular levels, has publicly recognized John as a model of Christian living. Canonizing saints is frequently a "politicized" process and can be used for purposes of control. Ideally, however, official recognition is complemented by widespread popular acclaim, and such is clearly the case with John. In fact, even those who are intimidated by John often have the nagging suspicion that he is right. Saints are God's gifts to the church, often channeling God's revelation in a vital way to complement magisterial teaching and theological reflection. Some saints simply embody perennial Christian values; others respond to specific situations or problems in the church. Sixteenth century Spain produced Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, Peter of Alcántara, Francis Borgia and others. John differs from them all. His sanctity is molded by internal ecclesiastical persecution, as he strives for renewal an d reform in the post-conciliar church after the Council of Trent (1545 1563).

Since his twenties John strove for a quality of life that religious institutions of his day rarely facilitated. He even considered withdrawing to a Carthusian monastery. But at Teresa's request, he dedicated himself to reform. His success, especially as a spiritual director at the Incarnation, led to others' jealousy, and spiteful superiors imprisoned him. Later in Toledo, he was humiliated, disgraced, and tormented by individuals convinced of their own rightness, who punished him with imprisonment and solitude, binding others to secrecy an astounding story of religion's failure. Worse lay ahead, when his own disciples in the reform sought to limit his influence, push him out of leadership, and degrade him in the way ostensibly religious people have of attacking their own, even those who are carefully obedient and orthodox.

Through all his hardships, John maintained his values, strove after his unchanging goals, and never became like his persecutors nor succumbed to bitterness. He came through it all an extraordinary human being, who achieved his goals without trampling on anyone, without abusing the power religion gives, and without reducing the ideals he had maintained from his youth.

Today religion is too often linked with power, control, and money. Essential values are sacrificed for the maintenance of institutional power, and pseudo-leaders trample over the dedicated in the name of religious authority. Individuals who take a different path are often persecuted, especially when they have a large following. Ecclesiastical totalitarianism raises its head again, and mysticism is left to a courageous few.

A saint for our times, an exceptional guide, the era of the greatest influence of the Mystical Doctor is ahead of us.

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