On this day exactly 100 years ago, Pope Pius XI declared the Carmelite friar and priest St John of the Cross to be the 26th Doctor of the Church; this was just shy of 200 years after his canonization, which took place on December 27, 1726. As noted in the relevant decree, in 1891, the year which marked the 3rd centenary since St John’s death, a petition requesting that this be done was submitted to the Holy See by several Spanish cardinals and bishops.
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| St John in Ecstasy before the Cross, ca. 1705, by the French painter Antoine Ranc (1634-1716.) |
Here is an excerpt from a translation of said decree, the most important pertinent part; the full text can be read at the website of the Discalced Hermits of Our Lady of Mt Carmel.
“During his nine months of detention he wrote his “Spiritual Canticle” to celebrate the mystical union of the faithful soul with Christ, her Bridegroom, and to show forth the manifold effects as well as the sweet affections of prayer. He developed it later by considerations and explanations. Delivered miraculously from prison, he set to work, at first in the Convent of Calvary, then in other houses where he sojourned filling various offices, and composed other writings in which, as inspired by light from on high, he showed to souls, in a penetrating commentary on the divine gifts, the way of perfection. “The Ascent of Mt. Carmel,” “The Obscure Night,” “The Living Flame of Love,” and his numerous small treatises and letters, though treating of difficult and hidden matters, contain at the same time an elevated spiritual doctrine, which is nevertheless within the reach of his readers. His works may rightly be regarded as the manual and school of the faithful soul in the search for the most perfect life.It is not astonishing that the Bull of Canonization should affirm, that St. John of the Cross wrote “upon Mystical Theology books full of a heavenly wisdom”; to this judgment of the highest importance, the greater number, if not all, will give their assent. After his death, which occurred in 1591, John became in the course of time such an authority in the mystical science, that the ascetical authors and saintly persons recognized in him a master in sanctity and piety. For their spiritual writings, they drew from his doctrine and works as from a limpid source of the Christian thought and the mind of the Church.”
