John leads it to the highest heights, in fact to the point where it becomes a 'partaker of the Divine Nature'. As the soul emerges from the Dark Night it enters into the full noonlight described in the 'Spiritual Canticle' and the 'Living Flame of Love'. The perfect purgation of the soul in the present life leaves it free to act with wonderful energy: in fact it might almost be said to obtain a share in God's omnipotence, as is shown in the marvelous deeds of so many saints. Here lies one of the essential differences between St. It is now passive, but not inert, for by submitting to the Divine operation it co-operates in the measure of its power. Not until these are removed (a most formidable task) is it fit to be admitted to what he calls the 'Dark Night', which consists in the passive purgation, where God by heavy trials, particularly interior ones, perfects and completes what the soul had begun of its own accord. what he terms the spiritual capital sins. Supposing the soul with which he deals to be habitually in the state of grace and pushing forward to better things, he overtakes it on the very road leading it, in its opinion to God, and lays open before its eyes a number of sores of which it was altogether ignorant, viz. In the application of this simple maxim he shows the most uncompromising logic. His axiom is that the soul must empty itself of self in order to be filled with God, that it must be purified of the last traces of earthly dross before it is fit to become united with God. He represents the ideal of one who has passed, as he had done, through the career of the spiritual life, through its struggles and its victories'. He presents you with a portrait, not with a fancy picture. John, who hardly ever speaks of himself, 'invents nothing' (to quote Cardinal Wiseman), 'borrows nothing from others, but gives us clearly the results of his own experience in himself and others. They both start from their own experience, St. Teresa, whose influence is obvious throughout, might be termed empirical mysticism. In the absence of any conscious or unconscious influence of earlier mystical schools, his own system, like that of St.

The few quotations from patristic works are easily traced to the Breviary or the 'Summa'. But there is no vestige of influence on him of the mystical teaching of the Fathers, the Areopagite, Augustine, Gregory, Bernard, Bonaventure, etc., Hugh of St. Holy Scripture he seems to have known by heart, yet he evidently obtained his knowledge more by meditation than in the lecture room. Thomas Aquinas, as almost every page of his works proves.

He was not what one would term a scholar, but he was intimately acquainted with the 'Summa' of St. John particularly relished psychology this is amply borne out by his writings. It has been recorded that during his studies St. at Hontoveros, Old Castile, 24 June, 1542 d. Teresa) of the Discalced Carmelites, doctor of mystic theology, b.

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