A bunch of ordinary people who lived extraordinary lives. Here are some amazing Catholics who will always be by your side and cheer for you up in Heaven :) Uploads every week (I'm sort of hoping)
#4 in Catholic 6/25/18
#4 in Saints 6/25/18
St. John of the Cross is one of the 31 doctors of the church and a very influential thinker and writer.
St. John of the Cross was born as Juan de Yepes y Alvarez in Fontiveros, Avila, Spain in the year of 1542. His father worked for a rich family as an accountant but they fired him when he married a woman of the lower class. He died when John was only three. His mother had to resort to weaving in order to heal her family.
John went to a boarding school for the poor and orphaned and given a religious education. As a child, he decided to have a religious vocation and served as an acolyte at an Augustinian monastery. While he attended Jesuit school, he worked at a hospital.
When he was 23, he joined a Carmelite Order, taking the name of "John of St. Matthias". He studied theology and philosophy in Salamanca and became an expert of the Bible. John translated the Song of Songs into Spanish which was very controversial because the Church didn't allow any other translation than Latin in order to protect the original meaning of the scripture.
He became a priest in 1567 and wanted to join the Carthusian Order. Monks would live in cells and held a simple quite life. John met St. Teresa of Avila (Chapter 4) and she asked him to join her order which he did. Her followers wouldn't wear shoes and were devoted to prayer and simplicity. They were known as the discalced Carmelites.
Teresa founded a new monastery (Nov. 28, 1568) the day John changed him name to John of the Cross. John would travel to Avila to be Teresa's confessor and spiritual guide and remained in Avila for 5 years.
He had a vision of Christ and made a drawing of it called "Christ from Above". (the following picture is that) The Carmelites wanted to restore the order the way it was which interfered with Teresa's and John's thinking of how it should be.
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John returned to his original house after being ordered to leave in 1577. His work to reform the order was approved by Napal Nuncio (higher authority). John ignored it and stayed where he was.
On December 2. 1577, Carmelites broke into where John was staying and kidnapped him, bringing him to the main house located in Toledo. He was forced to go to court and placed on trial for disobedience and had to be sent to prison which was so small that he couldn't even lie on the floor. He only had bread and water with sometimes fish. Once a week, he was taken into public and whipped in front of anyone who wanted to see it and then was brought back to jail. He only had a prayer book and an oil lamp. John wrote poems on paper smuggled to him by the friar that guarded his cell.
After 9 months, John pried open his cell door and fled to rejoin Teresa and her nuns in Toledo after spending 6 weeks in a hospital to recover.
In 1579, he went to Baeza to be a rector of a new college as well as to support the Discalced Carmelites in Andalusia.
In 1580, Pope Gregory announced the split between the Discalced Carmelites and the rest of the order.
John continued to travel and establish new houses across Spain. He became sick in 1591 because of the skin condition that left him with an infection and died shortly after.
