Today the Paulist Fathers commemorate, along with the Church, Saint John of the Cross, one of the long-standing patrons of the Paulist community. Saint John of the Cross was born into a converso family (descendants of Jewish converts to Catholicism) in Fontiveros, near Ávila, Spain on June 24th, 1542. In 1563 he entered the Carmelite Order, adopting the name John of St. Matthias. Ordained a priest in 1567, that same year he met the Carmelite nun, Teresa of Jesus, who talked to him about her project to restore the purity of the Carmelite Order by reverting to the observance of its "Primitive Rule" of 1209. In 1568, John founded a new monastery for Carmelite friars to follow Teresa's principles and changed his name to John of the Cross. In 1572 he moved to Ávila, where he became the spiritual director and confessor of Teresa and the other 130 nuns there, as well as for a wide range of laypeople in the city.

In 1577, a group of Carmelites opposed to the reform took him captive. He was imprisoned in the Carmelite monastery in Toledo, where he was treated very harshly. During this imprisonment, he composed a great part of his most famous poem Spiritual Canticle. After eight months, he managed to escape. After being nursed back to health by Teresa's nuns, John continued with the reform. He and his fellow “discalced Carmelites” requested to Pope Gregory XIII to separate them from the rest of the Carmelite Order, which was granted in 1580. He died on this day in 1591, was canonized in 1726, and declared a Doctor of the Church (Doctor mysticus) by Pope Pius XI in 1926.

His mystical poems, The Spiritual Canticle and The Dark Night of the Soul, are widely considered masterpieces of Spanish poetry. The Ascent of Mount Carmel is a more systematic study of the soul’s search for perfect union with God and the mystical events encountered along the way. Living Flame of Love describes soul’s response to God's love. His mystical writings influenced of Thérèse of Lisieux, Saint Edith Stein, T. S. Eliot, and Thomas Merton, and Pope Saint John Paul II wrote his theological dissertation on the mystical theology of John of the Cross.

Paulist Founder Isaac Hecker was greatly influenced by the mystical experience of St. John of the Cross and “noted that the writings of St. John of the Cross and St. Catherine of Genoa had helped him to understand his spiritual journey.” (O’Brien, An American Catholic, 266). It was on his feast day in 1924 that the Mortuary Chapel in the Paulist Fathers’ Crypt at Saint Paul the Apostle Church in New York was consecrated by New York’s Cardinal Hayes. Today we ask for the intercession of Saint John of the Cross for the Paulist Community and the universal church.

Read more: Pope Benedict on St. John of the Cross, Feb 16, 2011