More than once, I have been having a conversation with someone who said that either the Ascent of Mount Carmel or the Dark Night of the Soul was the most beautiful thing they’d read. Still caught off guard even after it having happened before, the most recent time I heard this, I didn’t know what to say. And I don’t think I managed to keep the conversation on the topic at all.

The reason for my silence is that I was processing an assertion that, to me, just made no sense. In my mind, the prose works of John of the Cross are four, these four should all be read, and the two named by my interlocutors are the least interesting in the long run.

Now, it emerged on this occasion that (at least as far as I understand) this person had only read those two first prose works of John of the Cross: the Ascent and the Dark Night. The reason for this is quite possibly down to familiarity, marketing, and just how popular those works have been over the centuries. Other sanjuanist works like the Spiritual Canticle and the Living Flame of Love get less attention (notwithstanding obvious dissidents like Saint Thérèse). They are less well known in the general population. That’s just a fact. So, if this person thought the Ascent or the Dark Night was the most beautiful thing, that only meant that John of the Cross wrote of the most beautiful things. It didn’t mean that these sanjuanist works were more beautiful than other sanjuanist works. There was no comparison intended, because there was no point of reference. This of course makes complete sense. I’ve run into it before.

The reason I bring all this up is that I am not sure how the Ascent and the Dark Night could be more beautiful than the Spiritual Canticle and especially the Living Flame of Love. If someone had actually read the complete works, but far preferred the Ascent or the Dark Night, I would be perplexed. Well, I might understand it if the person had been with John of the Cross for a short time. But a familiarity of years bordering on decades would be confusing.

In one sentence, each of these works can be described as follows. The Ascent is the active, ascetic work we must do ourselves to get through the dark nights and make progress. The Dark Night takes up the same story with greater emphasis on our passive side in that story, or rather the active work of God in that story. The Spiritual Canticle is aimed at explaining the nuptials of the soul with its divine Lover. The Living Flame is the story of the transformation, the conversion of human wood into divine fire. The first three show a progression from more focus on us and our efforts to more focus on the principal actor, God, and the end goal. The fourth work is synthetic, with stress laid on the end, the transformation, the work of God. Obviously there is much that could be said to nuance these short summaries. But taking each reductive précis as I’ve written it should be enough to see why I think it odd that focusing on the more human, less divine end of the scale could possibly be “the most beautiful.” It might be more useful at certain stages. That I do agree with, and wholeheartedly. But more beautiful? I hardly think so. Beauty comes especially from a full integration of parts. Beauty is by definition most present in the synthetic, total-story, end-view Living Flame.

I think that another way to explain my consternation could be taken from what Pope Francis has said about Thérèse of Lisieux. Sometimes we see people take only parts of her and not her whole message; they favour her “secondary” teachings over her primary story (C’est la Confiance 51). Now, in the present case, I wouldn’t say that the Ascent and the Dark Night are “secondary” to the central sanjuanist message. But I would certainly say they are “first stage” or “preliminary.” They don’t get around to giving full scope to the transformation that the soul can receive in Christ, its transfiguration, its genuine and startling freedom. And as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) says, “The entire doctrine of [Saint John of the Cross] is a doctrine of love, an instruction how the soul will arrive at being transformed in God who is love.”[1] This is where everything really is focused. It’s where everything leads. It’s the raison d’être of all the sanjuanist teaching. Yet this is taken up more in some of the Mystical Doctor’s writings than others. The image of the log consumed in the fire and becoming fire is present in the earlier works (Dark Night 2.10.1–4), but when this occurs, it doesn’t make up the focal point as in the Living Flame. Likewise for the spiritual nuptials in the Canticle.

In addition, I would also point out, stress, hammer home, that the only major sanjuanist work composed for a layperson was the Living Flame. It’s the only one taking up a vocabulary of realization that consciously envisages life in the world, outside Carmel, outside a cloistered or semi-cloistered life. I genuinely would wonder about a layperson, active religious, or diocesan cleric who, having read everything by John of the Cross, did not favour this work. There would need to be serious questions asked, I think, about whether they were trying to do the impossible, making prayer everywhere into a Carmel, twisting the message of John of the Cross in the process, possibly morphing it into something quietistic rather than evangelical. I don’t make any assertions. That would be unjust. But I would surely wonder and want to verify what I was hearing. The message of John has been presented by John for people outside the cloister. Why do you not like that version more (while retaining and also reading the cloistered expressions, too, of course, in their measure)? I don’t pre-judge the answer. But I certainly ask the question. I would worry about myself if I had these tendencies.

All that being said, if the Ascent and/or Dark Night speak to you right now, read them. If you hold on to some of their messages, that is perfect. These works contain many gems. They lay excellent foundations. They cannot be bypassed if one is to take John of the Cross as a serious companion. But never be surprised if, giving the Canticle or the Flame a try, you fall further in love with John of the Cross—and his beauty and that of his divine Beloved.

Blessed, happy feast day of John of the Cross to all celebrating!

[1] Edith Stein, The Science of the Cross, trans. Josephine Koeppel (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 2002), 297.