The Spiritual Canticle is one of St John's greatest works. Using the simple metaphor of the spouse and the bride, he sketches a series of dialogues between God and the soul, rihc in natural imagery. The fragrant vineyards, fruitful valleys and green hills, flocks of sheep and clear streams all speak of the Object of mystical love. The images of the basic Spiritual Canticle are so beautiful and its music so captivating that many who first heard it begged St John to write a commentary, together with its profound reflections on the relations of the soul to God, has become one of the world's richest sources of meditation. The commentary and the sublime poetry that inspired them form what is presented here as the complete Spiritual Canticle.

Claiming to be a literary interpretation, this poem of forty stanza's is loosely based on the Biblical book of Song of Songs. This story follows a bride that has been separated from her bridegroom and her search for him. If it is not obvious enough from the reading of the poem itself and St. John of the Cross's extensive explanation afterwards, the poem is a literary interpretation of Song of Songs, but also of the soul's search for Jesus Christ.

Revised edition of an abridged and annotated version of this classic religious work, first published in 1980. Prepared by a Carmelite priest who has published a number of simplified versions of religious classics. Presents the text of the poem and a lengthy and richly detailed explanation of the work.

At the heart of poetic tradition is a figure of abandonment, a woman forsaken and out of control. She appears in writings ancient and modern, in the East and the West, in high art and popular culture produced by women and by men. What accounts for her perennial fascination? What is her function—in poems and for writers? Lawrence Lipking suggests many possibilities. In this figure he finds a partial record of women's experience, an instrument for the expression of religious love and yearning, a voice for psychological fears, and, finally, a model for the poet. Abandoned women inspire new ways of reading poems and poetic tradition.

This volume contains carefully chosen texts that give a picture of the “essential” St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), a Spanish Carmelite. Included are selections from The Ascent of Mount Carmel, The Dark Night, and Spiritual Canticle.

Offers illuminating essays by passionate and well-recognized American Catholic intellectuals on the interaction between faith and work. By envisioning Catholicism as a cultural force that shapes morality, the arts, creativity, cultural conversation, social justice, spirituality and vocation, the authors invite educational leaders and intellectuals to take seriously their holy work -- of teaching others how to understand and engage the world from a Catholic perspective. Stemming from nearly a decade of conferences sponsored by Collegium, a consortium of sixty Catholic colleges and universities, this book offers new ways of connecting the content and concerns of Catholic faith to intellectual life across academic disciplines. This book helps form a community of inquiry around the issues central to Catholic intellectual enterprise.

St. John (San Juan de la Cruz) is one of the greatest mystics and poets in any language. This is a new introduction and translation of St. John'' poetry (presented in both Spanish and English) and prose commentaries that includes his biography, providing an integrated vision that resurrects the power of his poetic voice.

Solitude is not foreign to anyone. It is a universal reality that permeates all our experiences. But why write a book about it? One answer: God. God is the One we seek in solitude. Solitude, which is a listening to God, a being with God, an attentiveness to God’s word and wisdom, and a being-in-love with God, is worth the journey into it. Persons who enter into solitude and taste its fruits will no longer see as they saw before. Solitude offers another way of seeing. When we are open to discover and to receive, the mystery of solitude purifies the sight, the seeing, the beholding of each person. When solitude brings us to God, God brings us into new vision. This book is directed to all who seek God and who long to “see” God and to know God’s ways more truly. This book is for those who are so eager to be transformed in Christ that they are willing to wade into the waters of solitude. This book invites you to an exploration that begins with the desires to pray: to pray because the hunger for God pursues you; to pray because you believe the value of prayer. Solitude is a milieu of prayer: it beckons us to seek God. Prayer will lead you into the solitude God wants for you. Prayer opens the door to a solitude which will open you to God. Once you read this book, solitude will not be a solitude of emptiness; love will be near.

Queer God de Amor explores the mystery of God and the relationship between divine and human persons. It does so by turning to the sixteenth-century writings of John of the Cross on mystical union with God and the metaphor of sexual relationship that he uses to describe this union. Juan’s mystical theology, which highlights the notion of God as lover and God’s erotic-like relationship with human persons, provides a fitting source for rethinking the Christian doctrine of God, in John’s own words, as “un no sé qué,” “an I know not what.” In critical conversations with contemporary queer theologies, it retrieves from John a preferential option for human sexuality as an experience in daily life that is rich with possibilities for re-sourcing and imagining the Christian doctrine of God. Consistent with other liberating perspectives, it outs God from heteronormative closets and restores human sexuality as a resource for theology. This outing of divine queerness—that is, the ineffability of divine life—helps to align reflections on the mystery of God with the faith experiences of queer Catholics. By engaging Juan de la Cruz through queer Latinx eyes, Miguel Díaz continues the objective of this series to disrupt the cartography of theology latinamente.