SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS

PRAYER

O blessed Jesus,
give me stillness of soul in You.
Let Your mighty calmness reign in me.
Rule me, O King of Gentleness,
King of Peace.

ON THE COMMUNION OF THE THREE PERSONS

Out of the vast love
born of them both,
the Father spoke to the Son
with words of celebration,

With words of such full delight
that none can know,
only the Son, only He took joy,
since they were breathed in His ear alone.

But here is what can be understood:
"Nothing, my Son, pleases Me,
but Your company.

"If something is sweet,
through You alone do I taste it.
The more of You I see in its reflection,
the wider My smile.

"What is unlike You, has nothing of Me.
In You alone is My delight,
Life of my Life!

"You are the Fire of My Fire,
My knowing, the form of My substance,
in You am I well pleased.

"Whoever gives his love to You, my Son,
to him I give Myself, and him I fill
with the love I feel for You
just for making You beloved,
my Beloved."

I LIVE, BUT DO NOT LIVE IN ME

I live yet do not live in me,
am waiting as my life goes by,
and die because I do not die.

No longer do I live in me,
and without God I cannot live;
to Him or me I cannot give
my self, so what can living be?
A thousand deaths my agony
waiting as my life goes by,
dying because I do not die.

This life I live alone I view
as robbery of life, and so
it is a constant death
with no way out until I live with You.
God, hear me, what I say is true:
I do not want this life of mine,
and die because I do not die.

Being so removed from You I say
what kind of life can I have here
but death so ugly and severe
and worse than any form of pain?
I pity me -- and yet my fate
is that I must keep up this lie,
and die because I do not die.

The fish taken out of the sea
is not without a consolation:
his dying is of brief duration
and ultimately brings relief.
Yet what convulsive death can be
as bad as my pathetic life?
The more I live the more I die.

When I begin to feel relief
on seeing you in the Sacrament,
I sink in deeper discontent,
deprived of Your sweet company.
Now everything compels my grief:
I want -- yet can't -- see You nearby,
and die because I do not die.

Although I find my pleasure, Sir,
in hope of someday seeing You,
I see that I can lose You too,
which makes my pain doubly severe,
and so I live in darkest fear,
and hope, wait as life goes by,
dying because I do not die.

Deliver me from death, my God,
and give me life; now You have wound
a rope about me; harshly bound
I ask You to release the cord.
See how I die to see you, Lord,
and I am shattered where I lie,
dying because I do not die.

My death will trigger tears in me,
and I shall mourn my life:
a day annihilated by the way
I fail and sin relentlessly.
O Father God, when will it be
that I can say without a lie:
I live because I do not die?

THE SPIRITUAL CANTICLE

THE BRIDE

Where have You hidden Yourself,
and abandoned me in my groaning,
O my Beloved?
You have fled like the hart,
Having wounded me.
I ran after You, crying;
but You were gone.

O shepherds, you who go
through the sheepcots up the hill,
if you shall see Him
Whom I love the most,
tell Him I languish, suffer, and die.

In search of my Love
I will go over mountains and strands;
I will gather no flowers,
I will fear no wild beasts;
and pass by the mighty
and the frontiers.

O groves and thickets
Planted by the hand of the Beloved;
O verdant meads
enameled with flowers,
tell me, has He passed by you?

ANSWER OF THE CREATURES

A thousand graces diffusing
He passed through the groves in haste,
and merely regarding them as He passed
clothed them with His beauty.

THE BRIDE

Oh! who can heal me?
Give me at once Yourself,
send me no more a messenger
who cannot tell me what I wish.

All they who serve are telling me
of Your unnumbered graces;
and all wound me more and more,
and something leaves me dying,
I know not what, of which they are darkly speaking.

But how you persevere, O life,
not living where you live;
the arrows bring death Which you receive
from your conceptions of the Beloved.

Why, after wounding this heart, have You not healed it?
And why, after stealing it,
have You thus abandoned it,
and not carried away the stolen prey?

Quench my troubles,
for no one else can soothe them;
and let my eyes behold You,
for You are their light,
and I will keep them for You alone.

Reveal Your presence,
and let the vision and Your beauty
kill me, behold the malady
of love is incurable
except in Your presence
and before Your face.

O crystal well!
Oh that on Your silvered surface
you would mirror forth at once
those eyes desired
which are outlined in my heart!

Turn them away, O my Beloved!
I am on the wing!

THE BRIDEGROOM

Return, My Dove!
The wounded hart looms on the hill
in the air of your flight
and is refreshed.

My Beloved is the mountains,
the solitary wooded valleys,
the strange islands,
the roaring torrents,
the whisper of the amorous gales;

the tranquil night
at the approaches of the dawn,
the silent music,
the murmuring solitude,
the supper which revives,
and enkindles love.

Catch us the foxes,
for our vineyard has flourished;
while of roses we make a nosegay,
and let no one appear on the hill.

O killing north wind, cease!
Come, south wind, that awakens love!
Blow through my garden,
and let its odors flow, and the Beloved
shall feed among the flowers.

O nymphs of Judea!
While amid the flowers
and the rose-trees
the amber sends forth its perfume,
tarry in the suburbs,
and touch not our thresholds.

Hide yourself, O my Beloved!
Turn Your face to the mountains,
do not speak, but regard the companions
of her who is traveling
amidst strange islands.

THE BRIDEGROOM

Light-winged birds,
lions, fawns, bounding does,
mountains, valleys, strands,
waters, winds, heat,
and the terrors that keep watch by night;

By the soft lyres
and the siren strains, I adjure you,
let your fury cease,
and touch not the wall,
that the bride may sleep in greater security.

The bride has entered
the pleasant and desirable garden,
and there reposes to her heart's content; her neck reclining
on the sweet arms of the Beloved.

Beneath the apple-tree
there were you betrothed;
there I gave you My hand,
Aa you were redeemed
where your mother was corrupted.

THE BRIDE

Our bed is of flowers
by dens of lions encompassed,
hung with purple, made in peace,
and crowned with a thousand shields
of gold.

In Your footsteps
the young ones run Your way;
at the touch of the fire
and by the spiced wine,
the divine balsam flows.

In the inner cellar
of my Beloved have I drunk;
and when I went forth over all the plain
I knew nothing, and lost the flock
I followed before.

There He gave me His breasts,
there He taught me the science
full of sweetness.
and there I gave to Him
myself without reserve;
there I promised to be His bride.

My soul is occupied,
and all my substance in His service;
now I guard no flock,
nor have I any other employment:
my sole occupation is love.

If, then, on the common land
I am no longer seen or found,
You will say that I am lost;
that, being enamored,
I lost myself; and yet was found.

Of emeralds, and of flowers
in the early morning gathered,
We will make the garlands,
flowering in Your love,
And bound together
with one hair of my head.

By that one hair
You have observed fluttering on my neck,
and on my neck regarded,
You were captivated;
and wounded by one of my eyes.

When You regarded me,
Your eyes imprinted in me Your grace:
for this You loved me again,
and thereby my eyes merited
to adore what in You they saw.

Despise me not,
for if I was swarthy once
you can regard me now;
since You have regarded me,
grace and beauty have You given me.

THE BRIDEGROOM

The little white dove
has returned to the ark with the bough;
and now the turtle-dove
its desired mate
on the green banks has found.

In solitude she lived,
and in solitude built her nest;
and in solitude, alone
ha as the Beloved guided her,
in solitude also wounded with love.

THE BRIDE

Let us rejoice, O my Beloved!
Let us go forth to see ourselves
in Your beauty,
to the mountain and the hill,
where the pure water flows:
let us enter into the heart
of the thicket.

We shall go at once
to the deep caverns of the rock
which are all secret,
there we shall enter in
and taste of the new wine of the pomegranate.

There you will show me
that which my soul desired;
and there You will give at once,
O You, my life!
That which You gave me the other day.

The breathing of the air,
the song of the sweet nightingale,
the grove and its beauty
in the serene night,
with the flame that consumes,
and gives no pains.

None saw it;
neither did Aminadab appear.
the siege was intermitted,
ans the cavalry dismounted
at the sight of the waters.

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