Homily for Memorial of St. John of the Cross

Homily for the Memorial of
St. John of the Cross

Dec. 14, 2021
Matt 21: 28-32
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph Residence, New Rochelle, N.Y.

Jesus’ parable of the 2 sons and the vineyard concerns the reception of his preaching by different people.  When those commonly regarded as the worst of sinners accept him, the Kingdom of God opens for them.  When the “proper” people of society close their minds to him, the Kingdom is closed to them.  Acknowledging our sins, turning to Jesus for mercy, and with his grace attempting a more faithful life are the keys to entering the Kingdom.

In the 16th century many religious were like the 2d son in the parable, professing a “yes” to the Christian life but not living up to their “yes.”  Such scandal was one of the many reasons for the demand to reform the Church that produced both 16th-century Reformations, Protestant and Catholic.

(Francisco de Zurbaran +1664)

John of the Cross is one of the saints of the Catholic Reformation.  He wasn’t a terrible sinner, in the class of the tax collectors and prostitutes of Jesus’ parable, when Teresa of Avila recruited him to reform the male Carmelites of Spain, who had long given up their strict, original way of life.  When John began to reform the order, he suffered terribly, first from those who resisted reform, and later even from those in his own, supposedly reformed branch.  The first group, for instance, on one occasion kidnapped him, kept him in a tiny, dark cell for 9 months, and beat him.  Ambitious and bitter members of the reformed group slandered him and persecuted him, driving him, apparently, to an early death at the age of 49.

John’s suffering induced profound meditation on the cross of Christ, on divine love, and on human response to that love.  His spiritual writings are treasures of Spanish literature and in the last century inspired Fr. Karol Wojtyla’s doctoral dissertation and his own spirituality.

The cross is never far from us, whether in physical suffering or some other anguish.  Suffering also comes in the form of repenting our sins—so enticing to us at times—and recommitting ourselves to our Lord Jesus, to the fervor of our 1st profession, to faithful religious life.  Like John of the Cross, we find in Christ’s cross the way into God’s Kingdom.