The works of St John of the Cross are those of one of the greatest spiritual directors in the Christian tradition. His analysis, discernment, and teaching converge towards a single aim: guiding the person towards union with Jesus and towards the fullness of love.
Necessity of Spiritual Direction in Spiritual Life
The necessity of spiritual direction in the spiritual life is central to his vision. His understanding of spiritual direction remains of striking relevance. He holds that God himself, in fidelity to the logic and coherence of the Incarnation, desires us to seek help through another person. For St. John of the Cross, the Lord remains the true spiritual master, and the Holy Spirit is the principal guide of the interior life, yet this divine guidance is ordinarily mediated on earth through human instruments, Jesus’ Body, the Church. Although the Lord has ascended into heaven, he remains present and active within his Body, the Church, and the incarnational logic continues through concrete, human relationships. In this sense, spiritual direction becomes one of the most important ways of honouring the Incarnation and of receiving God’s grace.
This conviction is expressed with great theological clarity in the Ascent of Mount Carmel, where he writes: “God is so desirous that the government and direction of every man should be undertaken by another man like himself, and that every man should be ruled and governed by natural reason [natural means], that He earnestly desires us not to give entire credence to the things that He communicates to us supernaturally, nor to consider them as being securely and completely confirmed until they pass through this human aqueduct of the mouth of man.” (Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II,22,9). The entirety of chapter 22 of Book II of the Ascent of Mount Carmel deserves to be read as a whole.
It is precisely for this reason that St. John of the Cross insists so strongly on the danger, especially in a deep spiritual life, of walking alone. His Sayings offer a series of vivid and uncompromising images. “Whoever wants to stand alone without the support of a master and guide will be like the tree that stands alone in a field without a proprietor. No matter how much the tree bears, passers-by will pick the fruit before it ripens.” (St John of the Cross, Sayings, 5). By contrast, he observes: “A tree that is cultivated and guarded through the care of its owner produces its fruit at the expected time.”(Sayings, 6).
He goes further by describing the inner weakening that follows isolation: “The virtuous soul that is alone and without a master is like a lone burning coal; it will grow colder rather than hotter.” (Sayings, 7). The consequences are even more serious when one falls: “The one who fall alone remain alone in their fall, and they value their soul little since they entrust it to themselves alone.” (Sayings, 8). This warning closely echoes the wisdom of Scripture: “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help.” (Ecclesiastes 4:9–10).
St. John presses the point with rhetorical force: “If you do not fear falling alone, do you presume that you will rise up alone? Consider how much more can be accomplished by two together than by one alone.” (Sayings, 9). He adds a final set of images that underline the danger of self-reliance in the spiritual journey: “Whoever falls while heavily laden will fin it difficult to rise under the burden.” (Sayings, 10). “The blind person who falls will not be able to get up alone; the blind person who does get up alone will go off on the wrong road.” (Sayings, 11).
Ill-formed spiritual directors
St. John of the Cross is under no illusion. He is fully aware of the errors and weaknesses of spiritual directors, and he repeatedly and forcefully warns against those who are ill formed. His writings stand as a profound testimony to his desire to help the faithful grow in love and attain union with God in the fullness of charity in Christ. They are not abstract treatises, but pastoral interventions born of concrete suffering and real confusion within the spiritual life.
The Prologue of the Ascent of Mount Carmel offers a particularly clear witness to this concern. There, he presents the case of a person who had undergone a genuine interior transformation, yet whose experience was misunderstood by spiritual directors incapable of discerning the true nature of God’s action. What was in fact a deeper and more intense work of grace was interpreted as failure (sinfulness) or regression. Faced with the interior anguish inflicted on this soul by such misjudgement, St. John takes up his pen in order to explain how God acts within us, the different phases of that action, and the way in which a change in God’s mode of working can be perceived by the person as the very opposite of what it truly is. What appears to be darkness or loss is often, in reality, spiritual progress. In this sense, page after page of his works constitutes a sustained formation for spiritual directors, offering criteria for discernment and warning against superficial or purely psychological readings of the interior life.
St. John understands his own vocation in a twofold manner. He is first and foremost a monk; writing is not his chosen mission. Yet the disordered state of spiritual direction in his time compels him, as in an emergency, to write. His works emerge from a sense of responsibility towards souls who are being hindered, wounded, or even crushed by incompetent guidance, and from a conviction that silence would amount to complicity.
There is therefore a clear tension in his teaching. On the one hand, spiritual directors are a powerful means given by God within the Church for genuine spiritual growth. On the other hand, this very responsibility demands serious formation, humility, and true discernment. St. John’s writings function both as a defence of spiritual direction and as a severe warning to those who exercise it without adequate understanding of the ways of God.
He is not alone in this insistence. St. Teresa of Avila repeatedly bears witness, with great realism, to the harm caused by poorly instructed spiritual directors. Throughout her Life and other writings, she recalls how such guidance caused her deep suffering, led her astray, or at least significantly slowed her spiritual progress. Together, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross offer a convergent and sober judgement: spiritual direction is indispensable, but when it is ill formed, it can become a serious obstacle to the work of grace rather than its servant.
Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “According to St John of the Cross, the person wishing to advance toward perfection should ‘take care into whose hands he entrusts himself, for as the master is, so will the disciple be, and as the father is so will be the son.’ And further: ‘In addition to being learned and discreet a director should be experienced. . . . If the spiritual director has no experience of the spiritual life, he will be incapable of leading into it the souls whom God is calling to it, and he will not even understand them.’”” (Ref.: St. John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love, stanza 3, 30, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross,eds K. Kavanaugh OCD and O. Rodriguez OCD (Washington DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1979), 621. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2690).
Sayings of Light and Love
The origin of the Sayings of Light and Love (See here) lies in very concrete pastoral practice. These brief texts were originally written on small pieces of paper that St. John of the Cross gave to those under his spiritual guidance, so that they might remember his counsel between one meeting and the next, rather like a physician handing over a written prescription. The directee could read and reread these words, allowing them to sink in and to shape prayer and conduct until the following moment of spiritual direction. His drawing of the Mount is a synthesis of his teaching, given to his directees.
It is therefore important to recall that the Sayings of Light and Love, which form part of his minor works, are in fact short, precise counsels addressed to particular persons, in response to particular needs, at particular moments in their spiritual journey. They were never intended to be read straight through as a continuous text as they correspond to different needs at different stages of growth. Even so, when read today, they offer something exceptionally valuable: an open window onto St John of the Cross’s concrete practice of spiritual direction, revealing both the sharpness of his discernment and the economy of his spiritual pedagogy.
Other Works
His practical concern for the formation of spiritual directors also appears elsewhere in his writings. In The Living Flame of Love, especially in the commentary on the third stanza, third verse, he speaks at length about the role and responsibility of the spiritual director. These passages contain strong, demanding, and at times uncompromising advice, addressed to those who guide others in the ways of God (Living Flame of Love, III, 28–53). They confirm that his brief sayings and his major mystical treatises belong to the same coherent vision of spiritual accompaniment.
For readers today, a careful and guided reading of his major works is often indispensable in order to grasp fully the theological and experiential framework within which the Sayings of Light and Love must be understood.
A detailed study of texts such as the Ascent of Mount Carmel and the Dark Night is offered online. It helps to clarify God’s action in the soul, the way this action is perceived subjectively, and the principles of authentic discernment. When undertaken with sound guidance, such study greatly assists both those who receive spiritual direction and those who are called to offer it. See here: Playlist of the first part of the Course: Reading & Studying “Ascent of Mount Carmel”, Book I, Playlist, 49 Videos.
Primary Sources
St John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, especially the Prologue and Book I, in The Collected Works of St John of the Cross, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh OCD and Otilio Rodriguez OCD (Institute of Carmelite Studies). A reliable overview of the structure and purpose of the Ascent is available from the Institute of Carmelite Studies: https://www.icspublications.org. For the parallel witness of St Teresa of Avila, see The Life of Teresa of Jesus, particularly chapters 13–15, in The Collected Works of St Teresa of Avila, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh OCD and Otilio Rodriguez OCD (ICS Publications): https://www.icspublications.org.