Saint John of the Cross, Priest and Doctor of the Church

Juan de Yepes was born in 1542 at Fontiveros near Ávila. His father died young, leaving the family poor; at Medina del Campo he worked in a hospital and studied with the Jesuits. He became a Carmelite in 1563, and in 1567 met Teresa of Ávila, who persuaded him to join her reform; in 1568 he began the first house of Discalced friars at Duruelo, taking the name John of the Cross. In December 1577 friars opposed to the reform seized him and kept him for nine months in a tiny cell in Toledo, where he composed much of the Spiritual Canticle; he escaped by night on a rope of strips of blanket. His poems, among them The Dark Night, are classics of Spanish literature. He died at Úbeda on 14 December 1591.