St. John of the Cross

Well, John is a pretty problematic figure. First, the bad news. John was so excessively ascetic, meaning that he mortified his body so badly, that he essentially killed himself. He got gangrene from one of his attempts to mortify his body and died. He was not by all records, a kind man.

What John said however is very interesting. He was a life long lover of the Song of Songs, and he wrote love poetry for Christ. He had this idea that one would use recollection, a form of Christian meditation pioneered by Teresa, until what he called the "Prayer of Silence" began to emerge. Recollection involves meditating first on one's daily life, and then on some biblical verse. That's the short parts version. It is a very structured meditation.

When the "Prayer of Silence" began to emerge, the mind would be emptied of thought, and John believed at this point that this state should be extended in order to obtain mystical union with Christ himself. It is called "Bridal Mysticism" because it uses the metaphor of marriage to explain union with God.

He talked about a process whereby the mind would be mortified of its old ways until it became pure, and that is the origin of the term "Dark Night of the Soul."

He ran afoul of the Inquisition and went into hiding, and then died alone and unrecognized.

As you may notice, both Teresa and John used sexual symbolism in their Christianity. This had been done for many centuries, but as you can imagine it was fairly controversial, continues to be so today actually. Sometimes it amazes me that people that look at sex as massage therapy get all in a tizzy when you tell them you're married to God. Just an interesting side note.