During the tumult of cross-country house moves, a good friend and I decided to study the Bible in a Year with Father Mike Schmitz. The following year, together we studied under his Catechism in a Year program.

What has been a good follow-on study to both of these courses in the Catholic faith has been studying together The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross. During lockdown in 2020, I bought myself a copy of this book and one for my friend, never envisioning how I would read it. Now that we have nearly completed this book, I wonder how I can continue to pray without reference to St. John’s words.

What is so special about St. John of the Cross? Isn’t he the saint who wrote the poem, “The Dark Night?” Yes, and it is a beautiful poem described in detail, line by line in his own commentary and those on all of his poems in the collected works. What is so endearing about this saint is his ability to put into poetic language just how much God loves us. But even more importantly, St. John tells us that God desires a very special relationship of love, peace and joy with all of us, no matter our vocation or social status.

Backed up by Bible verses from both the Old and New Testaments, St. John of the Cross shows his readers in his poetic commentaries the path of trials and tribulations that God uses to purge his children out of love. Helping them to grow up spiritually, God brings his children through stages of learning so that they can more naturally choose to put him first no matter the cost. The soul of each person can choose through avoiding sin to love God and his way of love, thereby growing closer to God in this special, transformative relationship he so wants for each of us.

But how many of us Catholics are just satisfied with doing the bare minimum of living a life of charity? Do we even know that there is something so magnificent here on earth for all who can surpass in love the worst suffering? That’s what the introduction of the book prepares the reader to understand by explaining what St. John of the Cross suffered to find out about this special relationship he could have with God. The book’s introduction goes into his childhood, when St. John was rejected by his father’s family as he and his mother and siblings dealt with severe poverty. Clearly, his imprisonment later by his fellow Carmelites, his new family in the Church, could have been a real blow for John. But here he finds just what God is doing, how much the Lord Almighty wants to get close to him and use him to help others.

Many Catholics have completed both the Bible in a Year and Catechism in a Year programs and are looking for the next means to study the faith. I believe that what we learned in those programs is fleshed out in this book by learning about how a tried man of God, well-versed in Scripture and a loyal son of the Church, put all those principles into practice and became a saint.

Don’t let the size of the book overwhelm you. Like the Bible and the Catechism, break it up into a reading plan to be accomplished throughout a year. Go through the narrow gate with joy following this son of Christ.

Reaching this relationship with God after choosing him through one trial after another, St. John of the Cross describes it in the commentary on his poem, “The Living Flame of Love,” as follows:

In this state of life so perfect, the soul always walks in festivity, inwardly and outwardly, and it frequently bears on its spiritual tongue a new song of great jubilation in God, a song always new, enfolded in a gladness and love arising from the knowledge the soul has of its happy state.

Let’s read the works of St. John of the Cross!