The turmoils and dissension in his own Order, the struggle for power, and the persecution he was to suffer never touched the inner peace of John of the Cross. His life was devoted to contemplative thought, to meditation and prayer, and even the activity of writing was something he did not need, and was undertaken mainly out of regard for others. Poetry was apparently of little interest to him in his youth, and it is only as an apparent interlude in his later activities that Saint John wrote a few poems, which are considered the best in the Spanish language. He had never aimed at literary success, and indeed his works were not even published during his life. He had no intentions either of writing on philosophical or theological themes; he only ventured into fashioning commentaries on his own poetry in order to help the novices in their understanding of the religious life they had undertaken. Almost against his will, these commentaries became treatises of doctrinal exposition of theology.

As we have indicated, Saint John wrote poetry to express the most intimate experiences of his solitude and treatises to explain this poetry. Neither poetry nor treatises were a source of pride or a form of achievement to him. They were only a record of his life of contemplation in which the inner pursuit of knowledge had taken him to an awareness of the power of the mind seldom experienced in such fullness. His experience was one of mystic knowledge because it transcended the normal paths of logical understanding. Therefore, the strange relationship of contemplation and mystic experience to the refinements of poetic expression should be studied only as affecting the form of his writings, never as a part of his life, since Saint John of the Cross deliberately shunned any involvement in literary ambitions. His biographers then have to study a process influenced by many forces and leading ultimately to knowledge through ecstasy and only taking at one point the forms and conventions of literature to fill them with the outpouring of his emotions.

Saint John never had anything to do with the usual literary circles. He was devoted entirely to the perfection of his inner life or incidentally, to the affairs of his Order. The external events, the travelling, the struggle for the independence of his group against the old Carmelites, the teaching of novices, all the duties of his station, were for him only accidental; necessary, but not essential to his undertaking. His vocation as a religious was to perfect his soul to the point of annihilation of whatever kept him from a complete union with God. This pursuit of perfection and complete understanding of the divine is a discipline and an aim that has been known to all religions. His mysticism is, therefore, in no way different from the attainment and the experiences of other mystics, except that it has become known to us in special ways both through his doctrinal treatises and his poetry. But it could have remained unsaid, and, as far as Saint John himself cared, the loss of his writings would have made absolutely no difference in his determination to strive for perfection.

The life of a mystic must exist in itself and for itself before any expression or sign of such an inner adventure can reach others. Often it is only under extreme pressure, under orders from superiors even, that the person who has achieved ecstasy decides he must communicate his experience. The writings of Saint John are even more reticent than those of other mystics. He had no desire to explain himself or his position in them. “Where Saint Theresa is prepared in the cause of charity to expose her intimate spiritual life that others may gain from her experience, Saint John of the Cross from motives of humility allows no trace of his own personal history to obtrude, at least in identifiable form.”

‘San Juan de la Cruz’ by Bernard Gicovate