Carmelite and Poet: A Framed Portrait of Saint John of the Cross, with his poems in Spanish by Robert Sencourt (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Carmelite and Poet: A Framed Portrait of Saint John of the Cross, with his poems in Spanish. By RoBERT SENCOURT. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1944. Pp. xiii + 274, with index. $3.00. Previous reviewers have judged that, although this book was written with genuine enthusiasm, it is "too wordy and woolly," contains a few historical errors, adds nothing to the extensive literature on the saint, and exhibits a considerable lack of theological background. It is unnecessary for us to cover this ground again. Instead, we shall try to indicate the fundamental weakness in the author's portrayal of St. John as a mystic. We shall not, therefore, comment upon Mr. Sencourt's conception of St. John the poet. It is our belief that the author of Carmelite and Poet has failed to grasp the doctrinal unity binding the saint's works into one; nor has he understood the supernatural principle of grace operating as the basis of the saint's teaching. This has resulted in a poorly "framed portrait" of St. John of the Cross as the great mystical doctor. St. John's doctrinal unity is apparent in his four major works, which form the " summa" of his teaching and are undoubtedly authentic: The Ascent of Mount Carmel, The Dark Night of the Soul, The Spiritual Canticle, The Living Flame of Love. In addition, there are poems, letters, and maxims. Although a number of the letters have been lost or destroyed , nevertheless we have, in the four above-mentioned works, the complete teaching of the saint of Carmel. Scholars disagree as to their chronological order, but that matters little. All the works were written within a few years of each other, and St..John was in full possession of his complete doctrine when he began to write. What is to be- noted is the logical sequence in which we have listed the books. The saint is inflexibly logical; and his works, therefore, demand attentive and repeated reading. So carefully are they knit together that only constant study, as he himself warns us (The Ascent, Prologue, n. 8), will reveal the train of thought that runs a straight course through them. But what is this thread of doctrine that so harmoniously weaves through St. John's works and makes of them a whole? It is his teaching on the meaning of perfect union of the soul with God, and a thorough description on how to arrive there. The frontispiece of the critical edition of The Ascent of Mount Carmel, which is also reproduced in the English translation of Peers, contains an original sketch by St. John showing the road to perfection and the summit that is to be reached. In this allegorical 131 132 REVIEWS sketch is contained, the central theme of his whole doctrine. AH his works either the summit of the mount, or the path leading to iL We grasp their value when we reflect that the Carmelite friar, having reached the summit of perfection, ·~ now looking down explaining the direct that leads to the top of the mount and pointing out the two side-paths, hall' way up the mountain, that lead to thick entangling forests and impassable hills beyond which there is no advance. That St. John teaches only one direct way to the summit and only one type of divine union (and that mystical), which he also calls the state of perfection, can be proved from the fact that his description of divine union is one and the same in all his works. By this union he means simply the conformity of the creature's will with the will of God. Not any conformity , but conformity is the summit of Carmel toward which we dimb. Even in The Ascent, this is the goal placed before generous souls. But the saint does not teach that all souls must reach the same high degree, or that the union is realized in the same manner by all. " The state of this divine union consists in the soul's total transformation, according to the will, in the will of God, so that there may be naught in the soul that is contrary to the will of God...