Where Have You Hidden?
Saint Edith Stein follows Saint John of the Cross into the darkness of his Toledo prison
In The Science of the Cross, Saint Edith Stein describes one of the most crucial episodes in the life of Saint John of the Cross: his nine-month imprisonment in Toledo. Her account brings us to August 14, 1578, when the weakened prisoner longed to celebrate Mass on the following day, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
On the night of December 3, 1577, several of the Calced with their accomplices broke into the living quarters of the nuns’ two confessors and took them away as captives. From then on, John was missing. True, Holy Mother [Teresa of Avila] learned that the prior, Maldonado, had taken him away. […]
On August 14, 1578, Prior Maldonado came to John’s prison cell accompanied by two religious. The prisoner was so weak that he could hardly move. Thinking his jailer had entered, he did not look up. The prior poked him with his foot and asked why he did not stand up in his presence.
As John begged pardon, saying he had not known who was there, Padre Maldonado asked, “What were you thinking about since you were so absorbed?”
“I was thinking that tomorrow is the feast of Our Lady and that it would be a great consolation for me if I could say Mass.”
How he must have missed celebrating the holy sacrifice in the nine long months when he was never allowed to do so! He had to spend the Feast of Corpus Christi, on which he was accustomed to kneel for hours in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, without Mass and Communion. To be helplessly delivered to the malice of bitter enemies, tormented in body and soul, cut off from all human consolation and also from the strengthening sources of ecclesial-sacramental life—can there be a harder school of the cross?
Yet this was not the most intense suffering. All this was incapable of separating him from the triune source of which his faith gave him certainty. His spirit was not confined in the prison; it could raise itself to that ever-flowing spring, immerse itself in this unfathomable depth, in the torrent which filled everything created, including his own heart.
No human power could separate him from his God—but God himself could withdraw from him. And the prisoner experienced this darkest night here in his jail.
¿Adónde te escondiste,
Amado, y me dejaste con gemido?
Where have you hidden,
Beloved, and left me behind in tears?
— Saint Edith Stein
The Science of the Cross, I.5
⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
As Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross experienced arrest and confinement without the sacraments, do you think she felt a special spiritual closeness to Saint John of the Cross?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.
Source reference
Stein, Edith. The Science of the Cross. The Collected Works of Edith Stein, vol. 6. Translated by Josephine Koeppel. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 2002.
Featured image
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos, 1541–1614), View of Toledo, ca. 1599–1600, oil on canvas.
Image credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York / The Met Collection (Public domain).
I'm sure that the Beloved gave her this insight into John so that it would be with her later.
Being arrested or confined leaves no doubt about the sacrifice being made. However, sickness, age, etc can have the same effect but the door to questioning and self doubt remains open. This is where a spiritual confessor or counselor is required. Unfortunately, these days they are few and far between. And 8 months ago I was given a new Rx and before I realized its side effects, I had lost the ability for internal, verbal prayer. I stopped it after three weeks but the documented side effects indicated they were permanent and could bring on the mental illness associated with old age, the name of which I can't remember.