Living the Life of God. Introduction to the Trinitarian Spirituality according to St. John of the Cross

Abstract

Trinitarian crisis in the Western theology of the past centuries has caused the basic mystery of faith fade away form Christian life, so what we need today is not just a renewal of trinitology but also a deepening of trinitarian mind of the faithul. Christians are more easily introduced to trinitarian spirituality by Christian mystics whose experience can be paradigmatic.

One of the most important of them is certainly St. John of the Cross (1542-1591).

His own mystical experience can be reconstructed only with some probability; it is his natural discreetness that prevents us from a clearer mapping of his own experience. Yet, on the basis of testimonies of the witnesses in the processes of beatification, and especially by diachronic analysis of his own trinitarian texts (especially a shift in perspective between the poetry and commentary of The Living Flame of Love and the two editions of the Spiritual Canticle) we can arrive at a conclusion that in the years 1584 and 1585 he had two fundamental mystical experiences: first on having a trinitarian character, the other one, pneumatic.

By comparison between these findings and the results of a synchronic analysis of sanjuanistic trinitarian texts (the poems Romances and The Spring, the commentaries Spiritual Canticle and The Living Flame of Love) we arrive at a possible itinerary of the development of his trinitarian mystical experience in three phases: Christocentric, Christic-theocentric, and pneumatopathic-trinitarian. The sanjuanistic experience can serve as a paradigm usable in the mystagogic initiation of Christians to the trinitarian spirituality, as part of the pastoral work of the Church.