The Ascent Of Mount Carmel

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16th Century spiritual treatise by Spanish Christian mystic and poet St John of the Cross. The Ascent Of Mount Carmel is part of four works by John dealing with the so-called Dark Night Of The Soul, when the individual Soul undergoes earthly and spiritual privations in search of union with God. Along with the other three, The Dark Night Of The Soul, The Living Flame of God, and the Spiritual Canticle it is regarded as one of the greatest works of mysticism in Christianity and in the Spanish language.

Written between 1578 and 1579 in El Calvario after his escape from prison, the Ascent is illustrated by a diagram of the process outlined in the text of the Soul's progress to the summit of the metaphorical Mt Carmel where God is encountered. The work is divided into three sections and is set out as a commentary on four poetic stanzas by John on the subject of the Dark Night. John shows how the Soul sets out to leave all worldly ties and appetites behind to achieve "nothing less than transformation in God".

John's spiritual method of inner purgation along the 'negative way' was an enormous influence on T. S. Eliot when he came to write the Four Quartets and contains the famous lines of self-abnegation leading to spiritual rebirth:

To reach satisfaction in all
desire its possession in nothing.
To come to possession in all
desire the possession of nothing.
To arrive at being all
desire to be nothing.
To come to the knowledge of all
desire the knowledge of nothing.
To come to the pleasure you have not
you must go by the way in which you enjoy not.
To come to the knowledge you have not
you must go by the way in which you know not.
To come to the possession you have not
you must go by the way in which you possess not.
To come by the what you are not
you must go by a way in which you are not.
When you turn toward something
you cease to cast yourself upon the all.
For to go from all to the all
you must deny yourself of all in all.
And when you come to the possession of the all
you must possess it without wanting anything.
Because if you desire to have something in all
your treasure in God is not purely your all."
(trans Kieran Kavanaugh OCD - Paulist Press ISBN 080912839X)

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[edit] References

  • John of the Cross: Selected Writings - translated & introduced by Kieran Kavanaugh OCD. Preface by Ernest Larkin, O. Carm. Paulist Press ISBN 080912839X