Novena to St. John of the Cross
St John of the Cross is well known for his writings on the mystical life including his great works of the Ascent of Mount Carmel, Dark Night of the Soul, Spiritual Canticle and The Living Flame of Love. Much less known are his other poems, yet these give voice to a tenderness of heart that may be easily lost to the readers of his major works. In particular, The Incarnation and The Nativity, explore God’s infinite desire for union with man. For St John of the Cross, it is God’s impassioned desire for us to be united with him and share in his divine life that fire the soul’s most urgent longing for that same desired union; not the other way around. While we often think that we are the ones pursuing God, the reality is that he is first in constant pursuit of us. We need only to stay still and let him catch us! Let’s begin to do that together in this novena.
Novena to St. John of the Cross
To be prayed daily from December 5–13. Adapted from Carmelite Sisters’ Manual of Prayer
O my loving Father, St. John of the Cross, obtain for me the grace of perfect abandonment to the holy will of God, that placing all my joy and hope in the Passion of my Savior, I may at last rest eternally with you in His glory. Obtain for me also the special grace I ask during this novena if it be for the glory of God and for my salvation
(Here make your petition)
Great St. John of the Cross, model of patience and heroic generosity, who for the glory of God and for the propagation of the holy reform of Carmel, endured so many trials, and undertook such heavy labors, finding, as did St. Paul, your joy in opprobrium, obtain from our Lord for me the grace of unalterable patience in adversity, that I may thereby glorify God, cleanse my soul of every stain, advance in the practice of solid virtue and obtain at last the crown promised to those who suffer for the love of God. Amen
Novena Daily Meditations
Kindly click on the photo for daily meditation.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Novena | Day 1 (December 5)
(The Incarnation Stanza I)
In the fullness of the ages
Now had come the holy tide,
For the payment of the ransom
Of the long-expectant bride
We live in the “fullness of time,” that is the time of the fulfillment of God’s promises from the Old Testament through the Incarnation, Life, Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yet our hearts, minds, bodies and souls most often fail to perceive this full reality. There is a yearning and expectancy deep within us; a longing to experience the fulfillment of the promises in my particular life, in my current circumstances, but seem to elude me. The Church recognizes this condition of the human heart and parallels it in her liturgy through Advent; encouraging us not to give up, to keep yearning and longing and reaching out to the God who wants ardently to be with us and save us. In Advent she is strengthening within us the assurance that our ransom has been paid and the confidence that we will be given the grace to experience this freedom in our hearts, minds and souls ever more deeply each year.
St John of the Cross, pray to obtain the grace for me of perseverance in my desires for union with God. Commend me to Mary and teach me, like you, to wait with her in hope and expectation of the coming of my Savior, Jesus Christ!
Novena | Day 2 (December 6)
(The Incarnation Stanza III)
I, My Son, have in Thy likeness
And Thy image made Thy bride,
And in that resemblance worthy
To be ever at Thy side …
In the first two stanzas, St John of the Cross expressed the ache of our hearts and souls that stems from the bondage of our fallen human nature to sin which, St Paul says, gets its sting from the law. Yet, in the fullness of time, the Second Person of the Trinity took upon himself our human nature, uniting it to the divine nature in the one Person of the Son (hypostatic union), to release us from that bondage; to deliver us from the law. In this third stanza, St John gives us a unique glimpse into how the Father sees us in relation to himself. In the eyes of the Father, our nature from the beginning is something resplendent with divine beauty because it is made in the image of God. The Son of God comes in the flesh as Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, not just to ransom us, but to give us a reflection of the glorious splendor of our true nature. His greatest desire is to restore us to the wholeness and beauty in which we were created.
St John of the Cross, intercede for me that I may understand and esteem my true dignity as child of God, made in his image; beautiful, cherished, honored and loved by a God who wants me always at his side.
Novena | Day 3 (December 7)
(The Incarnation Stanza V)
Perfect love demands a likeness
In the lovers it unites,
For the most complete resemblance
Most aboundeth in delights.
While we are made in the image of God, our likeness to him has been marred by original sin, personal sin and the effects of others’ sins upon us. Our sins and woundedness prevent us from receiving and giving love as we ought. In order to protect ourselves against the pain of these dark places and from being hurt again, we often create hardened barriers around them or close them off completely. In the first line of this stanza, St John of the Cross names for us the divine objective in the Incarnation … to affect a likeness in us to God so that we may receive and give love perfectly and through this perfection of love be united to God himself. What a huge desire of God for us!!! God wants us to desire it, too. Yet only he can bring about this perfection of love. Our job is to let him help us bring down the barriers and give him admittance into the dark places of our hearts and souls so that he can heal the wounds that reside there. While the process is often difficult and painful, the result of this is a union that abounds in sweet delight, as the last line of the stanza states.
St John of the Cross, I ask you to be a friend for me on the journey of transformation this Advent. Help me and encourage me with your intercession to cooperate with the graces God is giving me to let down the barriers of my heart so that he may do his work of love in me
Novena | Day 4 (December 8)
(The Incarnation Stanza X)
I will go and seek My bride, then,
And upon Myself will take
All the poverty and sorrows
She now suffers for My sake.
The whole of Christ’s life, from the moment of the Incarnation all the way through to his Passion, Death and Resurrection, is a pursuit of his Bride … each and every human person that has ever been created; that is, you and me. For the feminine heart, this is probably a much easier concept to relate to, but the truth is that he pursues all of us, relentlessly, every moment of every day. He seeks us out, wherever we wander or when we stay close at hand. He wants to know our joys and sorrows, our fears and desires. In fact, he already knows them, but he wants desperately to experience them WITH us, in union of heart, mind, body and soul. He takes every aspect of our life and being into himself and it is only through that taking in that it can be redeemed, repaired – made whole, and sanctified – made holy. There is no part of our life where he does not want to meet us and be with us; from the brightest to the darkest, most pitiful and shameful.
St John of the Cross, you had a lover’s heart and delighted in the pursuit of the divine Bridegroom for union with you. Pray for me this Advent, that I will recognize his pursuit of me and let him captivate me, redeem me, heal me and draw me into union with him in every aspect of my being.
Novena | Day 5 (December 9)
(The Incarnation Stanza XI)
And that I true life may give her,
I will give for her My own,
So shall I present her, rescued,
From the pit, before Thy throne.
The Gospel of John (10:10) says, “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” We see in this stanza a reflection of the Gospel’s revelation that God desires to give us life in super abundance. That is, life beyond the ordinary nature of what we experience here on earth. The only way for God to do this is to give us his very own life. In an ancient Christmas antiphon we read: “O marvelous exchange! Man’s creator has become man, born of the Virgin. We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share our humanity.” In taking all our sin, pain and suffering upon himself in the cross and bringing it through the portals of death into the resurrection, Christ has accomplished what he was sent to do by the Father in the Incarnation. He has rescued his Bride, the Church, and every member of her individually by exchanging his life for hers. Indeed, by taking us into himself, into his own life, so that we may live abundantly. We don’t have to wait for heaven to experience this abundant life. Because of the Incarnation, we can begin to experience it now, here on earth, in every aspect of our life.
St John of the Cross, pray for me. Help me to open my mind, heart and soul to the reality of God’s grace present to me right now; to his desire to unite me to himself and give me life in my current circumstance, now matter how painful or delightful it may be from an earthly perspective. Thank you for obtaining this Advent grace of closeness to our Lord for me.
Novena | Day 6 (December 10)
(The Same Subject Stanza III)
In this wondrous operation,
Though the Sacred Three concurred,
He who in the womb of Mary
Was incarnate, is the Word.
In the days of Advent, as Christmas approaches, we read many of the Old Testament prophecies and references to the Messiah. One such reading is from the book of Wisdom (18:14-15): “For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, thy all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed.” In yesterday’s stanza we read how God unites us to himself in order to bring us before the Throne of the Father. Yet, in order to do that, God had to take a risk. In the Second Person of the Trinity, the Word, the Son, he chose to assume to his Person the limitations of our human nature without giving up his divine nature. He emptied himself and “became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” (2 Cor 8:9) Although it is the Son who eagerly receives this task, the Father and the Holy Spirit share equally in the operation and remain united in this work of union with us. In the divine Word, we have access, as far as our human limitations permit, to all the treasures of wisdom, knowledge, love and grace that reside in him. In his Sacred Heart he shows us how to live perfectly from this place of divine sonship and blessedness.
St John of the Cross, commend me to our Blessed Mother, who opened her heart, mind, soul and body to receive the Incarnate Word. Together, with her, obtain for me the grace to love the poverty and humility that prepare me to receive this same Lord in the Eucharist each time I approach the altar in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. In each Holy Communion, may I grow in wisdom, grace, love and every virtue that is pleasing to God in my life.
Novena | Day 7 (December 11)
(The Same Subject Stanza V)
In the womb of Holy Mary
He His flesh did then receive:
So the Son of God Most Highest
We the Son of Man believe.
It is amazing beyond words to think that the almighty and infinite God, made himself so small as to become the tiniest zygote in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Helpless, fragile, and extremely vulnerable in his human nature, Christ, who in his divine nature is all-powerful, became absolutely dependent upon the care of Mary, the providence of his heavenly Father, and the solicitude of St Joseph. This notion may have become blasé to us as we revisit it every Advent season. I invite you today, however, to reflect upon this: as Christ became like us, we are to become like him in all things. In Matthew’s Gospel he tells us, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 18:3) In the original Greek text the word implicates not just a child, but an infant. God is inviting us to experience his Fatherly tenderness and providential care to the greatest extent possible. The smaller, the poorer in spirit and humbler we become, the more we learn to both rely on him and rejoice in the extravagance with which he provides. He doesn’t want us to have to make it on our own; in fact, we can’t. We need him and the more trust and confidence we have in him, the more he provides.
St John of the Cross, in your wisdom you became poor and dependent like Christ. Help me, too, by your prayers, to become a little child in the arms of my Father and to learn from Christ the blessedness of dependence upon him and the fulfillment of his providential care.
Novena | Day 8 (December 12)
(The Nativity Stanza I & II)
Now at last the destined ages
Their appointed course had run,
When rejoicing from His chamber
Issued forth the Bridegroom Son.
He embraced His bride, and held her
Lovingly upon His breast,
And the gracious Mother laid Him
In the manger down to rest.
What an amazing thought! God loves me so much that he would become a tiny Infant, so small, so vulnerable, so unintimidating, just so that I would not be afraid to approach him. What is even more amazing is that in this journey of Advent, we are learning to recognize by faith that this same God comes to us every day, in the same unintimidating manner, in the Eucharist. As the poem says … every time I receive him, he embraces me as his bride and holds me in love close to his Heart. What I often fail to realize, however, is that he is also looking for a place to rest. Centuries ago, Mary laid him in the manger, but his desire is to be able to lay down his head to rest in the home of my heart. As he lays me upon his Heart, he desires, in turn, to lay his Head in my heart and there to find rest in my love and adoration for him. He has no need for my love, but he DESIRES it. How can we not respond to this exchange in which we give him so little and obtain so much?
St John of the Cross, take me with you in adoration of the Lord before his throne and be with me each time I receive Holy Communion. Pray for me that, like Mary, I may give him the rest in my heart that he longs for with as much love as I can. Then, receiving the grace of union with him, may my heart continue to expand in its capacity to love!
Novena | Day 9 (December 13)
(The Nativity Stanza IV & VI)
So the feast of their espousals
With solemnity was kept;
But Almighty God, an infant;
In the manger moaned and wept.
Man gave forth a song of gladness,
God Himself a plaintive moan;
Both possessing that which never
Had been hitherto their own.
So many mysteries are laid out in these two little stanzas (and the one in between, too!). The reality of the hypostatic union of the human and divine natures in the Second Person of the Holy Trinity is astounding! In taking our human nature in its fullness to himself, God makes his divine nature accessible to us by transformation into a similar union. We use the earthly imagery of bride and bridegroom to depict this. That state of charity is one in which two human beings desire to give themselves so completely to one another that, though remaining separate persons, they become one new reality together. The Incarnation, then, is like a betrothal. The human and divine natures are exchanged like gifts between us and God as a pledge for the future wedding feast to come in eternity where that union will be wholly consummated. Here on earth, we learn to live and delight in the exchange of gifts (grace from God and acts of trust, love and adoration from us), ever growing in love for one another. As we do this a gradual transformation within our whole beings takes place and union with the Beloved, who is God, increases. As long as we are attentive and responsive, this dynamic exchange of love will continue to grow until the transformation is complete and we are brought into full union with God as we pass through death from this life to eternity. The bliss and beatitude of that final exchange will have no end!!!!!
St John of the Cross, help me by your prayers to use this time of Advent well; to prepare my heart to receive, once again, this awesome exchange of gifts and the pledge of eternal glory. Help me, like you, to set the desires of my heart and the vision of my life on nothing less than this transforming union of love.
Happy Solemnity of St. John of the Cross!
May your heart be enflamed by the Living Flame of Love!
“O living flame of Love
That tenderly wounds my soul in its deepest center!
Since now You are not oppressive,
Now perfect me if it be your will:
Tear through the veil of this sweet encounter!
…
How gently and lovingly
You awake in my heart,
Where in secret You dwell alone;
And in your sweet breathing, filled with good and glory,
How tenderly You swell my heart with love.”
–St. John of the Cross,
excerpt from his poem, “The Living Flame of Love”