Saint John of the Cross and the mystical event as described in the Ascent of Mount Carmel and the Dark night

Abstract

This thesis will focus on the teachings of St. John of the Cross as they pertain to the mystical path of union with the divine as expressed through his works the Ascent of Mount Carmel and the Dark Night of the Soul. The thesis will discuss the stages St. John of the Cross describes in moving towards this union which can briefly be described as the soul’s attainment to a spiritual state of a kind of receptive contemplation through which divine grace is infused and the human will and the will divine are harmonized. As the works we will examining focus more on the soul’s approach to this state and the various movements by which this approach is characterized, it is to this approach that the focus of our attentions will be most dedicated, which is to say that we will not be examining the unitive event itself, but rather the movements that prepare the soul for this event. INDEX WORDS: St. John of the Cross, Christian Mysticism, Ascent of Mt. Carmel,