St. John of the Cross, or Juan de la Cruz, the Spanish mystic and poet, was born at Fontiveros, near Ávila. His family was poor, and as a child he worked in a hospital at Medina del Campo in return for training at the Jesuit school. In 1563 he entered the Carmelite order in Medina, and in the following years he studied at the University of Salamanca. In 1567, the year he was ordained priest, he met St. Teresa of Ávila and planned to start a monastic community in line with the kind of reform she had effected among nuns. Such a community was started in 1568, under the original Carmelite rule and in conditions of great poverty and austerity. This was a prelude to energetic reforming work by St. John and growing opposition on the part of his superiors. In...