Powerful St. John of the Cross Prayers
O God,
by whose grace Your servant
St. John of the Cross,
kindled with the flame of Your love,
became a burning and shining light in Your Church.
Grant that we also may be aflame
with the spirit of love and discipline,
and walk before You as Children of light;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
Who lives and reigns with You,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.
Stillness of Soul Prayer
O Blessed Jesus,
give me stillness of soul in You.
Let Your mighty calmness reign in me.
Rule me, O King of Gentleness,
King of Peace.
Light and Love Prayer by St. John of the Cross (his personal prayer)
“Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth.
Mine are the nations, the just are mine,
and mine the sinners.
The angels are mine, and the Mother of God,
and all things are mine;
and God Himself is mine and for me,
because Christ is mine and all for me.
What do you ask, then, and seek, my soul?
Yours is all of this, and all is for you.
Do not engage yourself in anything less
or pay heed to the crumbs that fall from your Father’s table.
Go forth and exult in your Glory!
Hide yourself in it and rejoice,
and you will obtain the supplications of your heart.”
Petition Prayer
Almighty Father,
you endowed John of the Cross
with a spirit of self-denial
and a love of the Cross.
By following his example,
may we come to the eternal vision of your glory.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
About St. John of the Cross
John is a saint because his life was a heroic life lived by way of “the Cross.” Ordained a Carmelite priest in 1567, John met Teresa of Avila at 25 years of age and began engaging in the challenging work of reform and the pursuit of true faith. Because of this, he came to experience the price of such conviction and Truth teaching — increasing opposition, misunderstanding, persecution, imprisonment, etc. Through his own series of crosses, John came to know the cross acutely sitting month after month in a dark, damp, and narrow jail cell with only God by his side.
The irony is that in his imprisonment, in his losing of life some would say, Saint John came to life! In the darkness of the dungeon, his spirit came into Light. It was through this cross that St. John became a mystic-poet, expressing his ecstasy of mystical union with God in famous canticles such as the Spiritual Canticle. Through this canticle and the several that followed, John underlined the Gospel paradox: the cross leads to resurrection, agony to ecstasy, darkness to light, abandonment to possession, denial to self to union with God. In other words, if you want to save your life, you must lose it. Amen!
St. John died at 49 years old. A short life, but one fully lived.
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