“In the twilight of life, we shall be judged on love alone.”

Can you find a more poetic line than that? I doubt it, because it was written by the patron saint of poets: John of the Cross.

John understood the beauty and sacrifice of love from a young age. His father had been disinherited by his family for marrying below his class, and when he died, his wife and son were left in abject poverty. But love justified the sacrifice, and young John sought the same love with God. He found it in deep contemplation, and became a monk to center his life around that love. 

John continued to carry that love through the many trials of his life. He experienced imprisonment by rival monks, intense periods of desolation from God, and constant physical illness. It was in these times when love could not seem farther away that he learned his ultimate lesson: “Where there is no love, put love, and you will draw out love.”

The virtue of love allows us to care for another person even more than we care for our own self. In John’s love for God, there was no room for ego. There was only room for God, and John of the Cross overflowed with the goodness that God places in each of our hearts.

Find the goodness that God has placed in your heart. That is love. This love from God is beautiful, selfless, and radical. By contrast, the world’s vision of love places a disproportionate focus on physical pleasure and having fun. God’s vision of love is others-focused selflessness; the world’s vision of love is me-focused selfishness.

Find this selfless love. Center your life around it, and soon God, who is Love, will be living through you.



Feast Day: December 14

Feast Day Shared By: Blessed János Brenner, Blessed Mary Frances Schervier, and Saint Agnellus of Naples

Patron Saint of: Contemplatives, Mystics, and Spanish poets

Symbols: A Cross

Canonized: December 27, 1726

Canonized By: Pope Benedict XIII