What moves all things is God

When St. John was twenty-five years old, a decisive event occurred in his life. He met St. Teresa and was remarkably affected, one could say transformed, by her. She was in her fifties and emanated great spiritual power and insight. It is believed that they fell in love (in the purest sense) with each other. It is reported that she once remarked of St. John, “he was the most angelic human being I have ever encountered.”

In 1577, as a result of the attempted reform of the Carmelite order and his alliance with St. Teresa, he was kidnapped and imprisoned at Toledo. It was during this period of debased confinement and tortured by his fellow priests that he miraculously composed some of his greatest poetry.

For much of the nine month St. John was in prison, he was confined to a tiny cell, actually an unlit closet in which he could not even stand up. He was left to relieve himself on the floor of this tiny cell, and his few scraps of food and water were sometimes thrown into his feces and urine. On a regular basis he was brought from his cell and beaten by some of the other priests, to the extend that he became permanently crippled. He was not given any change of clothes or allowed to wash for month. He became infested with lice and developed acute dysentery. He was forced to sleep upon his own excrement. This prison was the basement of the monastery.

One night in prayer, asking God for the strength to endure his confinement and torture, St. John had this remarkable experience or vision. He heared a duet in which God and he were the singers:

“I am dying of love darling, what should I do?”
And the Beloved responded,
“Then die my sweetheart– just die. Die to all that is not us; what could be more beautiful.”

The prophet Mohammed once said, “Die before you die.” And a contemporary religious figure, Meha Baba, once said, “Being is dying by loving. ” Both are speaking of an important transformative juncture through which we will all pass. “My soul is a candle that burns away the veil,” says St. John, the veil being that which separate us from God. The veil being the false, the untruth we believe, that we must someday die to, before we are born.”