St. Juan's ideal of saintliness was as much of an anachronism as his
scheme of Church reform. But no one ever climbed the rugged peaks of
Mount Carmel with more heroic courage and patience. His life shows
what tremendous moral force is generated by complete self-surrender to
God. And happily neither his failure to read the signs of the times,
nor his one-sided and defective grasp of Christian truth, could
deprive him of the reward of his life of sacrifice--the reward, I
mean, of feeling his fellowship with Christ in suffering. He sold "all
that he had" to gain the pearl of great price, and the surrender was
not made in vain.
The later Roman Catholic mystics, though they include some beautiful
and lovable characters, do not develop any further the type which we
have found in St. Teresa and St. Juan. St. Francis de Sales has been a
favourite devotional writer with thousands in this country. He
presents the Spanish Mysticism softened and polished into a graceful
and winning pietism, such as might refine and elevate the lives of
the "honourable women" who consulted him. The errors of the quietists
certainly receive some countenance from parts of his writings, but
they are neutralised by maxims of a different tendency, borrowed
eclectically from other sources.[301]
A more consistent and less fortunate follower of St. Teresa was Miguel
de Molinos, a Spanish priest, who came to Rome about 1670. His piety
and learning won him the favour of Pope Innocent XI., who, according
to Bishop Burnet, "lodged him in an apartment of the palace, and put
many singular marks of his esteem upon him." In 1675 he published in
Italian his _Spiritual Guide_, a mystical treatise of great interest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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