Born into an higher classification kinfolk in Castile, Spain, Gonzalo de Yepes had sturdy customers - that's, until eventually his father used to be ruined in a speculative enterprise. After his father died a pauper, Gonzalo was once welcomed into the house of a wealthy uncle, who meant him to marry one in every of his more youthful daughters. The younger guy may were manage for all times, yet he fell in love with Catalina Alvarez, the ward of a negative weaver, and insisted on marrying her regardless of his uncle's threats to chop him off from the relatives fortune.

Thus, Gonzalo and Catalina have been wed in simplicity, and their union produced 3 sons, the youngest of whom got here to be referred to as Saint John of the move.

Stories of saints don't usually commence with their mom and dad' courtship. yet during this old novel, love is on the very middle of the drama, for Saint John of the go turned one of many Church's ideal specialists on intimacy with God. His mystical poems on divine love are thought of many of the maximum verses ever written within the Spanish language.

Richly drawn opposed to the backdrop of Spain's Golden Age, the radical follows the fun and hardships skilled by way of the kin of younger Juan de Yepes Alvarez. His charm to doing solid for others, his name to the priesthood and his front into the Carmelites all spread with eye-catching sort. trying out Saint John to the maximum have been his efforts, besides these of Saint Teresa of Avila, to reform the Carmelite Order. His Brothers in faith harshly resisted him, locking him in a mobile the place he used to be often crushed and approximately starved to dying. even with all, this ardent and engaging guy may write: "Where there's no love, positioned love and you may achieve love."