The Beloved One in Saint John of the Cross' Spiritual Canticle. A Hermeneutic Phenomenology of Agape as the Essence of Christ Husband

Abstract

The Spiritual Canticle, written by Saint John of the Cross, is one of the most important mystical testimonies of tradition. Faced with those interpretations that make the mystique of Saint John of the Cross "modeless", the aim of the following paper is to show the Christ-centered character of the encounter between the spiritual one and God. The method used for the description of the features that define the unifying experience of Christ Husband in the Spiritual Canticle B, establishes an original development of hermeneutic phenomenology (which is exposed in other publications). Though significantly influenced by the early Heidegger, as well as by Juan Martín Velasco and José Gómez Caffarena, the method here exposed goes beyond his proposals. The relevance of the research is that it makes several original contributions to ontology of mystic love.