Living Flame Of Love

Living Flame of Love (1987) by St John of the Cross
Burns and Oates | ISBN: 086012049X
Condition: Good
As sold by Crappy Old Books

There are books that offer practical advice, sensible encouragement, and perhaps a few manageable suggestions for improving one’s day. Living Flame of Love is not especially interested in such modest ambitions. St John of the Cross aims rather higher, namely at the purification of the soul, the annihilation of earthly distraction, and union with the divine in language of such incandescent intensity that modern self-help begins to look like a pamphlet about tidying a cupboard.

This is mystical theology in its grand, blazing, poetic form. St John of the Cross does not merely discuss spiritual life as though it were a hobby one might fit in before lunch. He writes as a man for whom the interior life is the central drama of existence, and whose chosen method of describing it involves flame, longing, ecstasy, darkness, transformation, and the sort of spiritual seriousness that makes most of us feel we have been approaching eternity with rather too casual an attitude.

The title alone is magnificent. Living Flame of Love suggests not a polite candle flickering in a chapel corner, but something fiercer and more consuming: divine love as fire, illuminating, purifying, and rather alarmingly capable of burning away everything that is not essential. St John is one of those writers who reminds you that religion, in its deeper forms, is not meant to be merely decorative. It is meant to alter the whole structure of being, which is a larger commitment than many readers were perhaps expecting from a paperback.

Yet for all its austerity and intensity, this is also a profoundly beautiful work. St John’s prose and poetry possess that rare quality of feeling both intimate and immense. He writes of the soul’s journey with lyrical force, as if language itself is straining to describe something almost beyond expression. The effect is often astonishing: deeply contemplative, occasionally daunting, and entirely unconcerned with whether the reader was hoping for something a bit lighter.

Published in this 1987 Burns and Oates edition, the book comes from a venerable Catholic publishing tradition well suited to such a text. It feels exactly right that a work of this depth and gravity should appear in an edition intended for serious devotional and theological reading, rather than being tidied up into something too modern, cheerful, or accommodating. Mysticism, after all, loses a certain something when overly softened.

There is also a certain irony in encountering so fierce and demanding a spiritual masterpiece as a second-hand paperback, sitting perhaps between a gardening manual and a thriller about espionage. Yet that is part of the charm of old books. One moment you are sorting shelves, the next you are confronted with a sixteenth-century Carmelite mystic explaining the soul’s transformation in God with unnerving conviction. It keeps one humble.

This copy is in good condition, showing the expected signs of age and reading but remaining sound, readable, and entirely fit for further contemplation. It has survived well, which is more than can be said for many modern souls exposed to far less exacting literature.

A fine choice for readers of Christian spirituality, Catholic theology, mysticism, and devotional classics. It will particularly appeal to those who like their religious writing with depth, poetry, and absolutely no intention of merely helping them “feel better.” Living Flame of Love is a book for readers willing to be challenged, illuminated, and perhaps singed slightly round the edges by a far more serious conception of love than the modern world usually offers.

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