This year, the Catholic Church is celebrating St. Francis of Assisi. There are pilgrimages, celebrations and commemorations marking 800 years since the death of the beloved Franciscan saint.
But 2026 is also a major year for another religious order — and another saint whose name may be less familiar.
For the Carmelites, 2026 is a jubilee year dedicated to St. John of the Cross, marking 300 years since his canonization and 100 years since he was proclaimed a doctor of the Church.
The jubilee is bringing renewed attention to John of the Cross through new books, lectures and conferences. ICS Publications, the publishing arm of the Institute of Carmelite Studies, continues to make his writings and scholarship about him available to readers, while major events this year in Spain have included the International Congress on St. John of the Cross, Presencia y figura (“Presence and Figure”) in Ávila and the Congreso Sanjuanista (“Saint John of the Cross Congress”) in Segovia.
For many Catholics, John of the Cross may be best known for one phrase: “the dark night of the soul.” But there is far more to the Spanish Carmelite than those six words.
Born in Spain in 1542, John knew
