# Spanish mystics

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17th · 18th
French
Margaret Mary Alacoque
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19th
Dina Bélanger
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Mélanie Calvat
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Luisa Piccarreta
Mary of the Divine Heart
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Gemma Galgani
20th
Padre Pio
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Marthe Robin
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Edgar Cayce
Simone Weil
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Edvige Carboni
Elena Aiello
Contemporary papal viewsAspects of meditation (Orationis Formas, 1989)
Reflection on the New Age (2003) :
Literature and media
Lingua ignota
Ordo Virtutum
Scivias
Ascent of Mount Carmel
Dark Night of the Soul
Spiritual Canticle
Way of Perfection
Book of the First Monks
The Interior Castle
Abbey of the Holy Ghost
A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation
From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart
The Glories of Mary
The Imitation of Christ
The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Philokalia
Revelations of Divine Love
The Story of a Soul
Theologia Germanica
Devotio Moderna
Fatima in Lucia's Own Words
Calls from the Message of Fatima
The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima
Sol de Fátima
The Cloud of Unknowing
On the Consolation of Philosophy
The Mirror of Simple Souls
Sister Catherine Treatise
Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii
The Vision of Adamnán
Divine Comedy
Inferno
Purgatorio
Paradiso
Fatima :
vte :
The Spanish mystics are major figures in the Catholic Reformation who lived primarily in the 16th- and 17th-centuries. The goal of this movement was to reform the Church structurally and to renew it spiritually. The Spanish mystics attempted to express in words their experience of a mystical communion with Christ.

## Language and writing style

These writers had a strong influence on the development of the Spanish Language and were said to have ushered in the "Golden Age of Spanish Literature." At the beginning of the time period, the language was viewed as coarse; by the end, the language had achieved what is called "the high baroque style of Spanish," which in certain forms (especially in formal letter-writing) continues to influence Spanish usage to the present.
In addition to being examples of Christian holiness and major Spanish literary figures, the Spanish Mystics were also real reformers in the Church. Their writings inspired a religious quest for God based on desire rather than obligation and medieval legalism, and three of them went on to found or reform religious orders that would carry on their work across continents and centuries.

## Principal figures and their major writings

   * Teresa de Cartagena (writer)
      * Grove of the Infirm
      * Wonder at the Works of God
   * St. Teresa of Ávila, OCD
      * The Interior Castle
      * The Way of Perfection
   * St. John of the Cross, OCD (poet)
      * Dark Night of the Soul
      * Ascent of Mount Carmel
   * St. Ignatius of Loyola, SJ
      * The Spiritual Exercises
      * Autobiography
   * St. Francis de Borja, SJ
   * Luis de León, OESA (poet)
   * Venerable Mary of Jesus of Ágreda, OIC (writer)
      * Mystical City of God
   * Fernando de Herrera (poet)
   * Blessed Ramon Lull, TOSF (philosopher of the 14th century)

## Other Spanish mystics

* Gertrudis Anglesola
* Bernardo de Hoyos
* María Rafols Bruna