Camino de San Juan de la Cruz
The Calvary Convent is part of the first stage of the San Juan de la Cruz Road, which begins in Villanueva del Archbishop and links with Beas de Segura to Caravaca de la Cruz.
The eight months St. John spent here were the happiest of his life. At the age of 36, he had changed the gloomy and insanely Toledo cell to a convent in the middle of a mountain surrounded by pine trees, oaks, retamas, rosemary and splice. It was a very fruitful stage in the poetic. Here he designed and began the writing of his best works. He began his "Spiritual Song," "The Dark Night of the Soul" and the "Up to Mount Carmel."
In Villanueva del Archbishop, in addition to having lived in El Calvary and in the Sanctuary of the Fuensanta, there is news of a fact that occurred in the main square of the village:
"Once was Father Vicar, Fra Juan de la Cruz, to Villanueva del Archbishop, who was leagues and half of the Calvary Convent, and brought with him Father Fra Brocardo of San Lorenzo, who was still a brother, and passing through the square he saw as a poor, apparently very needy, he was asking for alms among the rich people there, and no one felt sorry. And thinking of finding more charity in the religious, he came to ask her. The Vicar Father returned to his partner, and told him that they had no money to give him, that he should give him alms of good example from poor to poor, venerating Christ in that poor man and kissing his feet. There was a lot of mud in the plaza, and the poor came barefoot, and with the feet of the lofty; but this was not a cause to delay obedience. For as the voice of the Prelado sounded, Fra Brocardo was cast at the feet of the poor, and he kissed them with great humility, and with this he continued his way, leaving those who saw him so built, that he found in them the charity that he had not found before."
San Juan de la Cruz passed through the Sanctuary of the Fuensanta de Villanueva del Archbishop, which was a Carmelite convent until 1599, fulfilling his obligation to visit the convent of Andalusia and maintaining a relationship with his procurator Fra Brocardo of San Lorenzo.
San Juan de la Cruz, after being imprisoned in Toledo, arrived in Villanueva del Archbishop in 1578, specifically at the convent of Calvary, located in the Sierra de las Villas, where he found a sense of peace and well-being so intense that they marked him for life, always being his refuge in difficult times.
