Father José Luis Ferroni, O.C.D., has set up a new web page for his students in an 18-hour course on St. John of the Cross in Spain. The site is still being created. The class begins in March. It was created as a blog orientated in the field of Church History, so most of the resources are historical. Several linked sources are in Spanish, and a few are in English, French, German, or Italian. Here is a link to the website:
Historia Eclesiastica: Biografia de Juan de la Crux
For example, the site includes a bibliography of books about St. John of the Cross, several pages long. To reach it, click on "Biografía bibliografíca general". Most of the books listed in that bibliography are in Spanish, but it also includes such things as Bruno de Jesus Marie's Saint Jean de la Croix (a classic French biography considered to be one of the best) and Bede of the Trinity's Discalced Carmelite Printed Official Texts in English.
One of the links, "Index Theologicus", has a search feature for articles, including theological and historical articles, among others. The connection to the National Library of Spain connects not only with manuscripts on line but also with 15th to 18th century documents from Spain's national archives. The archive documents from around the1700´s are blocked printed and can be easily read. Some of these documents regard Carmelites.
Another of the online databases linked from the new site is Gallica. I had never seen the Gallica site before. Through the "search" box at the top of the page (or an advanced search feature you can open), it is possible to access entire books to read online, download, or e-mail to yourself. Searching there for books on St. John of the Cross, I found many references in Spanish and at least a couple of 19th century books in French.
I tried to figure out if I could send one of them to my kindle, but there is no link for that. The e-mail feature just e-mails a link to the book on the Gallica website. Fiddling with the page for a while, I figured out that I could in fact download a 209 page book in pdf format for personal use. (I had to check a box for that in French, by the way, but I suppose most people could figure out that is what it means). I have some sort of program that converts pdf documents to kindle, but I doubt that it will work with 19th century books printed in italic script. And I can e-mail pdf documents to my Kindle, which is probably the better option, although I have to pay amazon something for the e-mail at that size. The book I selected is Gonzalve Valée's Saint Jean de la Croix, sa vie, sa doctrine (St. John of the Cross, His Life, His Doctrine).
Well, I probably should just hold it on my laptop for a while until I get to it. I already have Bruno's biography in paper, which I have been meaning to get to for a while. And I have another book on St. John of the Cross by Father Paschasius Heriz, O.C.D., from 1919 (in English), which I found online a while back and was able to send to my laptop's Kindle but not the one I carry around with me to read. That ought to keep me busy for a while . . . .
