St John of the Cross testifies to a God who longs to meet us in our deepest need. Whilst rejection & imprisonment played their part in the life of this sixteenth-century Spanish friar Johns poetry & prose reveal the beauty & power of a wondrous God. It gives us courage to believe in the possibility of change in our own lives however unlikely or impossible this may seem. Father Iain Matthew uses this classic inspirational Christian writing as his starting point & offers five interpretations which make its richness relevant to the modern reader.