The Reverb of Divine Revelation: Theological Poetics in John of the Cross

Abstract This article examines the theological poetics of John of the Cross, investigating both the conditions under which contemplative experience gives rise to speech and the theological status of that speech within John's account of divine revelation. Drawing on the prologues to his major works, I identify three spiritual conditions that make theological poetics possible: the pneumatological overflow of contemplative love into symbolic expression, the ascetical practice of recollection, and the mediating authority of sacred scripture. I then argue that contemplation is best understood not as a species of private revelation but as the loving‐understanding through which the soul enters the abyssal depths of God's definitive self‐communication in Christ, whose mysteries provide the inexhaustible source from which theological‐poetic speech overflows. I conclude by proposing the phenomenon of reverb as a constructive metaphor for understanding the performative texture of theological poetics. Reverb helps to convey the resonant sounding of divine revelation within the contemplative soul, whose doxological speech both testifies to and deepens an intimacy with the God whose love has always spoken first.