Second of three parts
SAINT Teresa of Ávila had the opportunity to build up relations of spiritual friendship with many saints and with Saint John of the Cross, in particular. At the same time, she nourished herself by reading the Fathers of the Church—Saint Jerome, Saint Gregory the Great and Saint Augustine. Among her most important works we should mention first of all her autobiography, El Libro de la Vida (The Book of Life), which she called libro de las misericordias del Señor (book of the Lord’s mercies).
Written in the Carmelite Convent at Ávila in 1565, she describes the biographical and spiritual journey, as she herself says, to submit her soul to the discernment of the “Master of things spiritual,” Saint John of Ávila. Her purpose was to highlight the presence and action of the merciful God in her life.
For this reason, the work often cites her dialogue in prayer with the Lord. It makes fascinating reading because not only does the saint recount that she is reliving the profound experience of her relationship with God but also demonstrates it.
In 1566 Teresa wrote El Camino de Perfección (The Way of Perfection). She called it advertencias y consejos que da Teresa de Jesús a sus hermanas (recommendations and advice that Teresa of Jesus offers to her sisters).
It was composed for the 12 novices of the Carmel of Saint Joseph in Ávila. Teresa proposes to them an intense program of contemplative life at the service of the Church, at the root of which are the evangelical virtues and prayer. Among the most precious passages is her commentary on the Our Father, as a model for prayer.
Saint Teresa’s most famous mystical work is El Castillo Interior (The Interior Castle).
She wrote it in 1577, when she was in her prime. It is a reinterpretation of her own spiritual journey and, at the same time, a codification of the possible development of Christian life toward its fullness, holiness, under the action of the Holy Spirit.
Saint Teresa refers to the structure of a castle with seven rooms as an image of human interiority. She simultaneously introduces the symbol of the silk worm reborn as a butterfly, in order to express the passage from the natural to the supernatural. The saint draws inspiration from Sacred Scripture, particularly the Song of Songs, for the final symbol of the “Bride and Bridegroom” which enables her to describe, in the seventh room, the four crowning aspects of Christian life: the Trinitarian, the Christological, the anthropological and the ecclesial.
Saint Teresa devoted the Libro de la Fundaciones (Book of the Foundations), which she wrote between 1573 and 1582, to her activity as foundress of the reformed Carmels.
In this book she speaks of the life of the nascent religious group. This account, like her autobiography, was written, above all, in order to give prominence to God’s action in the work of founding new monasteries.
It is far from easy to sum up, in a few words, Teresa’s profound and articulate spirituality. I would like to mention a few essential points.
In the first place, Saint Teresa proposes the evangelical virtues as the basis of all Christian and human life and, in particular, detachment from possessions, that is evangelical poverty, and this concerns all of us; love for one another as an essential element of community and social life; humility as love for the truth; determination as a fruit of Christian daring; theological hope, which she describes as the thirst for living water. Then we should not forget the human virtues: affability, truthfulness, modesty, courtesy, cheerfulness, culture.
Second, Saint Teresa proposes a profound harmony with the great biblical figures and eager listening to the Word of God. She feels, above all, closely in tune with the bride in the Song of Songs and with the Apostle Paul, as well as with Christ in the Passion and with Jesus in the Eucharist. The saint then stresses how essential prayer is. Praying, she says, “means being on terms of friendship with God frequently conversing in secret with him who, we know, loves us” (Vida 8, 5).
Saint Teresa’s idea coincides with Thomas Aquinas’s definition of theological charity as amicitia quaedam hominis ad Deum, a type of human friendship with God, who offered humanity His friendship first; it is from God that the initiative comes (cf. Summa Theologiae II-II, 23, 1). Prayer is life and develops gradually, in pace with the growth of Christian life: it begins with vocal prayer, passes through interiorization by means of meditation and recollection, until it attains the union of love with Christ and with the Holy Trinity.
To be Concluded
This speech by Pope Benedict XVI was aired on Vatican Radio on October 19, 2012, to mark the day the Church remembers Saint Teresa of Ávila. Her feast day is on October 15. This was first aired during the pope’s Wednesday General Audience on February 2, 2011. On March 28, 2015, is the fifth centennial of Saint Teresa’s birth.
Pope Benedict XVI
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons