Teresa of Avila: Hope is the Same Thing as Remembering

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Ruiz Anglada, Extasis (1982);
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons,
reproduced under Creative Commons AttributionShare Alike 3.0 Unported license.
HOPE IS THE SAME THING AS REMEMBERING
BY KEITH EGAN
A version of this text was originally delivered as part of the “Saturdays with the Saints” series,
hosted by the Institute for Church Life during the fall of 2011.
The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur penned a
frequently cited aphorism: “Hope is the same thing as
remembering.” There are many reasons to remember
the saints, one of which is this: saints offer hope to the
Church, its members and many others besides. The
saints, with God’s love and grace, responded to the God
who has loved them first (cf. 1 Jn 4:19), and the saints
lived lives that have enriched the Christian tradition
immensely. The saints say to Christians, “You too can
be holy,” and the Second Vatican Council has endorsed
this conviction with its “Universal Call to Holiness” (cf.
Lumen Gentium, ch. 5).
St. Teresa of Ávila is an ambassador of hope because
so much about her is truly memorable, and what is
memorable about Teresa is now timely. This year will
be a time to remember Teresa in a special way. The year
2015 will be the 500th anniversary of Teresa’s birth
at the family villa in Gottarrendura about ten miles
from Ávila. Alonso de Cepeda, Teresa’s father, recorded
in a notebook this entry: “On Wednesday the 28th
of March in the year 1515 Teresa, my daughter, was
born more or less at five thirty in the morning just as
dawn was breaking.”1 Alonso’s sparse words do small
justice to the significance of the birth of Doña Teresa
de Ahumada y Cepeda who would one day be Teresa
of Jesus, saint and Doctor of the Church. To celebrate
the 500th anniversary of Teresa’s birth there will be
numerous celebrations not only in Spain but all over
the globe—wherever Teresa has become known, read,
studied, and admired. Why celebrate the birthday of
someone now deceased for more than four centuries?
To begin with, we lose what we do not celebrate. Are
not the holiness and the wisdom present in the life
and writings of Teresa too much to lose if we fail to
remember her, if we do not celebrate the God-given
gifts bestowed on this woman from Ávila who lived so
vividly what it means to be a joyful and wise disciple
of Jesus of Nazareth? Gifts become truly gifts when
they are shared. Teresa knew that the gifts she received
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were not hers to hoard. Pope Francis commented on
remembrance in his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii
Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), writing that “the
believer is the ‘one who remembers’” (§13).
Not a Lonely, Long Distance Runner
In his Encyclical Spe Salvi (Saved in Hope), Pope
Emeritus Benedict XVI is adamant that Christians are
not saved as individuals. Christians are not lonely, long
distance runners. Rather, through Baptism, Christians
are joined to Christ and through Christ to other
disciples—those of the past, and those of the present.
Citing Cardinal Henri de Lubac, Benedict writes,
“salvation has always been a ‘social’ reality” (Spe Salvi,
§14). He goes on to state: “No one lives alone. No one
sins alone. No one is saved alone” (SS §48). We are saved
as a people, members of the Communion of Saints,
members too of the Body of Christ, the Christ who
died and was raised for the salvation of humankind.
As we read in Teresa’s favorite biblical passage, the
townspeople informed the woman at the well that they
came to know that “this [Jesus] is the Savior of the
world” (Jn 4:42). Teresa of Jesus has become a spiritual
citizen of the world, a woman whose reputation for
holiness and wisdom has no boundaries of any kind,
national or otherwise.
Yet, how can hope be attained by celebrating the lives of
the saints? The Second Vatican Council responds to the
question this way:
By celebrating the days on which they died, the
church proclaims the paschal mystery in the saints
who have suffered and have been glorified with
Christ. It proposes saints to the faithful as models
who draw all people to the Father through Christ,
and through their merits it begs for God’s favor.
(Sacrosanctum Concilium, §104)
Teresa herself wrote: “So I say, daughters, that we should
set our eyes on Christ, our Good, and on his saints”
(IC 1.2.11).2 Moreover, in Spe Salvi Benedict cites
Bernard of Clairvaux, who claimed that religious have
a special role in the Body of Christ, supporting this
claim by citing in turn “the words of pseudo-Rufinus:
‘The human race lives thanks to a few; were it not for
them, the world would perish’” (SS §15). Teresa saw
an ecclesial role for the nuns in her monasteries. She
reminded them of their calling as contemplatives that
the “world is all in flames; they want to sentence Christ
again . . . they want to ravage his Church” (WP 1.5).
Teresa, Carmelite reformer and foundress, would
agree heartily with John Paul II, who said, on the
550th anniversary of the papal bull Cum nulla (1452)
which authorized the admission of women into full
membership in the Carmelite Order, that Carmel is
“where prayer becomes life and life flourishes in prayer.”3
Had there been no Cum Nulla, there would have been
no Teresa the Carmelite.
Teresa of Ávila has no need for our celebrations but
we, Carmelites and non-Carmelites alike, need these
celebrations. Teresa was well aware that the wonderful
favors and graces that she received in abundance were
not solely her gifts. In The Book of Her Foundations she
wrote, “For I hold that our Lord never grants so great
a favor to a person without allowing others to share in
it as well” (BF 22.9). But, were Teresa with us still, she
would not tolerate talk about her holiness, which she
considered mere silly chatter. Teresa wrote to her dear
friend Jerome Gracián that she “sometimes felt very
depressed at hearing the silly things people say. In your
parts they call me a saint: well (if I am) I must be one
without feet or head! And they laugh when I tell them
they had better canonize some other nun, as the only
thing they have to do is pronounce the word.”4 With her
bountiful sense of humor, Teresa expressed here her ever
recurring emphasis on humility.
THE INSTITUTE FOR CHURCH LIFE
The prophet Jeremiah is a reminder to us that the giver
of the gift of a future to hope in is the Lord (cf. Jer
29:11). Hope, that much neglected virtue, broadens
one’s vision and opens up new horizons. Teresa’s life and
teachings expand one’s horizons, enlarge one’s heart and
mind so that one may have the “mind of Christ” (1 Cor
2:16), and so that one’s “love may overflow more and
more” (Phil 1:9). Through her own widening horizons,
Teresa now makes it possible for one to hope in ways
that one could never dream of on one’s own. Teresa is a
special gift to the Christian community, where holiness
is attained through the exercise of the virtues of faith,
love, and hope. My intent in this article is to share some
aspects of Teresa’s life and teaching that inspire hope in
the followers of Jesus.
Saint and Doctor of the Universal Church
Despite Teresa’s disdainful dismissal of a reputation for
holiness, she was beatified thirty-one years after she died
and canonized only nine years after her beatification.5
On a truly memorable day in Rome, Teresa was
canonized along with Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier,
Philip Neri, and Isidore the Farmer. The canonization
of these extraordinary saints aroused hope in a Church
that was trying to renew itself after the challenges of the
Protestant Reformation. Incidentally, Teresa was the
first Carmelite to be formally canonized.6
It took a much longer time for the Church to recognize
Teresa’s teaching as significant for the whole Church.
That occurred when Pope Paul VI abandoned a long
held precedent barring women from being named
Doctors of the Church. Paul VI named Teresa the
first woman Doctor of the Church on September 27,
1970.7 A week after Teresa’s induction as a Doctor of
the Church, the Pope bestowed the same honor on
St. Catherine of Siena. Since then Pope John Paul II
declared St. Thérèse of Lisieux a Doctor of the Church
in 1997, and on October 7, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI
named St. Hildegard of Bingen the Church’s fourth
female Doctor. As with so many other firsts, Teresa led
the way for holy women who have articulated “eminent
doctrine” to be proclaimed special teachers in the
universal Church.8
Celebrations remind one that gratitude is owed to those
from whom gifts have been received. Teresa would be
the first to insist that gratitude belongs first to God for
all the gifts that she received. It is evident, I believe, that
Teresa and St. John of the Cross see as a key posture
of Carmelite Spirituality that followers of Jesus are
fundamentally receivers. For these two Spanish mystics
is not all of life, all of love, gift? Teresa is emphatic
that “we possess nothing that we have not received”
(IC 6.5.6). Teresa and John use terms like “passive,”
“infused,” “mystical,” “supernatural (sobrenatural)” to
indicate the conviction that, in the mystical life, all is
gift; all is received.9
Once again, Teresa knows that for a gift to be truly a gift
it must be shared. Teresa used every ounce of her energy
to share with others the gifts that she received from
God. The sheer volume of her writings is staggering
in light of the circumstances and obligations of her
life. Teresa herself has been a gift from God to all
who seek wisdom from her life and from her writings.
To remember and to live that wisdom engenders a
distinctive hope in God’s merciful love.
The many-faceted life of Teresa makes it impossible to
explore all the wisdom of her life and writings. This
vivacious woman from Castile with a Jewish heritage
(that she never mentions), was among other things
Carmelite nun, reformer, foundress, author, teacher
of prayer, and finally mystic, saint, and Doctor of the
Church. These varied roles make Teresa a complex
subject. An essay like this one can do small justice to an
exploration of her wisdom about the spiritual life. So I
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must be selective. I have chosen to explore one thread
in Teresa’s life that inspires hope: to explore some
moments in Teresa’s relationship with Jesus Christ that
was rooted in her Baptism and, through a life of prayer,
culminated in her reception of the gift of spiritual
marriage. That trajectory reveals Teresa’s fundamental
relationship with Jesus that was fostered through
prayer. Teresa’s response to this friendship with Christ
reached spiritual maturity when she was brought fully
and intimately into the life and love of the triune God
through a vision of the humanity of Christ (cf. IC 7.2.1).
Daughter of the Church Teresa of Jesus summed up her life in words that she
repeated often as she lay dying: “At last, Lord, I am a
daughter of the Church.”10 The Church for Teresa was
“Mother Church,” a Church that teaches the way to
God.11 She told her daughters: “believe firmly what Holy
Mother Church holds, and you can be sure you will be
walking along a good path” (WP 21. 10). For Teresa,
Mother Church is Christ: “The world is all in flames,
and they want to sentence Christ again . . . since they
raise a thousand false witnesses against Him; they want
to ravage His Church” (WP 1.5). Teresa was baptized
a member of the Church soon after birth in the parish
church of San Juan in Ávila where she was named for her
maternal grandmother, Teresa de las Cuevas. Unfortunately, Teresa was not always treated kindly
by churchmen. Felipe Sega, the papal nuncio to Spain,
famously described Teresa as
[a] restless vagabond of a woman, disobedient and
contumacious, who under the guise of devotion was
inventing bad doctrines, going about outside the
enclosure against the prescriptions of the Council
of Trent and her superiors, acting as a teacher, in
contradiction to what St. Paul taught that women
should not be teachers.12
Such a disdainful calumny did not in any way lessen
Teresa’s devotion to the Church that she knew
transcended its leaders who opposed her. Nevertheless,
Sega’s comments remind one of Teresa’s plea to the Lord
that women be given the recognition they deserve:
Nor did You, Lord, when you walked in the world
despise women; rather You always, with great
compassion helped them. [And You found as much
love and more faith in them than You did in men.
Among them was Your most blessed Mother. . . . You
are a just judge and not like those of the world. Since
the world’s judges are sons of Adam and all of them
men, there is no virtue in women that they do not
hold suspect. . . . I see that these are times in which
it would be wrong to undervalue virtuous and strong
souls, even though they are women.] (WP 3.7)
Fr. García de Toledo thought that Teresa’s comments
about women were too boldly stated, so she deleted the
passage bracketed above in a second edition.13 Teresa
was not shy about letting her frustration in this regard
be known. She wrote: “just being a woman is enough to
have my wings fall off—how much more being both a
woman and wretched as well” (BL 10.8). As the Church
struggles to overcome divisions that have the potential
of dulling its impact on a suffering world, one can look
to Teresa as an example of a woman who was aware of
the limitations of some Church leaders at the same time
that she was faithful to Christ and Christ’s Church.
THE INSTITUTE FOR CHURCH LIFE
Configured to Christ
Teresa de Jesús
To understand Teresa, one needs to turn to her
collaborator St. John of the Cross, who acted at times
as her confessor and advisor. Teresa is the storyteller of
the Carmelite contemplative life and John of the Cross
is the poet of that life who brings theological finesse
to an understanding of the journey to God. There is
a remarkable paragraph in John’s Spiritual Canticle,
little noticed but very important, where John reminds
his readers that the grace, or “espousal” as he calls it,
bestowed at Baptism is the same grace that one receives
in spiritual marriage.14 John of the Cross connects
the baptismal event to the love through which one is
fully transformed in God or, as Teresa and John name
that transformation, spiritual marriage. The ongoing
configuration to Christ initiated at Baptism and lived
in, with, and through Christ has as its culmination
for Teresa and John matrimonio espiritual, the fullness
of union with Christ through love. For Teresa, the
dedicated living of a personal loving relationship
with Jesus Christ grows principally through prayer
both liturgical and personal. Teresa did not write
much about liturgical prayer other than report on her
frequent encounters with Christ after the reception
of Communion and her recommendation to her
daughters of spiritual communion since, in Teresa’s day,
even religious were not ordinarily able to receive the
Eucharist every day (WP 35.1).15 However, Teresa did
write extensively about that personal prayer which she
referred to as mental prayer. Her succinct but insightful
description of this prayer has become classical: “For
mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an
intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time
frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves
us” (BL 8.5). Meditation on the elements in Teresa’s
description of mental prayer can be a very fruitful
exercise. The quality of one’s life depends on the quality of
one’s relationships. Teresa knew that the quality of her
relationship with Jesus was paramount, central to the
quality of her life and to all other relationships. She
grew up in a family of lively relationships: “virtuous and
God-fearing parents” as well as “three sisters and nine
brothers” (BL 1.1).16 This was the same converso17 family
that bought its way into the ranks of the lower nobility;
hence, Teresa was entitled to be addressed as doña, a
lady of rank. Indeed, Teresa’s oldest surviving letters are
signed “Doña Teresa de Ahumada.”18 However, once
Teresa’s reform was underway, she never again referred
to herself as doña but simply as “Teresa de Jesús” or
“Teresa de Jesús, Carmelita.” It became clearer to Teresa
that her relationship with Jesus shaped her identity. The
richness of this relationship between Jesus and Teresa
reveals itself in the variety of ways that she refers to
Jesus, e.g., Beloved, Spouse, Christ, Lord, Redeemer,
Savior, Son of God, the Crucified, Lamb (of God),
Emperor, Friend, Companion, Guest, Teacher, Brother,
Judge, Shepherd, Master, etc.19 For Teresa, Christ was
no one-dimensional, distant, abstract figure, but rather
someone of great divine mystery whose fullness no
human can fathom but whose lavish love called her to
a mutual, growing, personal, loving relationship. She
was, after all, as she chose to be known, Teresa of Jesus.
This relationship with Jesus was nurtured by the way
Teresa learned to pray what is now called the Prayer of
(Active) Recollection,20 in which Teresa recommends
that one close one’s eyes and become present to Christ
in some scene from the Gospels. Teresa described the
action of this prayer in Spanish as re-presentar Cristo,
which has been translated as “to picture Christ within
me” (BL 9.4). However, I suggest that the emphasis is
on presentar—to be present—with the prefix re adding
emphasis for intensification, that is, to be really present
to Christ.21 Teresa’s emphasis is less like St. Ignatius of
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Loyola’s emphasis on the details in a Gospel scene and
more on being with Christ, being lovingly present to
Christ, for instance at Gethsemane or with the woman
at the well.22 Teresa enthusiastically taught this way of
prayer to her daughters in The Way of Perfection (26,
28–29).23 Ernest Larkin, O.Carm. locates Teresa in the
tradition leading up to modern forms of contemplative
prayer like centering prayer and Christian meditation.24
Teresa’s emphasis on mental prayer was incorporated
in her Constitutions, where she prescribed one hour
of mental prayer twice a day (CO 2 and 7). The daily
regimen of two hours of mental prayer was Teresa’s way
of passing on to her daughters how they are to grow
in a personal, loving relationship with Jesus Christ.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI emphasized Teresa’s
special relationship with Jesus this way: “for Teresa
the Christian life is a personal relationship with Jesus,
which culminates in union with him through grace,
love and imitation.”25 At the center of all of Teresa’s
existence was this personal, loving relationship with
Jesus Christ that was nurtured by prayer and which for
her became prayer that only God can give. She called
this latter prayer “infused,” “supernatural,” or “mystical.”
Colorfully, Teresa used the Spanish word gustos for
mystical prayer and contentos for the prayer which she
saw as attainable by human effort and ordinary grace
(IC 4.1.4). With gustos (spiritual delights), Teresa shares
her understanding of prayer that is all God’s gift:
It used to happen, when I represented Christ within
me in order to place myself in His presence, or even
while reading, that a feeling (sentimiento) of the
presence of God would come upon me unexpectedly
so that I could in no way doubt He was within me or
I totally immersed in Him. . . . I believe they call the
experience ‘mystical theology.’ (BL 10.1)
Teresa: Teacher of Prayer
The human heart has a natural desire for God, a desire
that expresses itself in prayer, prayer that seeks to bridge
the seeming chasm between the human and the divine.
For that desire to grow, prayer needs to become an ever
more authentic encounter with God, a prayer that grows
deeper and deeper into a personal, loving relationship
with Jesus Christ. Because Teresa was foundress of the
Discalced Carmelite nuns and friars, she was called
upon to become a teacher of prayer for her nuns and
friars; in fact, The Way of Perfection was composed in
response to the needs of her daughters in the monastery
of San José in Ávila. Teresa acknowledges that this is
the book “you have asked me to write” (WP 2.4).
When Pope Paul VI named Teresa a Doctor of the
Universal Church, he highlighted her role as “teacher
of the teachers of the spirit,”26 and Pope John Paul II,
on the occasion of the fourth centenary of her death
in 1982, began a letter to the superior general of the
Discalced Carmelites by speaking of Teresa as an
“example of virtue and [as a] teacher.”27 Teresa’s whole
life, all that she did and all that she taught, concerned
prayer and contemplation. She robustly proclaimed:
“So I say now that all of us who wear this holy habit of
Carmel are called to prayer and contemplation. This
call explains our origin. . . .” (IC 5.1.2). Teresa had
concluded that “in this life there could be no greater
good than the practice of prayer” (BL 7.10). Though
aware of her limitations, Teresa had confidence that she
was able to teach her daughters something about prayer
because she and they had Christ as their teacher (see
WP 10.3; IC 5.3.7). In his Encyclical Spe Salvi Benedict
XVI says that it is through prayer that one learns hope
(cf. §32). Once again Teresa with her wisdom about
prayer is an icon of hope in the Christian tradition.
Simply put: without prayer, there is no hope.
.
THE INSTITUTE FOR CHURCH LIFE
Once Teresa began to attract young women to her
reformed Carmels, she knew that she had to share
with them her wisdom about prayer; in fact, near the
beginning of The Way of Perfection, she acknowledges
that “it is about prayer that you asked me to say
something” (4.3). Thus, Teresa the reformer and
foundress became a teacher of prayer. As a teacher of
prayer Teresa was not averse to sharing with her readers
her own struggles involving prayer. She admitted that
“very often, for some years I was more anxious that the
hour I had determined to spend in prayer be over . . .
and more anxious to listen to the striking of the clock”
(BL 8.7). Teresa even admits to abandoning mental
prayer for about a year and a half (BL 7.11; 19.4). This
was no facile admission for someone who was aware
that it was her responsibility to teach her daughters how
to pray and who expended so much energy in writing
about prayer, despite the demanding tasks that were
hers as an administrator of her Discalced Reform.
Those who do not live in cloistered monasteries may
think that Teresa was writing only for those who have
the leisure for prayer and the resources to learn to pray.
Indeed, her daughters were her principal concern, but
Teresa taught prayer to family members and to the
laity. In a reversal of roles, Teresa mentored her father
Alonso in prayer and she reports that she had found
him “so advanced” in prayer (BL 7.10). Then there was
her conquistador brother Lorenzo, who had returned
to Ávila from South America. Lorenzo willingly put
himself under the tutelage of Teresa as a guide in prayer,
and she was delighted that Lorenzo was the recipient of
the graces of mystical prayer.28 Further Wisdom about Prayer
Teresa claimed that she felt like “a bird with broken
wings, when it comes to saying anything good” (IC
3.1.5). But, then and now, it is abundantly clear that
Teresa had and continues to have a great deal of good
to say about prayer. Yet, it is daunting and not a bit
presumptuous to offer even a brief synopsis of Teresa’s
wisdom about prayer. So I shall confine myself here to
a few further highlights from Teresa’s wisdom about
prayer. It is appropriate to point out that it is far better
to listen to Teresa directly than to hear her wisdom
secondhand; for that reason I have documented and
quoted as carefully as possible Teresa’s own texts.
For Teresa “prayer is an exercise of love” (BL 7.12). Her
prayer and her teaching about prayer are all about love.
She who wanted her daughters to be contemplatives
wanted them to know that “with contemplatives there
is always much love, or they wouldn’t be contemplatives”
(WP 40.4), and she was convinced that “love begets
love” (BL 22.14), and that “the important thing is not
to think much but to love much, and so do that which
stirs you to love” (IC 4.1.7). Teresa, a woman with a
heart bursting with love, trusted in the human capacity
to love: “not all imaginations are . . . capable of this
meditating, but all souls are capable of loving” (BF 5.2).
Prayer according to Teresa is a journey to union in
love with Christ, a union that she wants her readers
to know is not some “dreamy state” (IC 5.1.4). Teresa
insists to her daughters that the Lord asks of them
“only two things; love of His Majesty and love of our
neighbor” (IC 5.3.7), and that the “most certain sign”
that one is fulfilling this challenge is that one grow in
love of neighbor (IC 5.3.8). Teresa makes this dramatic
conclusion: “if we fail in love of neighbor we are lost”
(IC5.3.12). Down-to-earth mystic that she was, Teresa
was well aware that one lives as well as one prays and
one prays as well as one lives. Teresa speaks of the
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benefit that accrues “when our deeds conform with
what we say in prayer” (IC 7.4.7).
For Teresa, prayer was and is an adventure in love, and
she knew prayer meant taking a risk. La Madre wanted
her daughters to become a praying community—to be
“certain that the Lord will never fail His lovers when
they take a risk for Him alone” (MSg 3.7). Teresa’s
challenge is to risk all in prayer, prayer that becomes an
ever more generous love for Christ. Teresa the fearless
wrote: “I don’t understand what they fear who fear to
begin the practice of mental prayer” (BL 8.7), or who
fear to “leave the intellect go and surrender oneself into
the arms of love” (IC 4.3.8).
There is an oft-quoted saying attributed to the Trappist
monk Thomas Keating: “The only way to fail in prayer
is not to show up.” Teresa of Jesus would have expanded
on that conviction as she was much exercised over her
own abandonment of mental prayer when she was a
young nun at the monastery of the Incarnation. The
youthful Teresa claimed that the devil tricked her into
a false humility—that she didn’t deserve to pray so she
feared to return to the practice of mental prayer. Teresa
gave up the practice of this kind of prayer for about a
year, perhaps more, but she became convinced that one
must not give up prayer, no matter how much wrong
one has done (BL 7.1; 8.5). Teresa urged those who had
not yet begun the practice of mental prayer “for the
love of the Lord not to go without so great a good” (BL
8.5). Teresa felt that “to give up the practice of prayer
was the greatest evil” (BL 19.10). The repentant Teresa
“saw clearly that there was no excuse for giving up
prayer” (BL 7.12). In addition to the two daily periods
of personal prayer, she and her daughters prayed the
Divine Office and participated in the Eucharist. Teresa
encouraged those who felt that they prayed poorly
to persevere in prayer. However “lukewarm” their
moments in prayer may be, God “esteems them highly”
(IC 2.1.3). Indeed, Teresa was emphatic about the
danger of omitting mental prayer: “There is no other
remedy for this evil of giving up prayer than to begin
again; otherwise the soul will gradually lose more each
day—and please God that [the soul] will understand
this fact” (IC 2.1.1).
In the first three dwelling places of The Interior Castle,
Teresa describes in rather general terms how one is
to live so that one may become a candidate for the
mystical prayer, that prayer which begins in the fourth
dwelling places. In these early dwelling places, Teresa
lays emphasis on self-knowledge, which is the path to
humility. La Madre wants her daughters to know that
the Lord “is very fond of humility” (IC Epilogue, 2),
and that “this edifice is built entirely on humility . . .
and if there is no progress in humility, everything is
going to be ruined” (BL 12.4). In the third dwelling
places Teresa says: “with humility present, this stage is
an excellent one. If humility is lacking we will remain
here our whole life—and with a thousand afflictions
and miseries” (IC 3.2.9).
The door to the castle (the soul) is prayer and reflection
(IC 1.1.7). It is presumed that one is praying in whatever
way one can. Teresa does not offer much guidance
in the first three dwelling places about how to pray
or the nature of prayer at this stage of one’s spiritual
journey. In the first three dwelling places, Teresa is
clearly interested in moving on quickly to the fourth
dwelling places. From then on she will spend the rest of
The Interior Castle writing about the gifts of infused or
mystical prayer. But, before one receives these infused
gifts, one has to become free—free from whatever
prevents one from becoming a loving person. This
process of liberation Teresa calls “detachment”
(IC 3.1.8).
Prayer is not some kind of gymnastics of the mind.
As we have seen, Teresa’s prayer is a matter of loving
presence. In fact, Teresa clearly includes herself when
THE INSTITUTE FOR CHURCH LIFE
she says that “there are some souls and minds so
scattered they are like wild horses no one can stop”
(WP 19.2). In her description of the Prayer of the Four
Waters (BL 11–22), Teresa traces growth in prayer from
those who “are beginning to be servants of love” to
those whose discover God’s lavish love, symbolized by
Teresa as a downpour of rain (llover mucho) (BL 11.7).
This discovery of God’s lavish love is at the same time
a gift of hope. The intensification of the life of prayer
is growth in the love of Jesus Christ, but it does not
imply a preoccupation with mystical phenomena. Teresa
disdains any “cupidity for God’s favors” (BL 18.4).
Visions and locutions, etc., are not of the essence of
prayer (cf. IC 6.3.2 & 4). Phenomena in themselves are
not what make one holy.
“With the Saints We Shall Be Saints”29
My teaching of Dante’s Divine Comedy has taught me
that the meaning of the Inferno and of the Purgatorio
remains obscure until one reaches the climax of the
Paradiso. There Dante’s mind is “bedazzled,” “amazed,”
and “transformed” by his encounter with the triune
God.30 Similarly the seventh dwelling places of The
Interior Castle are where Teresa describes spiritual
marriage, a stage that helps one to understand better
Teresa’s whole journey to God. Not until the seventh
dwelling places does Teresa reach the fullness of her
relationship with Jesus. Not until then does she enter
fully into the life and love of the triune God. What
Teresa describes in the seventh dwelling places makes
clear what God had in mind for her. This single-minded
woman responded so generously to the God who loved
her lavishly that God finally bestowed on her the grace
of spiritual marriage.
Pope St. Pius V appointed Pedro Fernández, a holy
and learned Dominican, to be the apostolic visitor to
the Carmelites in Castile. Fernández decided that the
troubled megamonasterio31 of the Encarnación in Ávila
needed new leadership so he sent Teresa, now fifty-six,
back to this monastery as its prioress. Teresa knew that
she needed more than a little help if she were to bring
peace and a deeper spiritual life to this monastery, so
she arranged to have John of the Cross appointed there
as confessor and vicar. One day when John of the Cross
gave Communion to Teresa, she received a vision of
Jesus, recounting his words in her Spiritual Testimonies:
“‘Don’t fear, daughter, for no one shall be a party to
separating you from Me.’ . . . Then He gave me his right
hand, and said: ‘Behold this nail; it is a sign you will be
My bride from today on’” (ST 31).32 Thus was celebrated
the spiritual marriage of Teresa and Jesus. This highest
state in the spiritual life is where one is so fully united
with Christ that one is fully drawn into the life of the
triune God.33 John of the Cross wrote that the love
experienced in spiritual marriage is the “end for which
we were created.”34 The bestowal of spiritual marriage
upon Teresa of Jesus is a gift for all because this gift was
given to her as a member of the Communion of Saints.
She wrote: “You are not accustomed, Lord to bestow
on a soul grandeurs and favors like these unless for
the profit of many” (BL 18.4). Indeed, we are blessed
as members of the Body of Christ because our sister,
Teresa, has received the gift of spiritual marriage; in fact,
humanity has been blessed in Teresa, a woman who has
become a universal icon for all who seek union with
the divine. Jesus remains in this exalted stage, as he has
always been, a central focus of her love. “Fix your eyes
on the Crucified and everything will become small for
you” (IC 7.4.8).
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To Pray is to Hope
As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has written, “The first
essential setting for learning hope is prayer” (SS §32).
Indeed, Teresa teaches us to pray and thereby to hope.
Teresa was the recipient of what Thomas Aquinas called
the gratia sermonis, the gift of speech, which enables one
to pass on to others what one has come to know about
God.35 Teresa, the “undanted [sic] daughter of desires”36
as seventeenth-century English poet Richard Crashaw
called her, is a guide for all who seek to respond to the
natural desire for God that was sewn into the human
heart from the first moment of one’s existence. Here
in spiritual marriage, Teresa’s loving relationship
with Christ culminates in her encounter with the
triune God “in the manner of a cloud of magnificent
splendor” (IC 7.1.6). Teresa was well aware that what
she encountered in spiritual marriage was ineffable,
but she tried mightily to share with her daughters the
wisdom about the journey to God made with her friend
and companion Jesus Christ. In this final stage of the
spiritual life, Teresa finds peace and love, forgetfulness
of self, “deep interior joy,” a desire to suffer even in
persecution, and a desire to serve, because as Teresa
says: “the purpose of this spiritual marriage [is] the
birth always of good works” (IC 7.4.6), freedom from
whatever stands in the way of becoming a more loving
person, including freedom from the devil.37
Throughout The Interior Castle, Teresa disguises herself
by putting personal references in the third person,
e.g., “I know a person to whom. . .” (IC 1.2.2). As a
result, Teresa’s description of the seventh dwelling
places is muted. On the other hand, John of the Cross
describes extensively the effects of spiritual marriage
in The Spiritual Canticle and in The Living Flame
of Love.38 John brings to his descriptions of spiritual
marriage the theme of deification while Teresa does
not mention deification. That does not mean that she
did not experience divinization, only that Teresa is an
example of the neglect of divinization in the literature
of Western Christianity.
If one wants to add to Teresa’s description of her
experience of the seventh dwelling places, John of the
Cross offers a portrait of a defied person. John says of
the deified: “This divine drink so deifies, elevates and
immerses her in God” (CB 26.10), and later, “She is as
it were divine and deified” (CB 27.7). He goes on to
say, “For, granted that God favors her by union with the
Most Blessed Trinity, in which she becomes deiform
and God through participation” (CB 39.4). John speaks
of the Holy Spirit, who “ever penetrates and deifies the
substance of the soul, absorbing it above all being into
his own being” (FB 1.35). Moreover, John describes
the fire of God that “divinizes and delights” the soul
“burning gently within it” (FB 2.3). John of the Cross’
description of the deified person thus supplements
Teresa’s own description of the gift of spiritual marriage
that she received.
Elsewhere I have made the case that deification is
at the same time a humanization.39 Teresa, like all
humanity, was made in the image and likeness of God
with a natural desire for God. Paradoxically, through
deification, Teresa became fully human; her natural
gifts were enhanced by God’s grace and glory. This is
a conviction of Carmelite Ruth Burrows: “it is only
when God has been able to love us in fullness that we
are wholly there. Only that in us which is divine is real.
Only when we are God-filled are we truly human.”40
One does not have to read far into what Teresa wrote
to discover her to be warm, joyful, energetic, a friend
to God and to so many others, efficient and flexible,
humorous and serious, active and contemplative,
feminine to her fingertips, and yet some contemporaries
saw her as varonil—strong like a man.41 What a work of
art Teresa is!
THE INSTITUTE FOR CHURCH LIFE
Hope is the Same Thing as Remembering
How shall we celebrate Teresa’s wisdom? She concludes
The Interior Castle with a request to her daughters:
“in your prayers . . . do not forget this poor wretch”
(IC 7.4.16). We remember her best by becoming
conversation partners with Teresa under the guidance
of the Holy Spirit so that Teresa’s wisdom becomes
our wisdom, her love our love. In her description of her
Transverberation, Teresa says that the golden dart left
her “all on fire with great love of God” (BL 29.13). John
of the Cross, with Teresa in mind no doubt, says that
the Transverberation of the heart makes one feel “that
the entire universe is a sea of love in which it is engulfed,
for conscious of the living point or center of love within
itself, it is unable to catch sight of the boundaries of this
love” (FB 2.10). That is Teresa’s story—her life and her
writings are full of a love that has no boundaries. Teresa
would heartily agree with a conviction of St. Augustine
quoted by St. Thomas Aquinas: “as to hope . . . nothing
is so needful to build up our hope than for us to be
shown how much God loves us.”42
†
NOTES
1 Efrén de la Madre de Dios and Otger Steggink, Tiempo y
Vida de Santa Teresa, 2nd ed. (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores
Cristianos, 1977), I. 22.
2 Quotations and citations from the writings of St. Teresa are
taken the following English translation: The Collected Works
of Saint Teresa of Ávila, 3 vols., trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and
Otilio Rodriguez (Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite
Studies, 1976, 1980, 1985). In-text abbreviations are designated
as follows: Vol. 1: The Book of Her Life (BL), Spiritual Testimonies
(ST); Vol. 2: The Way of Perfection (WP), Meditations on the Song
of Songs (MSg), The Interior Castle (IC); Vol. 3: The Book of Her
Foundations (BF), The Constitutions (CO), and Poetry (PO).
3 John Paul II, “Message for the 500th Anniversary of the
Addition of the Cloistered Nuns and the Third Order of the Laity
to the Carmelite Order” (7 October 2002), §3.
4 Teresa of Ávila, Letter 297 in The Letters of Saint Teresa of Jesus,
vol. 2, trans. E. Allison Peers (London: Sheed and Ward, 1980).
For the same letter, see Letter 320 in The Collected Letters of St.
Teresa of Ávila, vol. 2, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh (Washington,
DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 2007). For other letters
expressing a similar sentiment, see Letters (Peers), I, 78 and Letters
(Kavanaugh) I, 88.
5 Teresa died October 4, 1582. The Gregorian calendar added
ten days that year to the calendar; hence her feast day occurs on
October 15. Teresa was beatified in 1614 and canonized in 1622.
6 Joachim Smet, The Mirror of Carmel: A Brief History of the
Carmelite Order (Darien, IL: Carmelite Media, 2011), 214.
7 Elsewhere I have treated in detail the significance of Pope
Paul’s declaration that Teresa be a Doctor of the Church. See, for
example, “The Significance for Theology of the Doctor of the
Church: Teresa of Ávila,” in The Pedagogy of God’s Image: Essays
on Symbol and the Religious Imagination (The Annual Publication
of the College Theology Society 1981), ed. Robert Masson (Chico,
CA: Scholars Press, 1982).
8 Egan, “The Significance for Theology of the Doctor of the
Church: Teresa of Ávila,” 159.
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9 See Edith Stein, Finite and Eternal Being: An Attempt at
an Ascent to the Meaning of Being, trans. Kurt F. Reinhardt
(Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 2002), 373:
“The soul cannot live without receiving.”
10 Efrén and Steggink, Tiempo y Vida, II, 983–984.
11 Keith J. Egan, “Teresa of Jesus: Daughter of the Church and
Woman of the Reformation,” Carmelite Studies 3 (1984), 79–82.
12 Teresa of Ávila, Letter 269 (Kavanaugh), vol. 2, n. 6. See
paragraph 3 of this letter which shows that Teresa was aware of
this circulating critique by Sega.
13 See endnote 2 for chapter 3 in The Way of Perfection.
14 John of the Cross, The Spiritual Canticle (CB) in The Collected
Works of Saint John of the Cross, rev. ed., trans. Kieran Kavanaugh
and Otilio Rodriguez. (Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite
Studies, 1991), 23.6.
15 For spiritual communion or Communion by desire see Thomas
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III.73.3 ad 2.
16 See note 3, p. 287 in The Book of Her Life (KavanaughRodriguez) for the names of Teresa’s sisters and brothers.
17 For a definition of converso, see the index in Henry Kamen, The
Spanish Inquisition: An Historical Revision (London: Weidenfeld
and Nicolson, 1997).
18 Letters 1 and 2 (Kavanaugh).
19 For Spanish names of Jesus in the writings of Teresa of Jesus,
see Concordancias de los Escritos de Santa Teresa de Jesús, 2 vols.
eds. J. L. Astigarraga with Agustí Borrell (Rome: Editoriales
O.C.D., 2000).
20 The word “active,” not used by Teresa, is added to the Prayer of
Recollection to indicate that it is not the passive/infused/mystical
recollection of the fourth dwelling places of The Interior Castle.
21 See “presente, representar, re” in Sebastián de Covarrubias
Horozco, Tesoro de La Lengua Castellana o Española, eds.
Ignacio Arellano and Rafael Zafra (Madrid: Universidad de
Navarra/Iberoamericano/Vervuert, 2006; original, 1611). On
my interpretation I have consulted Professor Gerald Gingras,
Professor Emeritus of Spanish, Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame,
IN, who agrees with my interpretation. My thanks to Professor
Gingras.
22 Ernest Larkin, Contemplative Prayer for Today: Christian
Meditation (Singapore: MedioMedia, 2007), 67–68.
23 See also BL 12. 2–4 and IC 4.1.7.
24 Ernest E. Larkin, “Today’s Contemplative Prayer Forms: Are
They Contemplation?” in Review for Religious, 57.1 (January–
February 1998), 77–87.
25 Benedict XVI, General Audience (2 February 2011).
26 Paul VI, Multiformis Sapientia, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 63
(1971), 185–192.
27 John Paul II, “Epistula data Philippo Sainz de Baranda
Praeposito Genrali Ordinis Fraturm Discalceatorum, Beatae
Mariae Virginis de Monte Carmelo” (14 October 1981).
28 On Teresa as mentor to the spiritual lives of her family, see
Tomás Alvarez, St. Teresa of Avila: 100 Themes on Her Life and
Work, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh (Washington, DC: Institute of
Carmelite Studies, 2011), 83–86.
29 IC 7.4.10: “con los santos seremos santos. . . .” St. Teresa
of Jesus, Obras Completas, 5th ed., eds. Enrique Llamas, et al.
(Madrid: Editorial de Espiritualidad, 2000), Cf. Ps 18:26 (Vulgate
Ps 17:26).
30 Dante Alighieri, Commedia: Paradiso, Canto 30, trans.
Dorothy Sayers and Barbara Reynolds (London Penguin, 1962).
31 See José Vicente Rodríguez, San Juan de la Cruz: La Biografía
(Madrid: San Pablo, 2012), 250.
THE INSTITUTE FOR CHURCH LIFE
32 The rest of the Lord’s words: “‘Until now you have not merited
this; from now on not only will you look after My honor as being
the honor of your Creator, King, and God, but you will look after
it as My true bride. My honor is yours, and yours Mine.’”
33 Works of Saint John of the Cross, 775.
34 CB 29.3.
35 Summa Theologiae II.2. 177.1. Teresa has an explanation of
this grace in BL 17.5.
36 Richard Crashaw, “The Flaming Heart.”
37 IC, note 1 for 7.3.
38 The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross, rev. ed., trans.
Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington, DC:
Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1991). CB=The Spiritual Canticle,
version B. FB=The Living Flame of Love, version B.
39 Keith J. Egan, “Eucharist, Contemplation and Humanization”
in Celebrate! 46 (Sept.–Oct, 2007), 4–7. This is a complementary
essay to Egan, “Eucharist, Contemplation and Humanization” in
Celebrate! 46 (July–August 2007), 4–8.
40 Ruth Burrows, Interior Castle Explored, 3rd ed. (Mahwah, NJ:
Hidden Spring, 2007), 112.
41 Louis Cognet notes some of the paradoxes in Teresa’s
personality in La Spiritualité, 1: L’essor: 1500–1650 (Paris: Aubier,
1966), 81.
42 Summa Theologiae III.1.2. Translation is that of the
Blackfriars Edition, volume 48, which on page 11 indicates that
Augustine’s quotation is from De Trinitate, XIII, 10, PL 42, 1024.
This quotation occurs in English in The Trinity, trans. Edmund
Hill (Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1991), 353.
Keith Egan is the Aquinas Chair in
Catholic Theolog y Emeritus at St. Mary’s
College and Adjunct Professor of Theology
at the University of Notre Dame.
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