This is a continuation of a series of posts in The Dove category of this blog about St. Teresa of Avila's use of dove images in her writings.
I have reached the point in writing about St. Teresa of
Avila's dove metaphor that made me hesitant for so long to start down the path
of explaining it in the first place: the higher mansions. If I write anything, there is a risk of
someone saying I have gone beyond my place as a mere blogger. If I write nothing, I will have
abandoned the project in the middle.
So, of course, I enter this explanation
with prayer and some remaining fear.
I last wrote about St. Teresa of Avila's dove
metaphor from Interior Castle with a step aside to consider
her silkworm and butterfly. She
herself connects the butterfly and dove metaphors in a couple of places in
Interior Castle (V:4 and VI:11).
Early in the Fifth Mansion, looking back at the first four, she
describes the silkworm growing and then building its cocoon, where it will die
to the life it has known up to that point and will emerge as a beautiful white
butterfly.
In the last few posts, I wrote about her image of the
silkworm and its growth, and how that represents the soul's spiritual growth in
the first four mansions. This post
continues with the silkworm image, this time considering the cocoon.
St. Teresa begins her story of the silkworm by saying that she is going to say some things about the Lord's work in souls to whom He grants union with Him. She adds that
"though we can take no active part in this work of God within us, yet we
may do much to prepare ourselves to receive this grace." (Interior Castle V:2).
After describing the silkworm's growth, she writes, "When
the silkworm is full-grown as I told you in the first part of this chapter, it
begins to spin silk and to build the house wherein it must die. By this house, when speaking of the
soul, I mean Christ. I think I read or heard somewhere, either that our life is
hid in Christ, or in God (which means the same thing) or that Christ is our
life."
She applies this story to explain what we can do through
God's help to reach union with God, while it is God who does the bulk of the
work:
"This shows, my daughters, how much, by God’s grace, we
can do, by preparing this home [the cocoon] for ourselves, towards making Him
our dwelling-place as He is in the prayer of union. You will suppose
that I mean we can take away from or add something to God when I say that He is
our home, and that we can make this home and dwell in it by our own power. Indeed we can: though we can neither
deprive God of anything nor add aught to Him, yet we can take away from and add
to ourselves, like the silkworms. The little we can do will hardly have been accomplished when
this insignificant work of ours, which amounts to nothing at all, will be
united by God to His greatness and thus enhanced with such immense value that
our Lord Himself will be the reward of our toil. Although He has had the greatest share in it, He will join our
trifling pains to the bitter sufferings He endured for us and make them one.
"Forward then, my daughters! hasten
over your work and build the little cocoon. Let us renounce self-love and
self-will, care for nothing earthly, do penance, pray, mortify ourselves, be
obedient, and perform all the other good works of which you know. Act up to your light; you have been
taught your duties. Die! die as the silkworm does when it has fulfilled the
office of its creation, and you will see God and be immersed in His greatness,
as the little silkworm is enveloped in its cocoon. Understand that when I say ‘you will see God,’ I mean in the
manner described, in which He manifests Himself in this kind of union."
When the soul, through the prayer of union, has become "entirely
dead to this world", she says, "it comes forth like a lovely little
white butterfly!"
The "prayer of union" discussed in the Fifth
Mansion is the beginning of the "flight" of contemplation. While the soul is "immersed in
God's grandeur" in that prayer of the Fifth Mansion, it is never for as
much as half an hour. Yet, for
that time, it is a mystical grace of union with God called a union of the will. I will get to that later, when I write
about the butterfly. For now, for
clarification, it must be distinguished from that full and enduring union that
is the highest level of prayer.
The cocoon is thus a symbol of detachment. "Detachment" is defined by Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D., in his notes to the Way of Perfection (Study Edition), as "Relinquishing what stands in the way of giving oneself to the All without reserve; in it one embraces the Creator rather than the creature, cares not for what comes to an end but for eternal things" (citations omitted).
P. Marie-Eugene, in I Am a Daughter of the Church
,
connects the cocoon to what St. John of the Cross calls the "night of the senses", the first of two nights described by St. John of the Cross. St. Edith Stein, in The Science of the Cross, connects the two nights with the Cross of Christ. The first is a point of taking up the Cross, and the second a sort of crucifixion.
1. The Cocoon Exists Only to Produce
a Butterfly
The union with God – a union of our will with God's will – is St. Teresa's focus in the Fifth Mansion. She is not interested in deprivation in and of itself, but rather for the purpose of enabling the grace of contemplation. Her butterfly image is not mentioned until the Fifth Mansion, which is primarily about God's grace in the prayer of union.
In her chapter "The Message of the Cross" in The Science of the Cross, St. Edith Stein likewise says, "The cross has no purpose of itself. It rises on high and points above." We die on the cross with Christ in order to be resurrected with Him. Detachment, the night of the senses, death to the world, have a purpose as the path to spiritual life. The cocoon is a point of transition on that path.
2. The Cocoon and the Cross in Scripture
St. Teresa specifically mentions one Scripture reference that she has in mind in speaking of the cocoon. At Col. 3:2-3, St. Paul wrote to the Church at Collosae, "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God." That is what she specifically says she has in mind in her image of the cocoon: dying to the things that are on earth, setting our minds on things that are above, for our life is hid with Christ.
That death that St. Paul writes about is by implication connected with the Cross, as seen elsewhere in Scripture. Jesus says, "So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:33) and "And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, 'If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.'' (Mark 8:34-35).
St. Paul thus wrote to the Church at Rome, "I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." (Rom. 12:1-2).
3. Dryness in the Early Stages of the
Spiritual Life
In connecting the cocoon and death to the world with the night of the senses in St. John of the Cross, it is important to draw some distinctions. There are times of dryness in the earlier mansions, and the "dark night of the soul" is generally connected with St. Teresa's Sixth Mansion that it is still ahead of us. Indeed, by the Sixth Mansion, she has returned to her description of the dove in flight, and its trials "make it fly still higher" (Interior Castle VI:2).
The Christian's dying with Christ begins at baptism. St. Paul describes that in Rom. 6:3-4: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."
St. Teresa addresses spiritual warfare in the Second Mansions, aridities in prayer in the Third Mansions, and distractions during prayer in the Fourth Mansions. P. Marie-Eugene writes, "Even in the case of beginners this dryness is often accompanied by an intermittent ray of divine light which itself produces contemplative dryness." (I Want to See God, Chapter VI). He adds that "it does not seem too presumptuous to consider that contemplative dryness is possible, intermittently, in the majority of fervent souls, even in their early stages in the ways of prayer."
However, P. Marie-Eugene contrasts those early stages of dryness with St. Teresa's long seasons of aridity in prayer, which he says were "states illumined by a strong divine light that was adjusting sense to spirit and preparing her soul for the marvelous graces that she was to receive."
Thus, trials and aridities exist at all stages of the spiritual life, and can be identified with the Cross. They may also, at early stages, be accompanied by rays of divine light accompanied by contemplative dryness. Yet, it is necessary to distinguish those early aridities from the two nights of St. John of the Cross and thus from the cocoon.
4. The Two Nights of St. John of the Cross
The term "the dark night of the soul" is used widely in secular and Christian discussion to mean something much broader than what St. John of the Cross has in mind by that term. Anyone going through difficulty in their work or family life, may say that he or she is "going through a dark night of the soul", but that is not what St. John had in mind.
He describes, first, a "dark night of the senses", and then a "dark night of the soul", which is different. According to P. Mari-Eugene, in I Am a Daughter of the Church, "The nights are privations and purifications through which the soul must pass to reach union with God".
5. The Cocoon and the Night of the Senses
In Interior Castle, the Fourth Mansion is a point of transition between meditation and contemplation.
St. John of the Cross describes that transition as a spiritual director in The Ascent of Mount Carmel as marked by a particular time of aridity in which the person no longer derives satisfaction from meditation, is troubled about the lack of satisfaction found in worldly images because of the disturbance it brings to their peace, and has a loving general knowledge and awareness of God (Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, Chapter 14).
This general knowledge, he says, "is at times so subtle and delicate, particularly when it is most pure and simple and perfect, most spiritual and most interior, that, although the soul be occupied therein, it can neither realize it nor perceive it." He explains, "Such a soul, since it no longer has those things wherein the understanding and the senses have the habit and custom of occupying themselves, is not conscious of them, inasmuch as it has not its accustomed powers of sense. And it is for this reason that, when this knowledge is purest and simplest and most perfect, the understanding is least conscious of it and thinks of it as most obscure."
In explaining that Dark Night of the Senses, St. Edith Stein writes (The Science of the Cross, Chapter 3):
"Detachment is designated as a night through which the soul must pass. It is this in a threefold sense: in regard to the point of departure, the path and the goal. The point of departure is the desire for the things of this world, which the soul must renounce. But this renunciation transplants her into darkness and as though into nothingness. That is why it is called night."
It feels like darkness, she explains, because we must withdraw from "the firm foundation that supports us". It feels "as if the ground were swept away from under our feet" and yet, in truth, we are being "set upon a surer way", the way of faith which is a "dark knowledge" about something we do not get to see.
In The Dark Night of the Soul, Book I, Chapter 9, St. John of the Cross again discusses the three signs by which to tell whether the soul is in the Night of the Senses and not experiencing some other cause for aridity, and he explains the reason for it. The "sensual part of a man has no capacity for that which is pure spirit", he says. As a result, when it is the person's spirit, and not their senses, that receive pleasure from God's presence, the senses taste nothing and are left weak. "But the spirit, which all the time is being fed, goes forward in strength." Initially, the person is only aware of aridity and the loss of the sweetness formerly tasted by the senses. That is because the new sweetness of the spirit is still unfamiliar to the palate.
St. John then explains the reason for aridity and inability to meditate as God begins to communicate Himself to the soul "by pure spirit" by "an act of simple contemplation, to which neither the exterior nor the interior senses of the lower part of the soul can attain". This Night of the Senses is the point of departure into the mystical life. St. Edith explains, "Our basic attitude toward the world we perceive by the senses must change." What is felt is "the dying of the sensory being", while a "new life that is concealed beneath it" is emerging without the soul's awareness. "The death of the sensory human being keeps in step with the rise of the spiritual human being."
In her description of the silkworm and the cocoon, St. Teresa affirms that most of this transformation is accomplished by God; it is God who constructs the dwelling place that He is in the prayer of union. As quoted above, using the silkworm as her example, she writes about our part in this transition:
"Let us renounce self-love and self-will, care for nothing earthly, do penance, pray, mortify ourselves, be obedient, and perform all the other good works of which you know. Act up to your light; you have been taught your duties. Die! die as the silkworm does when it has fulfilled the office of its creation, and you will see God and be immersed in His greatness, as the little silkworm is enveloped in its cocoon."
Caring "for nothing earthly" is much of our part in the transformation. That is what the Scriptures spoke about as quoted above. While God's action performs most of our detachment from the senses and transition to an awareness of God in the spirit, we have a part in that detachment as we set our minds "on things that are above, not on things that are on earth" as St. Paul wrote, and as we try not to be "conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of [our] mind[s]."
6. Contemplation and the Laity
Like me, most who read this will probably be lay people or members of third orders, and not cloistered nuns, monks or priests in religious orders. So I want to write about detachment and contemplation in the lives of lay people.
St. Teresa wrote about lay people from time to time. Although she wanted her nuns to live in strict closure and in poverty, she did not consider the same way required for everyone. There are places in her writing that may be taken to imply that it is God's will that everyone will reach the Seventh Mansion, and yet she is clear that she does not believe that everyone is called to live a cloistered life. Consider, for example, the Fifth Mansion, Chapter I, where she writes, "Later on you will see how it is His Majesty's will that the soul should have fruition of Him in its very centre, but you will be able to realize that in the last Mansion much better than here."
St. Teresa, who as a young woman left her father's house early one morning without his knowledge, to enter a Carmelite monastery, wrote much later in life that "the question is not whether we wear the religious habit or not, but whether we practise the virtues and submit our will in all things to the will of God." (Interior Castle III:2).
In her Book of the Foundations, she wrote about an encounter she had once had with a businessman who "was kept so busy through obedience with work in occupations and government that in all those years he didn't remember having one day for himself, although he tried the best he could to keep a pure conscience and have some periods each day for prayer." Although this man was a lay person extremely occupied in the affairs of this world, she said, "His soul in its inclination is one of the most obedient I have seen, and so he communicates this spirit of obedience to all those with whom he deals. The Lord has repaid him well; for he has found that he has, without knowing how, that same precious and desirable liberty of spirit that the perfect have. In it, they find all the happiness that could be wanted in this life, for in desiring nothing they possess all." (Foundations 5:7).
St. John of the Cross similarly would not leave the laity out of the higher levels of prayer. His book The Living Flame of Love was written to one of his spiritual daughters "in the world". That is a book that addresses primarily the advanced stages of prayer beyond the Dark Night.
In his book Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI wrote about third orders, particularly Franciscans, in his discussion of the Beatitudes. What he wrote about third orders living the Beatitude of the poor in spirit is also relevant to living the detachment that St. Teresa saw as a portion of our role in making possible the transition to contemplation.
Pope Benedict wrote, “The point of the Third Order is to accept with humility the task of one’s secular profession and its requirements, wherever one happens to be, while directing one’s whole life to that deep interior communion with Christ that Francis showed us. ‘To own goods as if you owned nothing’ (cf I Cor. 7:29ff.) – to master this inner tension, which is perhaps the more difficult challenge, and, sustained by those pledged to follow Christ radically, truly to live it out ever anew – that is what the third orders are for.” He mentioned St. Thérèse's depiction of herself one day standing before God with empty hands as a depiction of the spirit of the poor ones of God in the Beatitudes, coming with empty hands to receive God’s blessings, and “not with hands that grasp and clutch.”
Detachment and contemplation are thus possible for persons living in the world, and indeed they are God's will for the laity. The way they are lived out differs for the laity, as compared with those in cloistered monasteries, obviously. But it can be lived.
7. In the Evening of Life: St. Thérèse's Empty Hands
In an appendix to The Story of a Soul, St. Thérèse's reference to empty hands appears in her Act of Oblation of Merciful Love. What she wrote is relevant to that detachment that avoids grasping and clutching at possessions and also relevant to that detachment that avoids grasping and clutching at our pride of intellect and even spiritual pride. It illustrates the point of all of the rest, which is the death of a sensual way of living in order to "see God and be immersed in His greatness" as St. Teresa of Avila wrote should be our motivation in "dying" like the silkworm. While St. Teresa explains that she means that we will "see God" "in the
manner described, in which He manifests Himself in this kind of union". St. Thérèse of Lisieux here looks tozqrd reaching that even greater union with Christ that can only be experienced in its entirety in the Beatific Vision:
"After earth's exile I trust to possess Thee in the Home of our Father; but I do not seek to lay up treasures in Heaven. I wish to labour for Thy Love alone—with the sole aim of pleasing Thee, of consoling Thy Sacred Heart, and of saving souls who will love Thee through eternity.
"When comes the evening of life, I shall stand before Thee with empty hands, because I do not ask Thee, my God, to take account of my works. All our works of justice are blemished in Thine Eyes. I wish therefore to be robed with Thine own Justice, and to receive from Thy Love the everlasting gift of Thyself. I desire no other Throne, no other Crown but Thee, O my Beloved!
