From October 12, 2005:
Last year, on October 8, I checked
into my hotel on Friday, the beginning of the octave celebrating the
Fiesta de Teresa de Avila. Being single, I sometimes travel with
groups of other singles, sometimes travel with friends, and sometimes
go alone with my own agenda in mind. This was a trip that I did
alone. Of two weeks in Europe, I spent three days in Avila.
This posting is a summary of those days, drawn partly from a travel
journal I kept during the trip.
Friday: A Remarkable Exhibit
I settled into one of Spain’s
comfortable hotels built from old Spanish castles. My room’s
window had dark wooden shutters from the floor almost to the ceiling to
close for privacy. The castle stood by Avila’s medieval walls
that still stand today around the old city, nine meters high, built
after Toledo and Avila were retaken from the Moors in 1085, and
finished in 1099.
I walked through streets that were
probably all there when Teresa was growing up there in the early 16th
century to reach the cathedral that she would have known. Avila
was a very Catholic place in those days. “Avila of the knights”
and Avila of the saints, with many monasteries and with many of the men
destined to journey to the “New World” among the Conquistadores.
I walked through the town to the
cathedral. The cathedral is built into the wall, its apse
protruding from the walls on either side of it, the apse’s windows high
above the ground and covered with bars. It was Spain’s first
cathedral built to Gothic canons. The money was granted around
1135 to rebuild it. A French architect – Fruchel chose to
demolish the existing Romanesque apses. Under his direction,
influenced by thedesign of churches in the Ile de France, Avila built
the large tower that stands today along the wall. Construction
continued into the next two centuries, influenced by other
designers. What stands today has changed little since the
fourteenth century.
Last year, the art exhibit of Las
Edades de Hombre was in Avila, in the cathedral. This year it was
in Madrid and just ended:
Las Edades de Hombre
I spent part of Saturday afternoon
walking through the exhibit. The 2003 exhibit had displayed
Spanish religious artwork from the life of Christ. The 2004
exhibit, in Avila, covered Church history beginning with the
resurrection. Instead of grouping art together by artist or by
the century in which the work was created, the paintings, statues and
other artwork was organized by the era of the people and events
depicted. Paintings of the resurrection were grouped
together. Paintings of the ascension were grouped together,
followed by paintings of Pentecost, then the assumption and coronation
of Mary, and then artwork depicting the apostles. Century
followed century, up to the time of Teresa and John of the Cross.
Some of John’s original artwork was on display. The cathedral’s
massive monstrance, made of silver, several feet high and wide, was
restored for the exhibition.
The artwork surrounding the high
altar was finished before Teresa’s birth. Among its many
pictures, there is one of Jesus at the pillar, a common theme in
Spanish art of that era, the image in one of Teresa’s visions also
drawn by one of her nuns on a monastery wall. Unlike Italian
renaissance artwork, Spanish artwork of that era was very realistic,
the suffering of Jesus vividly depicted.
The exhibition took over much of
the cathedral. A chapel with a separate entrance was set aside
still for worship and prayer.
Saturday: An Ambitious Tour
In the morning, in Avila, there are
a million chirping birds, small birds that far outnumber the people,
making a very pleasant noise in time for an early breakfast. I
don’t think I have ever heard so many small birds in one place
before. They must be fed from insects living along the wall as
well as from the ground. I set out early, planning to get most of
my sightseeing done in a single day, an ambitious plan.
Saturday morning, I made my way
through the narrow streets looking at the inner side of the wall.
I followed it to the convent that now stands on the site of the house
where Teresa was born. Only the ground floor is now a museum,
probably all that remains from the sixteenth century estate that must
have once had two main buildings surrounded by land and stables.
The existing garden, enclosed by a wall, would have been awfully small
for a family of ten children. Teresa’s father had had twelve
children altogether, with her two half-siblings being already grown by
the time her youngest siblings were born. It must have been only
a small part of the outdoor area the house once had. In places,
the stone beneath the building rose up above the flat floor area a few
inches and became the floor.
As I left the house, another
tourist asked me, in Spanish, where was the house of St. Teresa of
Avila. When I pointed it out to her, across the street from where
she was standing, a look of awe came over her face. Another
woman, whose Spanish was better than mine – as neither of them seemed
to know much English – also helped to explain how to reach the
entrance. Where language fails, the common understanding of the
meaning of that place, of the awe to simply be there, we understood.
From there, I had to choose one of
two streets to the city gate nearest to the Convent of the Incarnation,
tracing one of two possible routes that Teresa and her brother may have
taken when she first went to the convent, sneaking out early in the
morning while her father was still asleep, hoping he would consent
after the fact. The convent is a short walk north of the city
wall. It once had 200 nuns. The present convent is only a
small part of what once existed. While descriptions in books
sometimes sound like her flight was a great journey, running away from
home, the walk is really one that can be done in about half an hour, a
little over a mile, and somewhat less as the crow flies. It is
possible to attend mass in the convent chapel, and possible to simply
walk around the outside grounds. Part of the convent is open for
viewing, with information about what the convent was like when Teresa
was there. In the altarpiece of the convent church is a relief of
the Incarnation. Above it is an image of Elijah, with Saint
Magdalena de Pazzis and St. Alberto on either side of Elijah. The
church has changed little since Teresa’s time.
From there, I had hoped to go to
the Convent of San Jose, her first Discalced Carmelite convent, but
took the wrong route and ended up in a different part of Avila in the
early afternoon. Lines at the public restrooms were long and
barely moving as the small city was full of people there to see the art
exposition at the cathedral as well as others visiting at the height of
the tourist season. I walked back to my hotel for lunch, a mere
10 minute walk from almost any part of the town inside the walls.
After lunch, I found the cathedral’s small chapel that was still open
for prayer, where the reserved host was kept. A few other people,
seemingly local residents, came and went. A few tourists looked
and left. I looked at the chapel and left.
I found the Convent of San Jose a
little after 4;00 p.m. There is a museum there too now in part of
the building. There is also a primitive church and a more
elaborate church built as the convent grew. One of the exhibits
in the museum where Teresa’s parents’ house stood shows how more and
more land was added to the convent over its first few years. The
historic convents that I visited in Spain are still active communities,
with only part of the building now devoted to a museum.
The exhibits at the convents give a
somewhat more realistic view of the saint than is sometimes seen in
art. For example, while she has been painted sitting at a
comfortable renaissance era desk writing in leisurely fashion, the real
desk at San Jose was only about one foot square, and a little more than
one foot up off of the ground, in a small nun’s cell with a Spanish
tile floor. There, she sat on the hard floor and wrote.
People speak of her traveling from
place to place in a buggy or carriage, and yet what remains of her own
saddle is on display at one of the convents. I stared at it for a
while trying to tell whether it was a sort of side saddle and wondering
how she otherwise managed to ride in a nun’s habit along trails through
Spanish hillsides, rugged territory, which would have had threats of
robbers along the way. The Carmelite veil in some of the early
artwork looks like it would have stayed put at full gallop. Her
early teen-age years had been spent with a widower father and eight
brothers, in a house with stables, so mustn’t she have learned to ride
well enough to keep up with her brothers?
I knew she was an excellent
seamstress who personally made some of her nuns’ habits, and I wondered
whether some tricks of stitchery might have let a nun ride astride a
Spanish men’s saddle as she traveled across Spain, at least when she
was still young enough to do that. And I wondered what stories
the adventuresome abbess and her friends never told. On boring
stretches of road between foundations, perhaps spurred on by one of the
men who sometimes traveled with her, did she ever jump a fence?
(In my imagination, of course, there is no doubt she did! The
reality I may never know in this life.)
From there, I found the Basilica of
San Vicente. The basilica’s foundation was based upon a legend
about three Christian siblings were were martyred in Avila on October
27, 306. The present building was begun late in the eleventh
century. By 1109, its triple apse, the arms of its transept, the
lower part of the nave and aisles, the crypt and the side doors had
been built in pure Romanesque style. However, the work
continued. Around 1170, it took on characteristics similar to
those of the cathedral, so that the same architect, Fruchel, is thought
to have taken over the continuation of the basilica as well.
I found nowhere to pray in the
basilica. There were at least three tour groups at different
places in the pews, each with its own tour guide lecturing in one
language or another. I listened for a few minutes to a Spanish
guide and realized that I had had my fill of that sort of thing.
I found a poster showing what time
mass started in various churches and decided to return the next
morning, when the basilica would be closed except for mass. A
poster I passed along the street mentioned a chorale at another church
the next day at noon – the church where Teresa was baptized. I
thought I could probably make both masses, another ambitious plan.
Sunday: Finding Church in Avila
Avila was absolutely cold on Sunday
morning. I had packed for Rome and Madrid, which had been quite
warm. I did not also have clothes quite warm enough for a cold
autumn day at a much higher altitude. Avila is set on a hill, the
highest city in Spain. The weather reminded me of Carlsbad at
Christmas or even later in the winter. By late afternoon, rain
looked like a possibility and the wind was blowing.
I started out at 8:30 in the
morning and went to look at a couple of places that do not admit
visitors. In a town with so many medieval buildings, the eleventh
or twelfth century Iglesia Santiago appeared to have been simply
abandoned. I tried to imagine what the view once would have been
from the top of its bell tower, overlooking the Spanish countryside,
ignoring the rubbish that had piled up at its entrance. A
historical sign still identified the building, but the church’s own
sign appeared to have been removed from its post in front of the high
stone structure.
A block or so from the Iglesia
Santiago is the Convent of Our Lady of Grace, which was the Augustinian
convent where Teresa spent part of her teenage years. It is not
open for visitors. I looked again at the surrounding hillside and
started toward the basilica, stopping for coffee with more than an hour
left before mass.
An older man waited by the
basilica’s entrance gate. At 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning, the first
tour bus stopped. The tour guide noticed the sign saying that the
basilica was closed on Sunday and began to look at the exterior when a
woman came to open the gate for 10:30 mass. I went inside and
knelt in the back pew. Within five minutes, or less, someone
tapped me on the shoulder, while I was kneeling with my head bowed, and
asked what time mass started. A couple of minutes later, I got up
and quietly walked around the church while the tourists proceeded with
their tours despite the fact that the church had posted signs that it
was only open for mass. No one stopped them. A small
congregation, mostly elderly, a few dozen people, gathered near the
front of the basilica, and I sat down near them. A tour guide in
a side aisle continued to lecture his tour group until about five
minutes before the service started, while others not in his group
continued to tour the church.
There was no music in the
service. A Spanish priest celebrated mass, which was over in a
little more than half an hour. As I turned to walk toward the
exit in the back of the church, I saw that there were tourists still
looking at the building from the rear of the basilica, apparently
continuing their sight seeing even through the mass.
No one had asked them to
leave. Perhaps it was just as well to have them if they had
understood the homily or part of it, or if they were touched by the
liturgy in some positive way.
As I made my way out the door with
the congregation, we had to share the doorway with still more tourists
streaming in despite the sign that said the church was closed on
Sundays.
I was easily quite early for the
noon mass at the Church of San Juan Bautista. The Church of San
Juan Bautista is not one advertised to tourists, although St. Teresa
was baptized there. I looked around and then settled into the pew
while a visiting choir was finishing its rehearsal. A Spanish
couple slipped into the pew next to me. Much to my delight, as
they knelt, the woman kneeling next to me was clearly comfortable in
what apparently was her own parish. What a pleasant relief it
was, after two days as a tourist among tourists, to realize that I was
sitting next to someone who was at home there, a real Catholic who knew
this church.
While the program mentioned a
chorale and organ, the organist used a small electronic keyboard.
The chorus sang Vivaldi’s Gloria and other classical and traditional
church music. Part of it was Gregorian chant sung responsively
with the congregation. I made out enough of the Spanish to
understand that the priest said something about Vatican II and certain
excesses in matters such as music.
Almost immediately after mass,
another, very professional chorus came in and sang church music for an
hour, a very pleasant way to spend part of a Sunday there.
I left around 2:00 p.m., nothing
much planned for the rest of the day, and went to lunch. All the
shops in Avila are closed on Sundays. People milled around window
shopping on a cloudy afternoon. At last, all of my agenda filled,
I had time to simply be in Avila.
). Only one of them, to my knowledge, has ever been translated and published in English, which is his 