Blog by-the-Sea

Recollection and Prayer: The Will and the Dovecot

I am finally going to undertake the task of writing about St. Teresa of Avila's uses of doves as metaphors in her writing about prayer, as I said last week.  I do so with some fear, because it is not possible to write about her use of metaphors without also writing about her explanations of the experience of prayer.  I hope that this attention to one of her figures of speech may be helpful to a few people.

For anyone who wants to buy a copy of the writings of St. Teresa of Avila in English translation, I will recommend the translations published by ICS Publications.  In this series of posts, I am using a different translation that is in the public domain to avoid having to ask any of the friars to look at it or to figure out how much to charge me for the use of lengthy quotes.  The dovecot picture shows the dovecot from the Lost Gardens of Heligan, from Wikipedia.

St. Teresa's Dovecot Image:

One of St. Teresa's earliest uses of a dove as a metaphor is also one of her most unusual ones.  Here, she uses doves to explain the faculties of will, intellect, and memory and the prayer of quiet. 

Here is the dovecot story, from The Life, Chapter 14, shown in context with the dove reference in boldface:

This is a gathering together of the faculties of the soul within itself, in order that it may have the fruition of that contentment in greater sweetness; but the faculties are not lost, neither are they asleep: the will alone is occupied in such a way that, without knowing how it has become a captive, it gives a simple consent to become the prisoner of God; for it knows well what is to be the captive of Him it loves.   O my Jesus and my Lord, how pressing now is Thy love!  It binds our love in bonds so straitly, that it is not in its power at this moment to love anything else but Thee.

The other two faculties help the will, that it may render itself capable of the fruition of so great a good; nevertheless, it occasionally happens, even when the will is in union, that they hinder it very much: but then it should never heed them at all, simply abiding in its fruition and quiet.  For if it tried to make them recollected, it would miss its way together with them, because they are at this time like doves which are not satisfied with the food the master of the dovecot gives them without any labouring for it on their part, and which go forth in quest of it elsewhere, and so hardly find it that they come back.   And so the memory and the understanding come and go, seeking whether the will is going to give them that into the fruition of which it has entered itself.

If it be our Lord's pleasure to throw them any food, they stop; if not, they go again to seek it.   They must be thinking that they are of some service to the will; and now and then the memory or the imagination, seeking to represent to it that of which it has the fruition, does it harm.   The will, therefore, should be careful to deal with them as I shall explain.

Much of her explanation is in the following chapter, which is Chapter 15.

First of all, it may be useful to say something about what a "dovecot" is, and about what one would have meant when she was writing.  There is a page with some pictures in Wikipedia.  A "dovecot" is a building, or part of a building, or a birdhouse, for pigeons or doves, which historically were kept for food.  In medieval Europe, according to the Wikipedia page, it was a status symbol to have a dovecot.  Medieval manors had them.  Each pigeon hole ("boulin") is built for one pair of birds.  Some dovecots were built with 2000 or more boulins, while others were much smaller, like the one shown here from the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall.

St. Teresa's description of a dovecot appears in the course of her descriptions of a garden to illustrate different forms of prayer.  The dovecot that she had in mind might have been a small dovecot in a garden or a much larger one on a castle or manor house nearby.

Recollection:

Here, she is writing of the second stage of prayer in The Life, in which the pray-er begins to recollect the faculties, and only the will is active.  However, that is an easier thing to say than to do, as anyone who has tried to avoid distraction in prayer can well attest!  The memory is constantly stirring up thoughts of one thing or another that is going on in our lives, and the intellect is constantly finding something to analyze or an idea to further explore.  In St. Teresa's illustration, the memory and will are like two doves that go off in search of food (for thought), so that if we follow them, we will be constantly distracted in  our efforts at the prayer of quiet. 

Yet, she sees, the will cannot fully control them.  When the memory and intellect do not help the will in recollection, she wrote, "they hinder it very much: but then it should never heed them at all, simply abiding in its fruition and quiet."  But rather than trying to force the intellect and memory to be silent by force of will while we pray, St. Teresa says, "if it [the will] tried to make them [the memory and intellect] recollected, it would miss its way together with them."

Recollection, she explains, is not something the will can readily impose on our minds.  In its complete state, recollection is a gift from God.  However, in these chapters 14 and 15, St. Teresa is writing about a state of prayer that everyone can reach.  The level of recollection that she has in mind here is not an advanced state of prayer, but merely the level of silent prayer that anyone can learn. 

I might do well to provide a more contemporary definition of "recollection."  The Anglican expert in mysticism, Evelyn Underhill, wrote, in Practical Mysticism, "Recollection . . . is in essence no more and no less than the subjection of the attention to the control of the will.  It is not, therefore, a purely mystical activity.  In one form or another it is demanded of all who would get control of their own mental processes; and does or should represent the first great step in the education of the human consciousness." Yet, unless people are moved toward recollection by a passion for something they do, people "seldom learn the secret of a voluntary concentration of the mind."

Two Illustrations of Recollection:

I have thought I might add to what St. Teresa wrote a couple of additional illustrations that I think might help to explain recollection by will and recollection as a gift from God.  The two illustrations that I will offer are about a whitewater rafter and a commercial airline pilot.

When I was younger, I sometimes found whitewater rafting to be one of the most relaxing of week-ends because it took my mind completely off of whatever was occupying my mind at the office.  It did not depend on my will to do so.  Rather, there is nothing like a level IV rapid to completely engross one's attention!  When I returned to work the following Monday morning, I would feel as if I had been gone for a week, because my memory and intellect did not spend the week-end thinking about this or that problem to be solved at work.  No one in whitewater is analyzing the hydrology, except to the extent entailed in actually navigating around a rock or avoiding a hole.  No one's mind is wandering to the quart of milk they need to pick up on the way home.  Everyone's intellect and memory are cooperating with the will to get through the challenge of the rapids without falling out of the raft!

In the case of rafting, it is the river that draws our attention to one point and holds it there.  It comes from outside of ourselves, and not from the pure force of will.  In prayer, it is God Himself whose spark of love draws our attention to Himself and holds it there.  It is then a gift, and not an act of will. 

Yet there is a way of quieting our minds, and a way of at least ignoring the "doves" of intellect and memory when they continue to run here and there, that will allow us to pray better at any time.

We cannot wait for such perfect recollection to happen before we begin to pray.  So I offer, as another illustration, an airline pilot who may be completely engrossed in what he is doing -- recollected -- at times while flying the plane.  He has surely developed skills of concentration over the years that will enable him to pay attention to his instruments while preparing for take-off, despite the noise of the jet engines and whatever sounds from the passenger cabin that reach the flight deck.  However, if the captain did not want to take off until he was fully engrossed in his flying, he would never get the plane off the ground! 

We have to be able to pray despite the distractions posed by intellect and memory.  We cannot choose to do nothing until God draws us into perfect recollection, on the one hand; nor can we let memory and intellect draw us off into one tangential thought after another, on the other hand. 

Using bees as another metaphor for the mind when it is drawn toward one tangential thought after another, St. Teresa says, "if no bees entered the hive, and each of them wandered abroad in search of the rest, the honey would hardly be made." 

The Meaning of the Dovecot Example of Recollection:

We have to be able to pray despite the distractions offered by memory and intellect.  That is the lesson of the will that carries on in prayer while the two doves of intellect and memory fly off in search of food other than that given by the Master.

The "food" that the Master gives in the dovecot is what God may say to us in prayer.  To hear what God has to say, we have to listen, and we have to wait silently.  Eli told Samuel to answer, if he heard God call him, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." (I Samuel 3:9)  "Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." (Ps. 37:7).  We can make use of our will to be silent in prayer and to listen and wait for God.  When God has something to say to us, or some sense of his presence or other grace in prayer, that is the "food" that the Master gives the doves at the dovecot in prayer.

The Master's food is not there on our command; the master feeds the doves in a dovecot on the master's schedule and not on the doves' request.  The memory and the will then, in Teresa's example, will stop flying to and fro if the Master feeds them.  If not, they will go and seek again for some "food" outside of the dovecot.  That "food" is the thoughts that keep popping up in our minds unwanted in prayer.  They may be analytical thoughts, even theological thoughts, but if they are drawing our minds away from the personal encounter with God himself, we need to learn to ignore them and to go on with prayer.

That is where the will comes in.  Although the memory and intellect continue to function, the will brings them back to recollection a little at a time.  Although not totally absorbed in God at this early stage of the prayer of quiet, the will is occupied enough in prayer that it can choose to avoid being drawn off course by the thoughts suggested by the memory and intellect.

Steps toward Recollection by the Will:

Here are some basic concepts based on Chapter 15 of The Life:

1.  Once you go beyond vocal prayer and you want to begin contemplation, stop actively looking for words of confession and thanksgiving.  St. Teresa says, "What the soul has to do at those seasons wherein it is raised to the prayer of quiet is nothing more than to be gentle and without noise.  By noise, I mean going about with the understanding in search of words and reflections whereby to give God thanks for this grace, and heaping up its sins and imperfections together to show that it does not deserve it."  Our efforts to use words involve the memory and intellect, so we need to stop looking for words.

That does not mean that anyone should stop confession and thanksgiving as part of their prayer life.  Silent prayer, including the "prayer of quiet" discussed here, is never meant to become the entirety of anyone's prayer life.  It is always done in addition to the basics, and not instead of them.  There is time for morning and evening prayer, time for Mass, time for meditation on Scripture, time for pouring out my heart to God in petitions, and time for silent prayer.  The advice to stop looking for words of confession and thanksgiving only pertains to the time for silent prayer.  

2.  Don't try to force God's gift of complete recollection by an act of the will.  St. Teresa wrote, "Let the will quietly and wisely understand that it is not by dint of labour on our part that we can converse to any good purpose with God, and that our own efforts are only great logs of wood, laid on without discretion to quench this little spark; and let it confess this, and in humility say, O Lord, what can I do here?" 

In a similar vein, Abbot Joseph Chapman taught people to accept the prayer God gives them, and not to try to force themselves into feelings of any kind (letter XII); stop trying to do the impossible, and take the kind of prayer that is possible for you (letter XXII); "I must wish for exactly the state God wishes me to be in, whether it means distractions, or discouragements, or sleepiness, or merely emptiness" (letter LXXIII).  Abbot John Chapman, Spiritual Letters.

3.  Although the memory and intellect may offer thoughts, don't run after them.  Remember what St. Teresa said about the bees that would never get their honey made if they kept chasing after the other bees.  It is possible to remain quiet on one level while the intellect and memory wander on another.

From my own experience, I would add that we become conscious of a memory only when it is already in progress, and conscious of an idea when it has already begun to form.  The person who is trying to completely control these thoughts is really trying to control the past, retroactively, because the thoughts are already there when we first become conscious enough of them to begin to exercise the will.  But we can stop ourselves from running after them when we do become aware that they have led us off course.

There are no lockable barn doors on dovecots.  The doves will fly in and out, regardless of what is done to keep them there.  And once the dove is soaring over the Grand Canyon, it serves no purpose to wish it had remained in the dovecot.  But you don't have to follow it there.  Instead, go back to the Master and continue to wait in silence for the food He will bring.

4.  Occupy your mind with wordless thoughts such as caring for souls in purgatory, and with simple thoughts of love for God, to draw the mind away from analytical thoughts.  St. Teresa wrote, "Let the will stir up some of those reasons, which proceed from reason itself, to quicken its love, such as the fact of its being in a better state, and let it make certain acts of love, as what it will do for Him to whom it owes so much,—and that, as I said just now, without any noise of the understanding, in the search after profound reflections."

5.  Separate times for prayer and times for study.  St. Teresa wrote, "And though learning could not fail to be of great use to them, both before and after prayer, still, in the very time of prayer itself, there is little necessity for it . . . ."  And, "So, then, when the soul is in the prayer of quiet, let it repose in its rest—let learning be put on one side. The time will come when they may make use of it in the service of our Lord—when they that possess it will appreciate it so highly as to be glad that they had not neglected it even for all the treasures of the world, simply because it enables them to serve His Majesty; for it is a great help."

The analytical interest that occurs to us in prayer can be set aside for later analysis.  A contemplative can be an intellectual, as was the case for St. Edith Stein, but it is necessary to try to keep each in its place. That won't work entirely, as a contemplative will sometimes wonder into prayer when she is supposed to be doing her homework, or start thinking about her homework when she is trying to pray.  But when she becomes aware of it, it is the task of the will to set it aside for later and pay attention to the task at hand, keeping each in its own time.   And thoughts of work to be done later can pass without destroying the quiet awareness of God's presence if we don't chase after them.

A practical suggestion I learned long ago was to keep a notepad in the place where I usually pray.  If a thought comes to mind in prayer that really must be dealt with later, it can be quickly written down and set aside for later.  Once written down, the thought may go away.

Conclusion:

St. Teresa concludes her discussion of this level of prayer by saying that this prayer of quiet "is the beginning of all good; the flowers have so thriven, that they are on the point of budding."

This image of the doves and the dovecot is St. Teresa's key metaphoric use of doves in The Life. Elsewhere, she describes seeing doves in visions in The Life and The Relations.  I will probably write about those last, after writing about her other metaphoric uses of the dove image in Interior Castle.  It is Interior Castle's use -- the journey of the dove -- that I think may have been influence by John Cassian, as I mentioned last week.  In writing about that, there will be more  to say about the stages of prayer as seen in the writings of St. Teresa of Avila.

For more on dealing with distractions during silent prayer, see Silent Prayer in a Not-So-Silent Church.

St. Gregory the Great: A Comfort to St. Teresa of Avila

As Pope Benedict XVI's weekly audience catechesis this week and last week spoke of Pope/St. Gregory the Great, I thought I would do a separate post about his writing that influenced St. Teresa of Avila. In her Life, 5:16, she says that St. Gregory the Great's book Morals on the Book of Job helped to sustain her during the serious illness that struck her in early adulthood. She knew the life of Job, she said, from that book.  She would have had St. Gregory's book in Spanish translation.  Although she quoted from the Biblical Book of Job itself, she may have been careful to mention a source other than Scripture, because she was writing in an era when women were not taught much of the Latin language in which Scripture was usually available, and Spanish translations were under scrutiny for their association with the ongoing Protestant Reformation.  Here is the reference:

I was not more than three months in this cruel distress, for it seemed impossible that so many ills could be borne together.  I now am astonished at myself, and the patience His Majesty gave me—for it clearly came from Him—I look upon as a great mercy of our Lord.  It was a great help to me to be patient, that I had read the story of Job, in the Morals of St. Gregory (our Lord seems to have prepared me thereby); and that I had begun the practice of prayer, so that I might bear it all, conforming my will to the will of God.  All my conversation was with God.  I had continually these words of Job in my thoughts and in my mouth: "If we have received good things of the hand of our Lord, why should we not receive evil things?"  This seemed to give me courage.

Her quote is from Job 2:10.  Volume I and part of Volume II of St. Gregory's 3-volume Morals on the Book of Job are online at Lectionary Central.

The Feast Day of St. Teresa of Avila

October 15 is the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila, a solemnity in the Carmelite calendar.  For this feast day, I invite you to consider the St. Teresa of Avila category on this blog, which has much about her including a biography.  There is more about St. Teresa in the category Carmelites and Pope Benedict XVI, including several recent posts that consider what she wrote on the Lord's Prayer together with what Pope Benedict XVI wrote about the Lord's Prayer in his book Jesus of Nazareth.

If you have never read anything by this great Doctor of the Church on prayer, consider buying one of her books translated by Father Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D., linked in the amazon.com "Recently Mentioned" widget in the sidebar, or on the St. Teresa of Avila page at the website of ICS Publications, or another ICS book such as the short Carmelite Spirituality in the Teresian Tradition or even shorter Lectio Divina and the Practice of Teresian Prayer.

Picture: Statue of St. Teresa of Avila at the San Diego Carmelite Monastery.  Photo by me.

Give us this day our daily bread

"Give us this day our daily bread."

- Matt. 6:11 (RSV)

"Ask the Father, daughters, together with the Lord, to give you your Spouse "this day" so that you will not be seen in this world without him.  To temper such great happiness it's sufficient that he remain disguised in these accidents of bread and wine.  This is torment enough for anyone who has no other love than him nor any other consolation.  Beg him not to fail you, and to give you the dispositions to receive him worthily."

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection.

"I saw how different was my piercing."

"After Communion, I saw our Lord most distinctly close beside me; and He began to comfort me with great sweetness, and said to me, among other things: 'Thou beholdest Me present, My daughter,—it is I.   Show me thy hands.'   And to me He seemed to take them and to put them to His side, and said: 'Behold My wounds; thou art not without Me.   Finish the short course of thy life.'   By some things He said to me, I understood that, after His Ascension, He never came down to the earth except in the most Holy Sacrament to communicate Himself to any one.  He said to me, that when He rose again He showed Himself to our Lady, because she was in great trouble; for sorrow had so pierced her soul that she did not even recover herself at once in order to have the fruition of that joy.  By this I saw how different was my piercing.    But what must that of the Virgin have been?   He remained long with her then because it was necessary to console her."

- St. Teresa of Avila, On the graces received at Salamanca at the end of Lent, 1571, from Relation IV.

 

Picture: "The Entombment" by Rubens, Flemish, about 1612, photo by me. Museum information.

About St. Teresa of Avila

October 15 is the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila.  Although saints' days are superseded by Sunday, her day will be observed this Sunday in some Carmelite houses.

The short biographies that I write are usually about half the size of this one.  It is longer for several reasons, the most obvious ones being that she is my favorite saint and my namesake.  In addition to those, I had more that I wanted to say because of recent biographies that overemphasize her feminism and minimize the massive support that she had from many men during her lifetime.  Another is a news report about a movie being made that overemphasizes her sex appeal, suggesting that the men who helped her were responding to her sexuality.  Hopefully, in responding to those characterizations of her life, I have not overcompensated by overemphasizing something else.  In any event, it is my view of my favorite saint.

Teresa de Ahumada y Cepeda was born on March 28, 1515 in Avila, Castile, Spain.  Her mother was from the Spanish nobility.  Her father’s father had been a Jewish textile merchant and had converted to Catholicism to marry her father’s mother.  His "pure blood" status was once upheld by a court, in an era of prejudice, probably because of his popularity among the nobility and because his conversion to Catholicism had been real.  Teresa's father was a devout Catholic with a preference for the Dominican clergy and for the Dominican theologians who had a seminary in Avila. 

Her mother had a devotion to the rosary and a love for reading books about chivalry and romance.  She taught Teresa to read, and Teresa soon shared her mother’s love for books, beautiful clothing and jewelry.  Teresa was her father’s fifth child, with seven younger siblings.  Six of the younger ones were boys.  She was 13 years old when her mother died giving birth to her only younger sister.  Her only older sister, Juana, married in 1531, leaving the single father alone to care for the younger children.  At 15, she formed a friendship with a female cousin she later remembered as a bad influence, lost part of her childhood faith, and had a brief romance with a boy cousin that was probably innocuous by today’s standards.  Her scrupulous father knew only a little about it, but sensed that something was wrong.

All of Avila was planning for great festivities that year, when the future King Phillip II was expected to arrive for the celebration of the day when he would leave his baby clothes to take on the attire of a young boy.  The feast had already begun, two weeks before the imperial procession was to arrive, when Teresa’s father moved her into the convent of St. Mary of Grace, a strict, Augustinian house in Avila with 40 nuns and room for 10 girls living as borders.  The girls were taught reading, writing, needlework, and music, watched over by Mother Maria de Briceño, a mystic with a devotion to the Eucharist.  Mother Maria de Briceño was known for having once held back from the Eucharist when she did not think herself worthy, only to have the host miraculously fly from the ciborium into her mouth.  Teresa was at first outraged by the penances forced on her, but later delighted in  Mother de Briceño’s talk about God.  Teresa lived there 18 months before a serious illness required her to return home.  Along the way, she visited her father’s brother, who introduced her to the Letters of St. Jerome.  Later, the same uncle, a widower living alone, introduced her to the Third Spiritual Alphabet by Spanish mystic Francisco de Osuna.

In 1535, then 20 years old, Teresa wanted to become a Carmelite nun at the monastery where her friend Juana Suarez lived, but it was largely because her fear of hell outweighed her desire for marriage.  Her father forbade it.  She persuaded one of her brothers, who would eventually become a Dominican, to help her.  On November 2, 1535, they slipped out of their father’s house one morning at sunrise and walked down the hill to Our Lady of the Incarnation.  Her father accepted her choice only after the fact.

The Incarnation was then home to 150 nuns as well as boarders and domestic servants living under a Carmelite rule that had been relaxed, or "mitigated", since the order's original founding.  A lively social life could be had there, and the sisters could entertain friends and family in the parlor.  However, Teresa’s illness and emotional turmoil plagued her early years at the Incarnation.  For several months in 1538, she left to seek treatment elsewhere, and at one point was near death.  When she returned to the Incarnation, she still lingered in the infirmary, nearly paralyzed, for the next few years.  Frustrated, she sought healing from St. Joseph.  She was freed and able to walk again.  Nonetheless, she continued to suffer from poor health for the rest of her life.

Her father having provided for her, Doña Teresa (as she was still known) could have had a relatively comfortable apartment.  Still, the Incarnation as a whole was impoverished, depending upon resources from the city of Avila, whose 10,000 people were a source of limited donations for many local convents and churches.  Nuns were encouraged to spend time with their families outside of the monastery.  Some of them also spent time living in houses of the wealthy nobility, who believed that they would be rewarded in heaven for taking care of a needy nun.  Teresa’s younger sister moved into the Incarnation and grew up there with Teresa, who still was involved in meeting family obligations as the oldest single daughter.  Her bubbly personality soon made her a welcome house guest of the nobility of Spain’s Golden Age, and she formed a close friendship with an affluent woman who later helped her.

She remained an avid reader, and some spiritual books were available in the Spanish vernacular that she could read.  She read St. Augustine's Confessions at least two times.  Her devotion to St. John Cassian's Conferences was mentioned by Petronila Bautista in her beatification process, and it is possible that she read from his work each day as St. Thomas Aquinas is said to have done, following St. Benedict's recommendation of the work in The Rule.  Some of her writings suggest the influence of Dominican thinking of her day.  Her father's confessor, and one of her brothers, were Dominicans, and she once had the Dominican theologian Domingo de Yanguas as her confessor.  She must have discussed her ideas with them.  Yet, in an environment in which women were not taught to read Latin, and Scripture was only legally available in Latin, she often downplayed the extent of her own knowledge in her writings.

In 1545, Teresa began to have mystical experiences.  In 1554, a sense of the wounded Christ transformed her motivation into love for Christ that surpassed the fear that had been her earlier motivation.  In 1555, she had her first great ecstasy.  Her first real vision occurred on June 29, 1559.  In 1560, she had her first levitation, the transverberation of her heart, and a terrifying vision of hell.  In 1561, she miraculously restored her sister’s little boy to life, her first miracle.  Despite that, as soon as one of her ecstasies ended, she went back to being an ordinary, humble Carmelite nun who was very friendly, extroverted, and yet who loved to pray.  Talk of her experiences spread, some people beginning to regard her as a saint while others wondered if she was an impostor or a person under demonic deception.

These mystical experiences caused great concern among the clergy who knew her.  In the early 16th century, a mystical movement of illuminism had developed in Spain including mental prayer, with a belief in the free access of the entire population to the Scriptures.  A self-proclaimed prophetess and fraudulent visionary, Magdalena de la Cruz, had drawn much public support.  The reaction of the Inquisition, while the Reformation was spreading through France, Germany and England, was often severe.  In 1559, the former priest of Charles V was burned with 110 accused heretics.  The same year, more than 700 books were burned on the pretext that writings in the Spanish vernacular might contain heretical ideas.  The archbishop of Toledo was imprisoned.  No one could feel secure.  At times, even priests who were her supporters cautioned her to stop, in fear for their own safety as well as for hers.  Suggestions that Teresa’s opponents were merely male misogynists, or that her efforts were essentially a feminist movement, disregard the true position of both men and women in that era of Spanish history. 

By 1558, Teresa was suspected of demonic illusions.  Even clergy she admired were concerned about the source of her mystical experiences.  However, she had both men and women who supported her efforts in what was, indeed, an age of reform through much of Europe.  By the age of 45, she was already known as “the Madre” throughout Spain.  That year, she began to write her first work, The Spiritual Testimonies.  In 1561, as a few friends and family members encouraged her to form a new, smaller monastery committed to a more ascetic Carmelite life of prayer, a priest asked her to write the story of her life and mystical experiences.  After a vision of St. Clare on August 12, 1561, she wrote the first rule of the Discalced Carmelite order that she wanted to found. 

In 1562, she was sent to Toledo, to the home of the wealthy Luisa de La Cerda for six months, a plan that some thought would end her plans for a new monastery.  There, she completed the first draft of her autobiography ("The Life") and met with Fray Garcia de Toledo, who asked her to rewrite it.  Whenever Scripture or the Church, or those in authority over her, told her to do something different from what she had believed God was asking her to do, she always took the guidance of Scripture and the Church as more powerful evidence of God's will than were her feelings and mystical experiences.  She regularly made the changes that those in authority over her asked her to make.  She did not finish the final draft until 1565. 

Meanwhile, an ascetic widow, Maria de Yepes, found her in Toledo and told her by memory the primitive rule of Carmel, which further inspired her reform.  Maria had become a Carmelite and had left the order because of its laxity.  She reported that she had had gone to Rome, speaking favorably about the planned reform of Carmel, and that she had obtained from Pope Pius IV a brief authorizing the reform.  While in Italy, Maria had spent time in an Italian Carmelite monastery that had already begun to follow the more severe primitive rule.

The provincial father then authorized Teresa’s return to Avila.  While Teresa had her opponents within Castile, Pope Pius IV was seeking to reform those monastic orders that had been living under a relaxed rule.  It was part of an effort to counteract the Lutheran Evangelical movement.  Orders other than the Carmelites had already undergone reforms.  On February 6, 1562, Pope Pius IV indeed had authorized the founding of her reformed monastery, although his brief was not accepted by opponents who believed that the Pope did not have accurate information about the Madre.  She then won the approval of St. Peter of Alcantara not long before his death.  On August 24, the Monastery of San Jose of Avila was begun amid much opposition.  On December 5, 1562, a second papal brief authorized Teresa, by name, to found a monastery in strict poverty.  Not until the following year would Teresa be allowed to leave the Incarnation and join the nuns at San Jose.  That year, she also wrote the first draft of The Way of Perfection, a book of her teaching and counsel for the nuns at the new Carmel. 

In February 1567, Teresa received a visit from Father Juan Bautista Rossi, known as Rubeo de Ravenna, the Carmelite prior general who had just arrived from Rome.  King Phillip II had invited him to Spain.  The king shared the Pope’s interest in reforming the relaxed orders.  Father Rubeo’s mission was the reform of the Carmelite order, but the mitigated Carmelite monasteries of Spain had no interest in his plans.  After visiting the monastery of San Jose, he instructed Teresa to found more monasteries for women and, soon afterward, authorized her to reform two monasteries for men.

That year,  Antonio de Heredia, the former prior of the Carmelite monasteries in Avila, became the prior general of Carmel in Medina del Campo and soon surprised Teresa by telling her that he wanted to be the prior of her first Discalced Carmelite foundation for men!  She thought he was too old and too accustomed to comfort and beautiful art.  Yet he, together with St. John of the Cross and two others, formed the first Discalced Carmelite house for men.  It drew much attention in that day as a house for men whose formation was attributed to a woman.  On her part, Teresa believed that she had found in St. John of the Cross asceticism coupled with great theological knowledge and expertise as a Latinist: the sort of priest who she hoped would lead the Carmelite friars.  Father Antonio became the first prior on the provincial’s order.  While the nuns’ houses were established as cloistered houses of contemplation, in poverty, the friars were free to leave their house, and they served as priests to nearby parishes in need of clergy.  For all of them, Teresa insisted that the spirit of Carmel must be the spirit of love, a life of joy and not of suffering.

Teresa was increasingly considered to be a saint.  Her mystical graces continued.  She began to draw unwanted crowds when she entered towns.  She sometimes traveled by wagons, together with other nuns who created a sort of cloister inside a wagon for the journey.  When required by the treacherous road conditions, she was sometimes on mule-back or horseback.  She twice took carriages offered by the nobility.  Her health always a concern, her preferred mode of transportation beginning in 1570 was a tartana, a covered wagon drawn by one mule.  Sometimes traveling through snowfall, often entering towns during the night to avoid the attention of those who opposed her foundations, and several times in danger of life in precarious roads and weather conditions, she continued to found new houses when invited by someone with the financial means to establish a new monastery.

Her opponents continued their efforts.  In 1571, she was ordered to return to Avila and to take the role of prioress of the Incarnation – a matter that did not sit well with her or with the nuns there who opposed her reforms.  She remained prioress for 3 years, bringing John of the Cross to be chaplain in 1572.  In 1573, she began to write the book of her Foundations, the history of her founding the houses other than San Jose, a book that she completed in 1582.

Inevitably, part of the opposition to her foundations was financial.  Cities were always concerned about the financial burden of another monastery.  Other monasteries that were already drawing from the alms given by city residents were concerned that they would have too little financial support to survive if the celebrated nun founded a monastery in competition for those donations.  A wife or heir of a property owner could oppose the sale or rental of a house to a monastery because, once it was consecrated as a chapel and the Blessed Sacrament was in place, it could not readily revert to its use as a family home.  Teresa quickly gained an expertise in the real estate market, shrewdness in negotiation, and experience in dealing with lawyers and courts involved in a series of lawsuits.

Another source of conflict was a struggle between Phillip II, who supported Pius IV’s desire for monastic austerity and reform, and the Carmelite general who wanted to protect the casual, relaxed rule that had been the norm for Carmel.  At the end of 1574, Phillip II succeeded in having the Pope appoint Father Jeronimo Gracian and two Dominicans as reformers of Castile and Andalusia.  In April, 1575, Father Gracian met Teresa and soon became her closest confidant and ally.

Then, after leaving the Incarnation for the second time, a crisis erupted when Teresa founded a monastery in Seville, outside of the area where she was authorized to found new houses.  At the time, the Inquisition was looking for her autobiography to investigate her for possible heresy. 

She was ordered to stop making foundations and to settle in the monastery of her choice.  She chose Toledo, as the persecutions against the Discalced intensified to a new level.  In 1577, while The Life was in the hands of the Inquisition, she wrote The Interior Castle at Father Gracian’s suggestion.  On December 4, 1577, St. John of the Cross was captured by mitigated Carmelites and imprisoned in Toledo, as the persecution against the Discalced Carmelites intensified.  The Discalced Carmelites were placed under the jurisdiction of the mitigated.  In March, 1578, Father Gracian went into hiding and lived as a hermit in a grotto. 

However, one year later, the king appointed four assessors who removed the Discalced from the jurisdiction of the mitigated Carmelites.  Shortly afterward, the king’s assessors supported the creation of a separate Discalced Carmelite province, a plan that would become official in 1580.

Her foundations continued until 1582.  Still traveling, Teresa arrived at the monastery at Alba de Tormes on September 21, 1582.  She died there on October 4.  She was buried the next day for fear that the people of Avila would come to claim her.  A later reform of the calendar moved the date of her death to October 15, 1582. 

Her death drew much public attention.  The nuns noticed a fragrance coming from the grave, the same fragrance that they said had been noticeable around her during the last days of her life and around her body after her death.  On July 4, 1583, her coffin was opened.  Although the coffin lid had rotted and smelled of mildew, her body was found to be as incorrupt as it was the day she was buried.  The nuns washed her and prepared to dress her in a new habit.  Father Gracian cut off her left hand, which he took to Avila.  From it, he kept one finger, which he wore around his neck for the rest of his life.  In 1585, Father Gracian and another man opened her grave again cut off what remained of her left arm, finding it still incorrupt, bleeding from the cut, with the fragrance.  They took her body back to Avila.  On the Pope’s order, her body was returned to Avila the following year.  Her body was exhumed again, and her transverberated heart, right arm, right foot, a piece of her jaw, and bits of flesh were taken as relics at various times.  Most of her remains are now in Alba.   

Teresa of Jesus was beatified in 1614 and canonized in 1622.  In 1970, Pope Paul VI proclaimed her a Doctor of the Church.

Bibliography:

Teresa of Avila, The Life and The Foundations are her two primary autobiographical books.

Antier, Jean-Jacques, Thérèse d'Avila: De la crainte à l'amour.  This book is now available in English translation under the title God Alone Suffices, published by the Daughters of St. Paul.  I strongly recommend this book in preference over the other two biographies cited in this bibliography.  It places the emphasis on her spiritual development -- prayer, her relationship with God, and the spiritual motivation for her new foundations.  Some of the other biographies on the market today compromise historic fact in order to serve a feminist agenda, overlooking those things that Teresa herself would have seen as central to her life and mission.  Antier has an interest in mysticism and adventure, sets her mystical life in its historic context, and writes beautifully.   

Auclair, Marcelle, St. Teresa of Avila/La Vie de sainte Thérèse d'Avila.

Du Boulay, Shirley, Teresa of Avila: An Extraordinary Life.

Photo: Statue of St. Teresa of Avila from the Carmelite Monastery in San Diego, California.  Photo by me.

St. Teresa of Avila's Dove Metaphor

St. Teresa of Avila uses many metaphoric descriptions to explain spiritual concepts.  One of those metaphors is a dove.  Here is a collection of nine dove references from Relations, The Life, and Interior Castle:

"Once, when I was about to communicate,—it was shortly before I had this vision,—the Host being still in the ciborium, for It had not yet been given me, I saw something like a dove, which moved its wings with a sound. It disturbed me so much, and so carried me away out of myself, that it was with the utmost difficulty I received the Host. All this took place in St. Joseph of Avila.  It was Father Francis Salcedo who was giving me the most Holy Sacrament.  Hearing Mass another day, I saw our Lord glorious in the Host; He said to me that his sacrifice was acceptable unto Him."

- The Relations, Relation III.

"For if it [the will] tried to make them  recollected, it would miss its way together with them, because they  are at this time like doves which are not satisfied with the food the  master of the dovecot gives them without any labouring for it on their part, and which go forth in quest of it elsewhere, and so hardly find it that they come back. And so the memory and the understanding come and go, seeking whether the will is going to give them that into the fruition of which it has entered itself."

- The Life, Chapter XIV.

"For my part, I believe that a soul which has reached this state neither speaks nor acts of itself, but rather that the supreme King takes care of all it has to do. O my God, how clear is the meaning of those words, and what good reason the Psalmist had, and all the world will ever have, to pray for the wings of a dove!  [Psalm 55:7] It is plain that this is the flight of the spirit rising upwards above all created things, and chiefly above itself: but it is a sweet flight, a delicious flight—a flight without noise."

- The Life, Chapter XX.

"Then I saw over my head a dove, very different from those we usually see, for it had not the same plumage, but wings formed of small shells shining brightly. It was larger than an ordinary dove; I thought I heard the rustling of its wings.  It  hovered above me during the space of an Ave Maria.  But such was the state of my soul, that in losing itself it lost also the sight of the dove. My spirit grew calm with such a guest; and yet, as I think, a grace so wonderful might have disturbed and frightened it; and as it began to rejoice in the vision, it was delivered from all fear, and with the joy came peace, my soul continuing entranced. The joy of this rapture was exceedingly great; and for the rest of that festal time I was so amazed and bewildered that I did not know what I was doing, nor how I could have received so great a grace. I neither heard nor saw anything, so to speak, because of my great inward joy. From that day forth I perceived in myself a very great progress in the highest love of God, together with a great increase in the strength of my virtues. May He be blessed and praised for ever! Amen.

"On another occasion I saw that very dove above the head of one of the Dominican fathers; but it seemed to me that the rays and brightness of the wings were far greater. I understood by this that he was to draw souls unto God."

- The Life, Chapter XXXVIII.

"LET us now return to our little dove and see what graces God gives it in this state. This implies that the soul endeavours to advance in the service of our Lord and in self-knowledge. If it receives the grace of union and then does no more, thinking itself safe, and so leads a careless life, wandering off the road to heaven (that is, the keeping of the commandments) it will share the fate of the butterfly that comes from the silkworm, which lays some eggs that produce more of its kind and then dies for ever. I say it leaves some eggs, for I believe God will not allow so great a favour to be lost but that if the recipient does not profit by it, others will. For while it keeps to the right path, this soul, with its ardent desires and great virtues, helps others and kindles their fervour with its own. Yet even after having lost this it may still long to benefit others and delight to make known the mercies shown by God to those who love and serve Him."

- Interior Castle, Fifth Mansion, Chapter III.

"You appear anxious to know what has become of the little dove and where she obtains rest, since obviously she can find it neither in spiritual consolations nor in earthly pleasures but takes a higher flight. I cannot tell you until we come to the last mansion: God grant I may remember or have leisure to write it."

- Interior Castle, Fifth Mansion, Chapter IV.

"IT seems as if we had deserted the little dove for a long time, but this is not the case, for these past trials cause her to take a far higher flight. I will now describe the way in which the Spouse treats her before uniting her entirely to Himself. He increases her longing for Him by devices so delicate that the soul itself cannot discern them; nor do I think I could explain them except to people who have personally experienced them. These desires are delicate and subtle impulses springing from the inmost depths of the soul; I know of nothing to which they can be compared."

- Interior Castle, Sixth Mansion, Chapter II.

"Will all these graces bestowed by the Spouse upon the soul suffice to content this little dove or butterfly (you see I have not forgotten her after all!) so that she may settle down and rest in the place where she is to die? No indeed: her state is far worse than ever; although she has been receiving these favours for many years past, she still sighs and weeps because each grace augments her pain. She sees herself still far away from God, yet with her increased knowledge of His attributes her longing and her love for Him grow ever stronger as she learns more fully how this great God and Sovereign deserves to be loved. As, year by year her yearning after Him gradually becomes keener, she experiences the bitter suffering I am about to describe. I speak of ‘years’ because relating what happened to the person I mentioned, though I know well that with God time has no limits and in a single moment He can raise a soul to the most sublime state I have described. His Majesty has the power to do all He wishes and He wishes to do much for us. These longings, tears, sighs, and violent and impetuous desires and strong feelings, which seem to proceed from our vehement love, are yet as nothing compared with what I am about to describe and seem but a smouldering fire, the heat of which, though painful, is yet tolerable."

- Interior Castle, Sixth Mansion, Chapter XI.

"These effects, with all the other good fruits I have mentioned of the different degrees of prayer, are given by God to the soul when it draws near Him to receive that ‘kiss of His mouth’ for which the bride asked, and I believe her petition is now granted. Here the overflowing waters are given to the wounded hart: here she delights in the tabernacles of God: here the dove sent out by Noe to see whether the flood had subsided, has plucked the olive branch, showing that she has found firm land amongst the floods and tempests of this world."

- Interior Castle, Seventh Mansion, Chapter III.

Through the Flight of Others

 

2008-05-11_08-49-49
Video sent by TeresaPolk

"Doing our own will is usually what harms us.  And they shouldn't seek another of their own making, as they say -- one who is so circumspect about everything; but seek out someone who is very free from illusion about the things of the world.  For in order to know ourselves, it helps a great deal to speak with someone who already knows the world for what it is.  And it helps also because when we see some things done by others that seem so impossible for us and the ease with which they are done, we become very encouraged.  And it seems that through the flight of these others we also will make bold to fly, as do the bird's fledglings when they are taught; for even though they do not begin to soar immediately, little by little they imitate the parent."

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, III:2:12

Video: Swallow tailed rock dove adult and chick (used by permission).

Ecstacy and the Sea

Freediving through a Tunnel
Uploaded by rslomkow

“In mental prayer, ecstasy is not at all inevitable.  It is even exceptional.  The one praying is usually like a swimmer who moves along on the surface.  He bathes in the water but he always belongs to the atmospheric world.  Then in ecstasy, suddenly he plunges, as if seized by the depths.  He would have to suffocate.  But, cared for by the abyssal entity that calls him, he survives, a limited time, surely, but consequent enough that he can discover the supernatural realities that underlie the world.”

- Jean-Jacques Antier, Thérèse d'Avila: De la crainte à l'amour ("Teresa of Avila: From Fear to Love"), pg. 103, my translation.

Run 1000 miles from "they had no reason for doing this to me."

"I have often told you, Sisters, and now I want to leave it in writing here so that you will not forget it, that in this house -- and even in the case of any person seeking perfection -- you should run a thousand miles from such expressions as: 'I was right.'  'They had no reason for doing this to me.'  'The one who did this to me was wrong.'  God deliver us from this poor reasoning.  Does it seem to have been right that our good Jesus suffered so many insults and was made to undergo so much injustice?"

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, 13.1

Prayer in a Time of Heresy

Moved up from June 13:

Often, when countering heretical views around us, our first reaction is a defense of the faith.  Certainly, that is worthwhile, but often we should spend more time praying.  Argument is not enough to stop the spread of bad ideas, as much as it is helpful in showing them to be logically what they are: bad ideas.  Those who are insistent upon carrying them out will do them anyway.  It has happened in the past, when the person in the room or in the office or on the committee who knew that others were making the wrong decision has said so and has had nothing to show for it but the right to say "I told you so."  It has happened in wars too, when the feeble ability to have said "I knew it was the wrong thing to do" is a helpless cry while others are left to ask, "Then why couldn't you convince us at the time?"

In times of concern over truth, the way of victory is often the way of St. Teresa of Avila, of turning inward within that interior fortress where victory is more certain, and even by starvation we cannot be forced to surrender: "to die, yes; but not to surrender."  (The Way of Perfection, Chapter 3)

This week, the Episcopal Church USA has its General Convention 2006, and decisions they will make will impact the future of the Anglican Communion and the future of Catholic-Anglican dialogue.  The dialogue, it seems sure, is no longer to be one of two similar forms of Christianity moving toward reunion, but rather two walking side by side in discussion of ideas but without the expectation of ever becoming one again.  That is so not only because of events in the United States but also because of events in England, as Cardinal Kasper mentioned last week in connection with the Church of England's expected vote to have women bishops.

What those Catholic-minded among them may do may be of greatest concern for Catholics now.  We can all pray for them in their search and in their reflections over what should be their future path.  It is not our only concern.  The move of secular society and bodies such as the Episcopal Church in a direction opposed to truth and opposed to orthodoxy, opposed to those things always understood to be holy, is another.  Ultimately, we pray for God's will to be done on earth as in heaven.

According to the Madre, we should pray for two main things in the Church's response to heretical views affecting the course of our world:

    1.   For holiness (perfection) for priests, nuns and monks, so that they will be best prepared to fight for truth; and

    2.    For the Lord to protect those who are fighting for truth from the temptations of the world, "and stop their ears in order not to hear the siren's song on this dangerous sea."

And near the end of Chapter 3 of The Way of Perfection, she offered this portion of prayer:

"But behold, my Lord, that You are a God of mercy; have mercy on this little sinner, this little worm that is so bold with You.  Behold, my God, my desires and the tears with which I beg this of You; forget my deeds because of who You are; have pity on so many souls that are being lost, and help Your Church.  Don't allow any more harm to come to Christianity, Lord.  Give light now to these darknesses."

Her words in that Chapter were directed to rumors then in Spain about the Huguenots in France, probably without much accurate detailed knowledge.  The understanding she had of the Reformation (churches being destroyed, the sacrament taken away, and some priests lost) are not overstatements of what is wrong with some of the true heresies of our own time. 

Surely, we pray for many detailed things in this environment.  Among them, surely, should be those things in St. Teresa's 2-item list.

A good time for our Master to teach us

"Be with him willingly; don't lose so good an occasion for conversing with him as is the hour after having received Communion.  If obedience should command something, Sisters, strive to leave your soul with the Lord.  If you immediately turn your thoughts to other things, if you pay no attention and take no account of the fact that he is within you, how will he be able to reveal himself to you?  This, then, is a good time for our Master to teach us, and for us to listen to him, kiss his feet because he wanted to teach us, and beg him not to leave."

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, 34:10.

St. Teresa of Avila: Children Playing Hermit

"One of my brothers was nearly of my own age; and he it was whom I most loved, though I was very fond of them all, and they of me. He and I used to read Lives of Saints together.  When I read of martyrdom undergone by the Saints for the love of God, it struck me that the vision of God was very cheaply purchased; and I had a great desire to die a martyr's death,— not out of any love of Him of which I was conscious, but that I might most quickly attain to the fruition of those great joys of which I read that they were reserved in Heaven; and I used to discuss with my brother how we could become martyrs.  We settled to go together to the country of the Moors, begging our way for the love of God, that we might be there beheaded; and our Lord, I believe, had given us courage enough, even at so tender an age, if we could have found the means to proceed; but our greatest difficulty seemed to be our father and mother.

"It astonished us greatly to find it said in what we were reading that pain and bliss were everlasting. We happened very often to talk about this; and we had a pleasure in repeating frequently, "For ever, ever, ever."  Through the constant uttering of these words, our Lord was pleased that I should receive an abiding impression of the way of truth when I was yet a child.

"As soon as I saw it was impossible to go to any place where people would put me to death for the sake of God, my brother and I set about becoming hermits; and in an orchard belonging to the house we contrived, as well as we could, to build hermitages, by piling up small stones one on the other, which fell down immediately; and so it came to pass that we found no means of accomplishing our wish.  Even now, I have a feeling of devotion when I consider how God gave me in my early youth what I lost by my own fault.  I gave alms as I could—and I could but little. I contrived to be alone, for the sake of saying my prayers—and they were many—especially the Rosary, to which my mother had a great devotion, and had made us also in this like herself.  I used to delight exceedingly, when playing with other children, in the building of monasteries, as if we were nuns; and I think I wished to be a nun, though not so much as I did to be a martyr or a hermit."

- The Life of St. Teresa of Avila, Chapter 1, translated by David Lewis, from Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

Friendship with God

"O, Sisters, those of you who cannot engage in much discursive reflection with the intellect or keep your mind from distraction, get used to this practice!  Get used to it!  See, I know that you can do this; for I suffered many years from the trial -- and it is a very great one -- of not being able to quiet the mind in anything.  But I know that the Lord does not leave us so abandoned; for if we humbly ask him for this friendship, he will not deny it to us.  And if we cannot succeed in one year, we will succeed later.  Let's not regret the time that is so well spent.  Who's making us hurry?  I am speaking of acquiring this habit and of striving to walk alongside this true Master."

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, 26:2, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD, ICS Publications, 1980, 2000. 

"How are we to become friends of God?  Teresa never defines friendship in general terms, for all her constant interest in the subject, but we can piece together from this work in particular [The Way of Perfection] what she thought essential to it.  Friendship is not a relation in which one partner makes unilateral claims on the other from a position of superiority; so much is obvious from Teresa's picture of Carmel as a community of friends (and in this respect she is echoing, albeit no doubt unconsciously, Aristotle and St. Thomas).  It is wanting the fulfilment of another human being's potential according to the law of God. . . . But how is it to be applied to our relations with God?  We may honour God rightly, but how can God give us the equal honour necessary to friendship?

The fundamental answer is that we are adopted -- through the Holy Spirit -- into the relation of God to God, Father to Son: the Father treats us as deserving of the loving respect that is due to the Son.  But the method of adoption is something that radicalizes the idea of friendship itself still further.  To make us friends of God, God wholly abandons dignity and status: it is not that God simply brings us up to an acceptable standard and then deigns to treat us as friends. . . . God initiates this friendship by resolving to have no interest at heart but ours, and we appropriately respond by resolving to have no interest but God's."

- Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teresa of Avila, Outstanding Christian Thinkers Series, Morehouse Publishing, 1991, pp. 103-104,

The Innermost Temple of the Heart

From Scripture:

"God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth."

- John 4:24 NAB

From the Dominicans:

"'God is spirit, and those who worship him should worship in spirit and in truth' (John 4:24).  So prayer is not damaged by the kind of attentiveness which makes us pray in spirit."

- St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences, Book 4, Distinction 15, Question 4, from Albert & Thomas: Selected Writings, The Classics of Western Spirituality, Paulist Press. 1988, pg. 379.

From the footnote to that quote from St. Thomas, by Simon Tugwell, O.P.:

"The move in Latin from adorare (worship) to orare (prayer) is easy; exactly the same use of this text is found in Peraldus (cf. Tugwell, Early Dominicans p. 167).  The Marginal Gloss on John 4:24 identifies "spirit" as "the innermost temple of the heart," and says that it is in this temple that "prayer is to be made to God."

It is interesting to remember that St. Teresa of Avila would have heard Dominican preachers in the Cathedral of Avila while she was growing up.  Whether she specifically heard them preaching on this passage, quoting Peraldus or Thomas, or whether she derived her idea of an interior castle from another one of the several Dominicans who influenced her thinking, she does not mention anywhere as far as I know.  However, the "attentiveness which makes us pray in spirit", as St. Thomas said, sounds somewhat like the recollection of prayer in which St. Teresa of Avila would advise people to collect their faculties and enter into themselves, into the Interior Castle of their souls in prayer.

From the Carmelites:

This is how she explains her "Interior Castle":

"Now let us return to our beautiful and charming castle and discover how to enter it. This appears incongruous: if this castle is the soul, clearly no one can have to enter it, for it is the person himself: one might as well tell some one to go into a room he is already in! There are, however, very different ways of being in this castle; many souls live in the courtyard of the building where the sentinels stand, neither caring to enter farther, nor to know who dwells in that most delightful place, what is in it and what rooms it contains.

Certain books on prayer that you have read advise the soul to enter into itself, and this is what I mean. I was recently told by a great theologian that souls without prayer are like bodies, palsied and lame, having hands and feet they cannot use.  Just so, there are souls so infirm and accustomed to think of nothing but earthly matters, that there seems no cure for them. It appears impossible for them to retire into their own hearts; accustomed as they are to be with the reptiles and other creatures which live outside the castle, they have come at last to imitate their habits. Though these souls are by their nature so richly endowed, capable of communion even with God Himself, yet their case seems hopeless. Unless they endeavour to understand and remedy their most miserable plight, their minds will become, as it were, bereft of movement, just as Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt for looking backwards in disobedience to God’s command.

As far as I can understand, the gate by which to enter this castle is prayer and meditation. I do not allude more to mental than to vocal prayer, for if it is prayer at all, the mind must take part in it. If a person neither considers to Whom he is addressing himself, what he asks, nor what he is who ventures to speak to God, although his lips may utter many words, I do not call it prayer".

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, the First Mansions, translated by the Benedictines of Stanbrook, Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

One more quote, along the same lines, from St. Paul of the Cross, describing St. Catherine of Siena:

"She fashioned a beautiful oratory within her soul, where she was always at prayer in the midst of her household work.  You should do that, and you well know how often I have recommended that.  Often arouse your soul to love of God and embrace him with holy affections within."

- St. Paul of the Cross, - St. Paul of the Cross, letter to Teresa Palozzi (11), September 8, 1759, from The Letters of St. Paul of the Cross, Vol. III (1759-1775), translated by Roger Mercurio, C.P., and Frederick Sucher, C.P., edited by Laurence Finn, C.P., and Donald Webber, C.P., c. 2000, New City Press, Hyde Park, N.Y., p. 32.

St. Paul of the Cross was certainly influenced by St. Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle.  Teresa, in turn, was clearly influenced by the early Dominicans, and perhaps by St. Thomas Aquinas as introduced to her by a sixteenth century Dominican.

There were several Dominicans who influenced St. Teresa.  In The Life, Teresa mentioned her father's Dominican confessor, Father Vicente Barron, as "a man of great learning" (Chapter 5).  She also was acquainted with the Dominican Father Garcia de Toledo, a famous Dominican from a noble family, who was her confessor at one time.  Her younger brother Antonio became a Dominican. 

Moreover, when she finished writing Interior Castle, it was a Dominican theologian, Father Diego de Yanguas, who reviewed it in her presence together with Father Jeronimo Gracian, who had asked her to write the book.  Father Yanguas was Teresa's confessor at one time, who had ordered her to burn the manuscript of her Meditations on the Song of Songs, which she did (although a clandestine manuscript survived).  Father Gracian was the son of a secretary in the court of Charles V, who would have understood the concept of Christ as a king in the interior of a castle. ,In the section quoted above from Interior Castle, Teresa mentions a "great theologian"  who told her a story about prayer, but she does not attribute to him her idea of an interior castle, and does not name him -- knowing that a Dominican theologian, Father Yanguas, would read the book when she finished it.   

While she may have initially derived the basic concept from the Dominicans, her elaboration of it is one of comfort, diversity, and love with implications different from those of the original Dominican concept.  The difference between an inner temple and an inner castle seems to be largely the sense of being in a home with many rooms, and the sense that Christ is the King, His Majesty in the center of the castle.  Her Interior Castle, thus, differs from the Dominican Innermost Temple in ways that can be derived from Teresa's reflections on moving from room to room within the Castle as we move, for example, from simple prayer to meditation to the prayer of quiet and back again -- something one does not do in a Temple.  A castle, in her day, would also be an elaborate and comfortable home, protected from the reptiles and vermin that would be found outdoors and perhaps just inside the entrance of the ground floor level.  It has a sense of being at home, or in the King's home, in prayer, which distinguishes the Interior Castle's implications from the implications of the Dominican concept of an inner temple.

Thus, despite distinctions between the two concepts, the connection between her interior castle and the early Dominicans' innermost temple is so close that we could easily include John 4:24, and its understanding by the early Dominicans, among the foundational Scriptures for Teresian spirituality, directly or indirectly.

More on St. Thomas's Commentary on Romans

Concerning the brief excerpt from St. Thomas's Commentary on Romans, which I blogged about yesterday, here is a portion of what is in the Introduction, written by Simon Tugwell, O.P. for Albert & Thomas: Selected Writings:

"So asking God for something is intrinsically an act of worship, in that it is a recognition of God's position as the source and Lord of everything.  It is a sacrifice of our own planning minds to God.

In principle, once this basic point has been seen, a lot of other problems become much more tractable, thought it took Thomas some time to work his way through them.  One traditional problem was whether or not we should ask God for worldly things. Thomas gradually came to see that the real problem was whether we should ask God for anything specific.  He escaped quickly enough from the idea (still present in the commentary on the Sentences) that asking for worldly things is a "low" kind of prayer; indeed, he seems to have abandoned thereafter any suggestion that there are different "levels" of prayer, because whether you are asking for the beatific vision or for a toy gun, the actual asking is the same.  But it was not until the late commentary on Romans that Thomas was finally able to deal satisfactorily with the problem of specific petition.  The difficulty is that, as St. Paul points out, "we do not know what we ought to pray for" (Rom. 8:26).  After various false starts, Thomas eventually came to accept that this applies to everything, and that therefore St. Paul's further comment that "the Spirit helps us in our weakness" applies to everything.  Even in the case of our practice of the theological virtues, we need the gifts of the Holy Spirit to free us from stupidity and ignorance; similarly in the case of all our prayer, it is the Holy Spirit who forms in our wills precise desires that are aligned with the will of God.  There is therefore no need to distinguish sharply between doubtful and undoubtful objects of petition; they are all doubtful in themselves, and they are all subject to the working of the Holy Spirit in our wills."

- Simon Tugwell, O.P., "Introduction" on St. Thomas Aquinas from Albert & Thomas: Selected Writings, Classics of Western Spirituality Series, Paulist Press, 1988, pg.276-277. 

Father Tugwell argues for a late date of the Commentary on Romans, placing it during St. Thomas's last years in Naples,1272-1273. December 6, 1273 marked the end of St. Thomas's writing, a few months before his death.  It was shortly after December 6, 1273 that St. Thomas said he could not resume his work because "Everything I have written seems like straw by comparison with what I have seen and what has been revealed to me." 

In saying, in my posting yesterday, that some of St. Thomas Aquinas's Commentary on Romans 8:26-27  sounded like a Teresian concept of prayer, here are a couple of examples from St. Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle that to me seemed similar to what St. Thomas said in his Commentary on Romans:

"It seems that, in order to reach these Mansions, one must have lived for a long time in the others; as a rule one must have been in those which we have just described, but there is no infallible rule about it, as you must often have heard, for the Lord gives when He wills and as He wills and to whom He wills, and, as the gifts are His own, this is doing no injustice to anyone." [Fourth Mansions, Chapter I]

"When, therefore, the aforementioned fire is not kindled in the will, and the presence of God is not felt, we must needs seek it, since this is His Majesty's desire, as the Bride sought it in the Songs.  Let us ask the creatures who made them, as Saint Augustine says that he did (in his Meditations or Confessions I think) and let us not be so foolish as to lose time by waiting to receive what has been given us once already.  At first it may be that the Lord will not give it us, for as long as a year, or even for many years: His Majesty knows why; it is not our business to want to know, nor is there any reason why we should.  Since we know the way we have to take to please God -- namely, that of keeping His commandments and counsels -- let us be very diligent in doing this, and in meditating upon His life and death, and upon all that we owe Him; and let the rest come when the Lord wills." [Sixth Mansions]

It should be kept in mind that it would be easier to point out the differences than the similarities.  For example, if St. Thomas concluded that there are no different levels of prayer, St. Teresa went to a great deal of trouble to explain different levels of prayer as well as she could.

The Groaning of the Dove

"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.  And he who searches the herts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."

Romans 8:26-27 (RSV)

It is not often that one notices points of similarity among Peter Lombard, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Carmelite meditation.  Since I am now reading through the Classics of Western Spirituality series book Albert & Thomas: Selected Writings, which includes excerpts from the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas on prayer, and just started listening to the tapes from The Carmelite Forum in June 2004 (Prayer and Meditation in Carmelite Tradition), this comparison caught my attention:

From St. Thomas Aquinas - Commentary on Romans 8:26-27:

The Holy Spirit makes us plead inasmuch as he causes right desires in us.  Pleading is a certain unfolding of our desires, and right desires come from charitable love, and this is produced in us by the Holy Spirit.  "The charity of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us" (Rom. 5:5).  With the Holy Spirit directing and prompting our hearts, even our desires cannot help but be useful to us.  "I am the Lord your God, who teach you useful things" (Isa. 48:17).  Therefore, the apostle adds "for us."

If something we greatly desire and pray for with desire is delayed, we endure such a delay with distress and groaning, so he goes on, "with groans," groans caused in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as he makes us desire the things of heaven, which are not given to the soul immediately.  This is the groaning of the dove produced by the Holy Spirit in us: "Her handmaids were driven out, groaning like doves" [Nahum 2:8].

Albert & Thomas: Selected Writings, pg. 522.

In footnote, editors Simon Tugwell, O.P. and Leonard E. Boyle, O.P., explain that St. Thomas is here following the gloss of Peter Lombard's commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul. 

Father Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D.:

Father Kieran Kavanaugh's message on the understanding of meditation and contemplation up to the time of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross, discusses how there was both continuity and change from the Fathers of the Church to the Middle Ages and to the writings of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross.  In his explanation of the concept of meditation, originating in the Old Testament, he explains that the Hebrew word for meditation originates in a root that also expresses the groaning of a dove:

So from Biblical times, through the monastic literature and the Fathers of the Church to the spiritual writers of the Middle Ages, the concept of meditation saw both continuity and change.  The change came about through the increasing importance of the intellectual or reflective factor.  The continuity was present in the fact that the different writers obtained their inspiration in the Bible, where they found the ordinary object of their meditation.  But first I think it would be helpful if I say something  on the meaning of the word "mediation" in Scripture, the meaning that it has in Scripture.  In the Old Testament, the idea of meditation is expressed through terms having as their root "hagah".  This is usually rendered in Greek by meleton or melete and in Latin by meditare, meditatio.  This root, in its primitive sense meant, "to murmur in a low, indistinct voice."  It is also used to refer to the sounds of animals and birds, for example the growling of the lion, the twittering of the swallow, and the moaning of the dove, or the growling of the bear.  The seat or organ of meditation is the throat or larynx.  In reference to human meditation, this can take on a religious meaning or not.  There is even a kind of meditation at enmity of God.  "The people meditate in vain," the Psalmist says.  Anyway, the hearing and bodily element is habitually joined to the spiritual and mental element.  In the book of Joshua , where this root word is the first used, we read: "This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it, for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success.  This same sense is carried over into the Psalm: Blessed is the one who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night.

Prayer and Meditation in the Carmelite Tradition, "The Meaning of Meditation and Contemplation in the Carmelite Tradition", by Father Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D.

St. Thomas, and Peter Abelard, connected the Holy Spirit's groaning within us, described by St. Paul as "sighs too deep for words" with the groaning of the dove in the Old Testament .  Father Kavanaugh explains that the Hebrew word for the groaning of a dove in fact is from the same root as the Hebrew word for meditation. 

I wish that Thomas, here, had said a great deal more about his own connection of the Holy Spirit within us and the dove as he understood Romans.  The Holy Spirit, of course, appeared as a dove at the baptism of Jesus, and both Peter Abelard and St. Thomas appear to have taken that reference to the Holy Spirit's appearing as a dove and applied it to their understanding of what St. Paul wrote in Romans 8:26-27, that the Holy Spirit prays within us in sighs too deep for words: the groaning of the dove.  Yet, here is a very Teresian concept of prayer as the Holy Spirit moving within us to pray, in prayers without words. 

The Greek word used in Romans 8:26-27 is not, however, the Greek word "meleton" mentioned by Father Kavanaugh as the Greek equivalent for the Hebrew "hagah".  Rather, it is a different Greek word for groanings, "stenagmos".  Nor is it rendered in Latin as "meditare", but rather "similiter autem et Spiritus adiuvat infirmitatem nostram nam quid oremus sicut oportet nescimus sed ipse Spiritus postulat pro nobis gemitibus inenarrabilibus."  Still, Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas seem to have read it in the sense intended by the Hebrew "hagah," in which the groaning of the Holy Spirit in our prayers is seen metaphorically as like the groaning of the dove.   

St. Teresa and St. Thomas are, of course, more readily contrasted than compared.  However, Father Kavanaugh also said, there is both continuity and change in the writings on meditation from the Church Fathers to sixteenth century Avila.  The continuity arises from the Scripture, "where they found the ordinary object of their meditation." 

Perhaps between now and the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas, January 28, I can blog a little bit more about the contemplative and meditative side of St. Thomas Aquinas, and the points of contact between his thinking on prayer and that of St. Teresa of Avila.

"To the Birth of Jesus"

Ah, shepherds watching,
Guarding your flocks!
Behold, a Lamb born for you,
Son of our Sovereign God.

Poor and despised He comes,
Begin now guarding Him,
Lest the wolf carry Him off.
Before rejoicing in Him,
Bring me your crook, Giles.
Firmly will I grasp it,
Preventing theft of the Lamb:
See you not He is Sovereign God?
 

- St. Teresa of Avila, from The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Vol. III, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D., and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D., ICS Publications, 1985. 

The Madre and the Businessman

Here is another thought for priests, choirmasters, choirs, merchants, moms, and others who are having a busy season and long for more time for silence.  See earlier Advent postings of this kind here and here.

"There was a person to whom I spoke a few days ago who for about fifteen years 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.  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.  Nothing on earth do they fear or desire, neither do trials disturb them, nor do consolations move them.  In sum, nothing can take away their peace because these souls depend only on God.  And since no one can take Him away from them, only the fear of losing Him can cause them any pain.  Everything else in this world, in their opinion, is as though it were not; it neither contributes anything nor removes anything from their happiness.  Oh, happy obedience and happy the resulting distraction that could obtain so much!"

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Book of the Foundations, 5:7, from The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Vol. III, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D., and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D., I.C.S. Publications, 1985.

The Magisterium and Prayer

In a congress on mysticism, Discalced Carmelite Father Jesus Castellano Cervera spoke of the Magisterium's concern for prayer, according to an article in today's Zenit here.  His remarks were from this past Saturday, December 3, at a congress in Italy known as  "Christian Mystical Experience, Non-Christian Mysticism and New Religiosity in the West,"  Father Castellano Cervera teaches at the Teresium in Rome.   He mentioned three specific Vatican documents that discuss prayer, including "Orationis Formas," the Oct. 15, 1989, letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a document he contributed to. He also cited the fourth section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church , and Pope John Paul II's letter "Novo Millennio Ineunte."   Concerning Orationis Formas, he said, "After several re-elaborations the text remained essentially as the fruit of the mind and style of Hans Urs von Balthasar, with suggestions from other exper