This month
Adrian Jones gave a presentation at the Spiritual Reading Group, held at the
Carmelite Library, on the ‘Vida’ or ‘Life’ of Saint Teresa of Avila. Here are some
of Adrian’s words, written in reflection at home after the session.
We have come
to value the telling of story. We realize that it is in hearing the life
journey of one another that we can know the person and the source of their
wisdom. While Teresa of Avila has written such classics of the spiritual life
as The interior Castle (seen as her masterpiece), and The Way of Perfection
(written primarily for her sisters) a study of her Life or Autobiography will
lay out for us her journey of transformation. Teresa, in prose that at times is
difficult to follow, tells of her struggle with herself, with God and with
those who were suspicious of the story of her surrender to the intrusion of God
into her life.
Autobiography
Teresa’s autobiography
was written just before 1565 but the original version has been lost. The book
consists of four parts: Chapters 1-11, are mainly biographical; Chapters 12-22
give a description of the life of prayer using the imagery of watering a
garden. Chapters 23-31 speak of her experiences with God and what she sees as
teaching us about progress in spiritual life and Chapters 32-32 give the
history of the reform of the Carmelite order in Spain as led by Teresa. The
Life was actually written in stages. The biographical part was written first
and later parts were written at the suggestion of her spiritual advisors as
something of an apologia for her chosen life of reform and her prayer
experiences.
Life
The third child of her father
Alonso’s second marriage, Teresa grew up in a prosperous family where she was
happy. Hers was a family in which her religious sense was encouraged. She had a
strong personal awareness of the humanity of Jesus Christ which stayed with her
throughout her life. She was a lively social girl and young woman who in the
vibrant spiritual climate of Spain in the 16th century felt the call
to religious life. When at the age of 20 she joined the Carmelite convent of
the Incarnation in Avila in 1535, her joy in doing so was mixed with sadness,
sadness at leaving her father especially and unhappiness because he was not
happy with her choice of vocation. As we shall see Teresa’s strong attachment
to her father contrasted with what almost amounted to pity for her mother, had
interesting effects on her life’s journey. She saw her mother’s lot as
restricted to one of bearing children and Teresa was not greatly attracted to
such a married life.
Teresa’s social nature along with her felt
love for God prospered for a few years in the regime of the convent of the
Incarnation at the time. The convent lived the medieval life of liturgical
prayer and communal life. There was not the strong emphasis on private prayer
and its forms which was growing at that time in Spain.
From 1538 Teresa began to feel
dissatisfaction with how her life was going. She felt pulled in different
directions and being someone of strong affections the dissatisfaction grew. Her
father died in 1543 and because of her strong attachment to him the event added
turbulence to her unsettled life which expressed itself in an illness severe
enough that she went to live with her uncle to recuperate. . As often happens,
one of the side effects of such an event was that he introduced her to a book
by the Spanish Franciscan Fra Osuna called The
Third Spiritual Alphabet. The core of this book was a call to practice what
was called the prayer of recollection a way to find the God within. There was a
call to just be in the presence of God and this exposed Teresa to be open to
the direct invitation to be familiar with God. Teresa continued to be
encouraged by the wisdom of this book over the next 20 years of her life.
The way in which Teresa lived through
the period from 1538 till 1556 seems to exemplify the mid life experience of
many. We have developed a way of living, a career, but there are stirrings
within us inviting us to go deeper to live more from what we might call our
centre, from who we are.
The challenges for Teresa were found
in her gifts. She was a lively outgoing person who had rich and varied
relationships. She felt strongly about the people she loved and the people with
whom she lived. However given the choices she had made in her life, she was
torn in her relationships between the God who was calling her to life through
being a Carmelite nun and the rewards and demands of the relationships with
others. In her Life (Ch. 7, 17) she speaks of living a burdensome life,
“because in prayer I understood more clearly my faults. On the one hand God was
calling me; on the other hand I was following the world. All the things of God
made me happy; those of the world held me bound. It seems I desired to
harmonize these two contraries- so inimical to each other-such as the spiritual
life and sensory joys pleasures and pastimes.”
We need to understand Teresa’s
language and how she saw the human person. The prevailing philosophy saw us
compartmentalized. Our outer layer was seen as the sensory layer through which
we took all we knew of our world. The next layer was the soul layer where we
functioned psychologically. We would say it is our life as managed by our
persona or ego. The inmost part was the spirit, the deepest part of our life
and the place where we meet God intimately.
Teresa saw her life as burdensome
because she was trying to hold a middle road to control from the place of the
ego the pull of God and the attraction and demands of others and life in
general. She sought to have an EFFECTIVE detachment from others, one which she
could control and then she could live her life in peace. She came to realize
after the long struggle of 18 years that what was needed to live at peace was
AFFECTIVE detachment. This was not a denial of herself or the giftedness of
relationships with others and our world. What was called for was that she be IN
TOUCH WITH HERSELF and what was her heart’s desire. This came to her the more
she allowed herself to become IN TOUCH WITH GOD.
Teresa speaks of the value of praying
to develop our being in touch with God. She says (Ch.8, 2) “though we are
always in the presence of God it seems to me the manner is different with those
who practice prayer for they are aware he is looking at them.”
She also says in the same chapter
(No. 12) “I did not put all my trust in His Majesty and lose completely the
trust I had in myself. I searched for a remedy, I made attempts, but I did not
understand that all is of little benefit if we do not take away completely the
trust we have in ourselves and place it in God.”
Teresa needed to have the whole of
her experience brought to her depths so that she could live out of that place
and not from the half way house of the control of her ego.
We again need to understand Teresa’s
language here. When we hear her speak of ‘losing complete trust in myself’ she
is not speaking about a person’s proper self esteem. We have learnt in our own
times of the barrier that poor self esteem can be to personal and indeed
spiritual maturity. However when we look
to theories of personal maturity we note that a sense of self esteem is
hopefully gained reasonably early in life so that in the later stages of life
we can be called beyond ourselves to have intimate relationships with God and
with others whom we are called to serve.
What happened for Teresa was that
when she finally became overwhelmed by the love of God in her life, she saw
herself, others and her world in a new light.
Conversion for her amounted to a
powerful experience of God at the centre of her life and an awareness that the
rich life of creation and relationships which she loved and lived could only
have meaning in the light of God at the heart of the person. Her immediate life
of interest was understandably the life of the Carmelite. She wanted her
sisters to live as closely as they could the life of the early Carmelites of
Carmel. The ideal of these men choosing to live in the presence of God spoke to
her profound discovery of God at the centre of her life. This prompted her to
seek to live a reformed life based on the original rule of the Carmelites who
lived on Mount Carmel. This she attempted to do with the founding of the
convent of St Joseph in Avila in 1562.
Selected Readings
The
following selections from Teresa’s autobiography might flesh out the brief
sketch of her life above:
Ch 7: 16-19 her experiences at a significant time in her life
·
How
to live at such times, e.g. death of loved ones, stirrings for change from
within, when because of how we are feeling we are tempted to give up on the
practices which we have known have been life giving for us.
·
She
was surprised that in her time of felt inadequacy, sinfulness before God, God
showed her with gifts and she found this harder to accept than she would some
kind of correction.
·
(7:20
value of friendship/spiritual direction
at this time to discern how to respond to and handle our experiences)
Ch.14:9-11, ch.15:1-4 Giving oneself over to God.
·
14:9
God leaving the person humbled to understand that progress is based on God’s
gifting the person
·
14:11
She realized that she had been ‘carried out of her soul’ to praise God better.
She notices change the beginnings of the prayer of quiet.
·
14:12
Looking back on one’s life in the light of the experience of God’s grace
·
15:1
won’t be able to sustain this state ourselves because it is purely the gift of
God.
·
15;2
many achieve this state but few pass beyond. She also seems to refer to the
sadness of those who have experienced these gifts and then for whatever
reason, given up.
·
15:3
Don’t abandon prayer if challenges, ‘serious faults’(15:2) come to the fore to
discourage us.
·
15:4
the challenge for us of seeking the delights of this kind of prayer.
o
The
delight from God will be notices no matter how small it is.
·
15:5
The importance of getting some understanding of God’s gifts to us and
responding as ‘good friendship’ requires.
Ch 22 9-18 the importance of living close to the humanity of Jesus
·
22:1
Speaks against the discouragement of ‘corporeal images’ i.e. reflecting on Jesus
in his humanity.
·
22:3,
22:5 speaks of the importance of her experience and her reflection on it that
taught her of the value of meditating with Jesus about his life experience.
·
22.9
The difference between God taking away the consolation of meditating on the
humanity and our deciding not to do it. Also understand that we as humans need
human support.
·
22.10
Christ sustaining us in times of busyness or dryness
·
22.11
whole groundwork of prayer based upon humility. Also the importance of not
forcing oneself to think about God when God is inviting us to respond to his
movement. Maintain that poverty of spirit that keeps us focused on God and not
on our own efforts worthy and all as they may seem.
·
22:12
‘walk along this path of freedom placing himself in the hands of God’.
o
‘God
is more careful than we are and He knows what is fitting for each one’.
·
22:14
‘Let us strive to keep this divine love always before our eyes and to awaken
ourselves to love’.
·
22:15
God enables and calls forth growth in virtue the more we are encouraged by this
enduring sense of his presence. This underlines the importance of prayer for
our living as we want to.
·
22:16
The ‘food’ for those granted the state of union is no different to that of
beginners. The difference is in the person allowing God to share more with us.
It is the taste of God granted by God. If we can become more detached from our
wishes we can thus allow God to give us more.
·
22:17
Teresa speaks of God testing people. This seems to presume that the person and
God have a familiar relationship. So God invites and says ‘see what I give’,
‘do you want more?’. The choice is ours.
·
22:18
The importance of the ‘spiritual person’ for a companion on the journey.
‘Experience and discretion are important in this matter’.
Ernest Larkin O.Carm. has been the person who most
encouraged me to immerse myself in the writings of Teresa. Another helpful
commentator has been Rowan Williams. I conclude with two brief quotes from his
book: Teresa of Avila, Rowan Williams, 1991, Outstanding Christian
Thinkers Series (Ed. B. Davies O.P.)
“The life therefore is anything but an anecdotal compilation of rare and
interesting experiences; Teresa’s has a perfectly clear apologetic purpose. She
has to show that she cannot be an alumbrada enthusiast because she wants only
what God wants, and more specifically, what God wants through the mediation of
the teaching church.”
(P. 44)
“To understand the Life then, we need
to read it as the story of a twofold victory. On the one hand it is about the
triumph of discipline, about the shaping of a Christian discernment by reading,
friendship and conversation, sacramental practice, the candid and unsparing
exposure of what might have been and exciting ‘private’ world of experiences to
the common speech and culture of the church; the triumph of discipline over
plain idleness, over the obsessive concern for status and reputation in
Teresa’s society, over the construction by the self of an identity that is
‘holy’ or ‘special’. On the other hand it is the story of God’s triumph even
over the disciplined spirituality of a loyal catholic- the triumph that makes
it possible for a disciplined and loyal catholic to be also a prophet and
critic. Thus the main interweaving themes in the life are Teresa’s willingness
at every point to submit her experience to the judgement of others (though not
necessarily to submit in the sense of accepting their judgement) and her
inability to resist the disturbing impulsions coming to her in prayer. The Life
is centrally and basically about struggle and conflict- Teresa’s struggle for
acceptance and legitimacy, and God’s struggle to be present to Teresa.” (P. 44-45)