An article about the Library published this month in Kairos,
the official journal of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.
Words and photograph by Natasha Marsh
Set inside a glamourous 1918 heritage
dance hall, the Carmelite Library in
Middle Park has the largest collection
of Carmelite writings in Australia. With
something for every reading level, the
library is home to researchers, students,
readers curious about the spiritual life
and locals looking for a lovely place to
relax and read. Natasha Marsh spoke with
head librarian Philip Harvey about
this treasure trove.
When the Carmelites first came to Australia from Ireland,
they brought their books with them. This became the basis
of a library for their student seminarians. In the 1980s the
Carmelites wanted to do something a little different with
their growing book collection.
‘The Carmelites decided that they didn’t want a library
that was just a duplicate of the other theological libraries
in Melbourne,’ said Philip Harvey, head librarian of the
Carmelite Library, Middle Park. They sought to put together
a special collection, one devoted to spirituality and
contemplation.
‘One of the very particular things about the Carmelite life is
its spiritual tradition. The Carmelites looked at this—and at
the great thinkers and holy people in their order (Sts Teresa
of Ávila and John of the Cross come to mind) —and decided
that that’s the kind of library that they wanted to build, one
specialising in spirituality.’
In just over 30 years, the Carmelite Library collection has
grown to be one of the strongest spiritual collections in
the country, and one of the largest collections of Carmelite
writings in the world.
‘There is much heated argument about which library is the
biggest,’ Philip said. ‘The three largest Carmelite libraries
are in Rome, Washington DC and Holland. After that, the
squabbles begin, but Melbourne is certainly the fourth or
fifth largest,’ he said.
The Carmelite Library provides an opportunity for people to
focus on what Philip calls ‘life’s important questions’ such as
‘What is wisdom? Who is God? And what is my relationship
with Him?’
‘In 1934, poet TS Eliot asked “what is the knowledge that we
have lost in information?” With so much information around
it’s easy to miss the things that are really important. This
library is one place that has a clear idea about what these
important questions are,’ he said.
The library has a strong research collection for students
of theology. It is an affiliated member of the University of
Divinity and first resource of Sentir, the spiritual direction
school at Campion College, Kew. According to Philip,
however, the largest group that uses the library is the
general reading public.
‘Spirituality is the favourite reading of a lot of people—much
more than many realise. Wherever you happen to be at,
there’s something here for you’.
The library presents a welcoming environment to visitors.
Set in the beautiful hall opposite Our Lady of Mount Carmel
church, it retains many of the quirky features of the original
1918 heritage dance hall, complete with curtained stage.
The central long study desk is flanked by shelves of books,
while the rare books and Carmelita line the walls. Some
of these date to the 16th century. The library also has
several quiet nooks and crannies for reading. Onsite coffee
and tea making facilities allow visitors to cosy up for a
whole afternoon to read, or chat with the friendly staff
and volunteers.
Philip said the welcoming environment means that they get
many visitors from the local area. ‘There are a lot of people
in the area who treat this as their local library. We also have
people coming in off the street, of all sorts.’
The Carmelite library runs spiritual reading groups, lectures
and other activities.
‘The spiritual reading groups are very successful. People want
to talk about what they’ve read … we look at some text and
everyone gets carried away,’ he laughed.
The interplay between practical, welcoming and spiritual
reflection echoes the writings of St Teresa. Philip talked about
how the library reflects the ‘spirit’ of the beloved Spanish
mystic.
‘This library exists because of people like Teresa. She was very
much about the practical world of the everyday in terms of
what she could do, but linked with this is a very strong prayer
life,’ he said.
‘Most of the great spiritual writers are people looking at a way
of living in relationship to God and their neighbours. They are
interested in the idea of the “personal relationship”, in other
words; prayer, contemplation and meditation.’
Visit the Carmelite Library at 214 Richardson Street,
Middle Park. For more information on opening hours or
events, go to www.carmelitelibrary.org or call 9682 8553.
You can also visit the library’s popular blog at
http://thecarmelitelibrary.blogspot.com.au/.
Tuesday, 30 June 2015
Wednesday, 27 May 2015
Saint Teresa's Birthday Poem Reflected in Her Life
Sr. Teresa Jerome OCDM delivered this paper on Friday morning the 22nd of May as part of the Symposium conducted by the Carmelite Centre to celebrate the five hundredth anniversary of the birth of Saint Teresa of Avila
We
are honouring the 500th birthday of St. Teresa, for us Carmelites she is our
Holy Mother who has left us and the whole Church a great heritage. I
would like to begin with a quote from her birthday poem, a few selected lines,
which I think capture in Teresa’s poetic words some of the special moments of
grace in her life. I have chosen three sections, the early years leading to her
conversion, then establishing the reform and how she envisaged life in her
Monasteries, and something about her writings.
I am Yours, born for you
What do you want of me?
Majestic Sovereign
Eternal
Wisdom
If You will, give me prayer,
Or let me know dryness
Or darkness or sunlight.
Move me here or there.
Give
me Calvary or Tabor,
Desert or fruitful land,
Sorrowing or exulting,
You alone live in me.
Yours
I am, for You I was born
What do you want of me?
As
Teresa’s life unfolded she found what God wanted of her, but like so many of
us, she too had to search for her way, face the highs, the lows of her
indecision, and she has passed her story on for us, the story of God’s work in
her soul, God drawing her to holiness.
Teresa
was an extraordinary woman – born in a Spain that was trying to close its eyes
and ears to the religious and political upheaval that was smouldering in the
European countries – the Spanish rulers were trying to control the Church and
State of Spain in a firm and rigid grip with the Inquisition as watchdog over
both the written word and the prayer of Spain’s saints!
Teresa
of Avila came from a persecuted Jewish family, she broke out of the rigidity,
simply by living, by developing and using her great gifts.
So
much was against women, yet Teresa was able to write books which still speak to
us today – she lamented being a woman because she was deprived of doing things
for God which men were free to undertake, but her work has endured for
centuries. She could not speak in the Church, yet she is an acclaimed Doctor of
the Church with a world-wide audience, she was the foundress of a Reform within
the ancient Order of Carmel, giving to her Monasteries the stamp of how
she understood the Carmelite vocation and which has now spread to so many
countries in the world—we might be different in culture, language, liturgy, but
we can recognize each other as Carmelites, daughters of St. Teresa, our Holy
Mother, a simple, joyful, friendly smile is a good sign!
What
do you want of me? It took Teresa time to find what God wanted of her. When
writing of the period of her life before deciding to enter the Incarnation she
asked friends to pray that she would do God’s Will. There were really
only two options for a young woman of her background, marriage or religious
life. Marriage did not appeal to her, perhaps seeing her mother bearing nine
children and dying at 33 was not a good role model. Neither did religious life
appeal to her, and she tells with no hesitation that it was the fear of hell
that pushed her decision to become a nun. But once she had decided and told her
father, she said that nothing would make her change her mind. “I was so
persistent in thoughts of honour”. –no going back on her “life decision”
(a very different attitude to life decisions of today) She was a very
strong, determined Spanish young lady, preserving her honour, and with plenty
of umph and character! The reason for her choice? The Monastery was a safe
place to save her soul. As she said herself, she was moved by servile fear, not
by love. Her great desires to serve God and the Church would come later,
after her conversion.
Majestic Sovereign
If
You will give me prayer
Or let me know dryness
Or darkness or sunlight –
So
Teresa went through all these landscapes of the spirit as she set out in her
long struggle of almost twenty years with prayer – to live her life with
integrity and truth as the Rule of Carmel challenges all of us to do – its call
to silence and recollection, to live in allegiance to Our Lord Jesus Christ, to
live in continual prayer. Teresa’s battle with prayer during these early years
as a nun is a hard read. We can feel the tension and anguish, even as she
recalls it, years later. It was a battle between friendship with God and
friendship with the world, her friends, her attachments. She received graces,
calls within herself from Our Lord, even what she would later realize were real
encounters, mystical graces, to live a more radical, true following of her
vocation. She had great desires to serve God but not having the firm purpose of
will to give all to the inner call. “All the things of God made me happy; those
of the world held me bound ....my spirit was not proceeding as lord but as
slave”. They were hard years to live through and even for the reader
today, the wonder is that she could keep on going, falling back and
trying again; her determination well in evidence! I think that we have to
remember that this is a mature Teresa writing, a holy woman, graced by God,
looking back on her early life, judging herself from a new perspective – the
kind of self-judgement we make during life, the opportunities we too have
missed for a deeper “conversion”, that deeper turning to God, which we try to
live each day.
Teresa
knew dryness, darkness and moments of sunlight, before her agonized prayer to
the suffering Lord, won her the grace to let go the “frivolities” of her
friendships, the attachments that distracted her from total commitment to God’s
Will, distracted her from a life of prayer with all that it demands. Teresa
never set down a strict form of prayer, but she tells what she did, how she
recollected herself, centred herself in God’s presence; her carefully worded
definition of prayer in Ch 8. of The Life gives us an understanding of
how she herself prayed. “Mental prayer, in my opinion, is nothing else
than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be
alone with Him who we know loves us”.
The
Way of Perfection sets the foundation
for prayer. Teresa states strongly that vocal prayer does not hinder mental
prayer. All prayer is addressed to God. We must come to both mental and vocal
prayer, the prayer of the liturgy, with the awareness to Whom we are speaking,
reverence in God’s presence. No just saying words, thoughtless recitation, all
should be addressed to Our Lord with reverence and respect. Those who read
Spanish tell us that Teresa always addressed God and Our Lord with the formal
Thou, while St. John of the Cross used the intimate You. ( It looses bit in the
English but we get the idea.) While Teresa had great friendship and intimacy
with Our Lord, she also had great respect. She reminds us to come to
prayer with self-awareness, facing and acknowledging our own sinfulness, our
brokenness and bringing to God our need for His loving mercy and forgiveness.
In an attitude of reverence we praise, adore, offer our words of love and
desire – share all with this Friend. Teresa allows us to share her own intimate
colloquies with Our Lord which flow through all her writings.
While
Teresa leads us into her way of prayer she is also adamant about building the
solid foundation for prayer, the practise of the virtues – all the ascetical
endeavour that must go into growing in “friendship with God”. She will
repeat continually when teaching her nuns, the need to develop, strengthen the
virtues ....detachment and humility (which always go together in Teresa’s
teaching,) self-knowledge, charity, obedience, forgiveness. We must make
progress in these virtues, her warning. “don’t stand still, don’t be dwarfs”!
Teresa
gives instruction and encouragement all through The Way of Perfection.
Her commentary on the Our Father, is an insight into how Teresa herself came to
this prayer and what she could draw from her meditation. She does not “push”
her reflections onto us, there is a great freedom and space in all her
teaching, but she gives guide lines, suggestions. Her desire is that all will
reach the prayer God is offering. As she said, “the complete gift of ourselves
to God, the surrender of our will to His and detachment from creatures”
This is the ideal and challenge she puts before her nuns, and indeed all of us.
Not all of us will receive the extraordinary graces, they are not the important
part, they are “extra”. If God gives them O.K. but the criterion for holiness
is doing God’s will, love of the neighbour, charity. Teresa often stressed that
holiness, depends on that, and holiness is what we are all called to, not
just religious, it is the call addressed to everyone.
Teresa
knew the sunlight of the wonderful mystical experiences she had of God’s love,
the locutions, ecstasies, raptures that poured into her soul at the period
before the Reform, these mystical graces that were preparing her for the
mission she would have in the Church. It was a time of grace, but also a time
of suffering, because grace always costs; she herself was amazed at the
development of the virtues in her soul during this period.
Fr.
Kavanagh writes in his introduction to The Way of Perfection, “Teresa
never received revelations for the Church.....(he noted that many saints
did) Her mystical life consisted in an inner experience of the content of
Revelation” She was tireless in checking that all her mystical
experiences were recounted to her confessors and were in conformity with Sacred
Scripture - this gave her peace and assurance. Anything not valid, “tear
it out, burn it” she begged those who censored her writings.
Move me here or there
Give
me Calvary or Tabor.
When
Teresa undertook the work of the Reform of Carmel she was aflame with desires
to do great things for God but as she wrote in The Way of Perfection, “I
realized that I was a woman.....and incapable of doing any of the useful things
that I desired to do in the service of the Lord....as a result I resolved to do
the little that was in my power”
The
Church in 1562 was in a process of reform. The Council of Trent was in its
final phase; the Reformation was in full swing and echoes of it reached Spain
in some form which greatly disturbed Teresa. The Reform was to give her the
opportunity to do something. Teresa and her friends were finally able to
set up the small Monastery of St. Joseph’s in 1562. It is a long and
interesting story but I would like to talk about what were Teresa’s hopes for
the Monastery.
In
setting up the Reform of Carmel Teresa’s ideal was to return to the original
Rule of Carmel—to the life lived by those unnamed hermits on Mt. Carmel in the
1200s. In all the upheavals Carmel has been through during the centuries,
the life had changed from the eremitical to the mendicant form of life...but in
the heart of every Carmelite there lives the desire for the solitude and space
of our early hermits, who left us a Rule and way of living that they treasured
and which they brought to Europe when they were really squeezed out of the Holy
Land—in the time of the Saracens.
Teresa’s
desire was to recapture the spirit of the hermit way of life, to value silence
and solitude and to live in continual prayer as the Rule enjoins us to do. Her
genius was that she could build the life of solitude into community living. So,
how did she envisage the way of life? The important emphasis was on prayer, the
liturgical prayer of the Church, and time and space for mental prayer, a more
contemplative approach to prayer. What was her purpose? We must all have a
purpose for what we do. To pray for the Church; by prayer and
sacrifice, by following the evangelical counsels, by a cloistered life of
solitude and silence, she sought to support the Church, the leaders, the
teachers, the whole mission and life of the Church. This was her purpose, what
inspired her. St. Therese of Lisieux understood all this profoundly.
Teresa
emphasised small in number. She wanted her nuns to be friends with each other,
“in this house ...all must be friends, all must be loved, all must be held
dear, all must be helped”. Teresa recognized that this was a big challenge; she
knew that it is not always the holiest one in the community who is the easiest
one to get on with, but, “no one is to be excluded, or feel excluded”. In Spain
all were not equal. Teresa was well aware of exclusion in communities and made
a strong point that this was not to be the case in her Monasteries. She wanted
her nuns to be united in their love of God, in their prayer for the Church.
Community
life is built and strengthened by time together, and Teresa introduced a period
of recreation into the daily horarium. This also was an innovation and Teresa
was adamant that all participate in this time together. She herself made this
an entertaining time, the nuns enjoyed her company, her stories, her experiences
with the foundations, and of course she expected that they too shared their
conversation with each other, and that they had peace and joy in community. I
think Teresa always communicates joy, joy in living, “God preserve us from
sorry saints”.
Give me Calvary or Tabor.
A
Tabor moment at this time was the visit of the Carmelite General to Spain in
1566. Teresa had been living at St. Joseph’s for two years; this was the first
visit of a Carmelite General for over a hundred years, (they just never got
around to getting over to Spain!) and Teresa was justifiably anxious. She a
Carmelite nun setting up a “reformed house” and actually living in it, with a
group of women she was directing, while she was still under obedience to
the superior of the Incarnation. She had established a Monastery, St. Joseph’s,
outside the jurisdiction of the Order, under the Bishop of Avila. The
Bishop of Avila explained all and asked the General to visit the Monastery.
Teresa said she spoke openly to General Rossi, telling him the whole story of
the foundation, her hopes and her prayer.....as Fr. Smet writes in his
Carmelite History, Rossi “was captivated by his vivacious daughter” and he
approved the Monastery and asked her to found more! He visited Teresa a
number of times to speak about prayer. Teresa always held General Rossi in high
esteem and even when the troubles in the Reform broke out and Rossi was given
false reports of Teresa, his disapproval was a great sorrow for her but her affection
and gratitude to him never wavered.
Sorrowing
or exulting
You
alone live in me.
St.
Thomas said that it is grace to receive mystical experiences and it is another
grace to be able to describe them. Teresa could recount her story and also do
something more – she inflames us with the desire to enter the world of
the soul, where God dwells, where he draws us. I remember when I was
novice and after hearing some pious talk saying to the Novice mistress, with a
good amount of fury, I don’t want to be holy, I can’t stand this, someone’s
idea of what holiness is”... I was expecting big trouble! Mother laughed,
“go out to the garden, dig your patch and see if you can remember what St.
Teresa says about gardening”.....I got the message, I was enthused! We all know
what it is like to dig, to carry the bucket of water, put the thirst plant
under a dripping tap, the good fortune to find a spare hose ....and then the
relief when the rain does come....a blessed relief all we Aussies from the
out-back country know. It is not hard to translate all that into life in the
spirit!
The
Interior Castle, the masterpiece of the interior journey by which God led
Teresa to union with the Divine Lover; the long hard road that led to the
transformation of the caterpillar into the beautiful butterfly. What I
love are the images that Teresa uses, they seem to capture and carry her
story – like poetry – we don’t have to understand everything but there is a
beauty and wonder in her images, she tells us that “we could never imagine the
beauty of our soul” Her amazing crystal castle, the castle that we all have,
with its millions of rooms, spaces of prayer, suffering, challenges, where the
soft whistle of the Shepherd reaches through the spaces, the distractions, it
reaches to the soul, drawing it towards Our Lord and the mystery of the Holy
Trinity. There are the serpents, the darker areas that must be recognized and
taken along on the journey to transformation.
Teresa
reached her centre – and she didn’t go off into a life of ecstasy and
contemplation, but rather, the enormous, arduous work of the foundations; 17
convents, going from one end of Spain to the other in a mule cart! All
kinds of problems, accidents on the road, frightened, terrified nuns! law
suites, litigation, letter writing, troubles that seemed as though all her work
would be undone; and through it all, her poor health. Reading her I certainly
tend to forget that it is an elderly lady with very frail health telling this
incredible story, doing this amazing work for God. I think St. Teresa
would say to us, after the time of prayer, “ my daughters , Good Works,
God wants Good Works”!
She
could surely say at the end of her life to Our Lord -- to His Majesty –
“Yours I am, for You I was born.. You alone live in me. I’ve tried to do what
You wanted of me”!
Thank
you dear St. Teresa for all that you did with such love for God, for the Church
and which continues to live and reach us today in Carmel. A very Happy 500th
Birthday. May I ask you for a special blessing as I share your date .....but my
years look very insignificant beside your 500!
Tuesday, 26 May 2015
Jesus Christ, Teresa's True Friend and Companion
A paper by sister angela ellwood ocdm given at the SYMPOSIUM ON SAINT TERESA OF AVILA commemorating
the five hundredth anniversary of her birth – 1515.
THURSDAY 21 – SATURDAY 23 MAY 2015 at theCarmelite Centre, Middle Park
Jesus
Christ, Teresa’s True Friend and Companion[1]
Her Definition of Prayer
Teresa, as a
member of a converso family in the
Spain of her day, had a deep loneliness and profound longing for truth—longing
for God.[2] Her passionate longing for love and wholeness
–her search for God– took her beyond the tenets of society’s conventions and
constrictions with their obsessive concern for status and reputation. Through her struggle for inner truth,
integrity and wholeness (a struggle fraught with conflict) she was led into an
intimate friendship of love with the Risen Jesus, who freed and transformed her.
Behind Teresa’s loneliness and vulnerability, was the fact that she
belonged to a marginalized group. There were
three areas in which she had constantly to battle:
1.
She was of Jewish blood and belonged to a converso family: this was a deep secret
shared in the intimacy of the family. Yet,
the old aristocracy keenly suspected or knew, “who was who” — conversos were ostracized and not really
accepted by them. Rowan Williams says they
had become “objects of continuing hatred and suspicion from both the lesser
gentry and the population at large.”[3] Converso
families longed for acceptance and Teresa struggled with these anxieties and
fears for years – from her teens onwards.
It was only in 1554, with the grace of conversion, that healing and
freedom from these anxieties began.
2.
She was a woman in a society which extremely
distorted and devalued the female sex.
There was great mistrust of women’s virtues and capabilities.
3.
She was a woman who had ecstatic experiences,
practised interior prayer and authoritatively wrote books on it. This, together with the founding of San José
in Avila, brought her into the public forum. All of these points were closely
watched by the Tribunal of the Faith.
Rowan Williams says, any one of the above qualifications would have been
sufficient for the society and Church of her day to see her as a “threat and a
pollutant.”[4] Therefore, he says, she had to live and
“negotiate her way in an almost entirely suspicious environment.”[5] She faced enormous obstacles.
Nevertheless, in the midst of the
all-pervading presence of the Inquisition and the pernicious reigning climate
of suspicion, mistrust and fear, Teresa courageously pursued her goals with the
utmost determination and shrewdness, her eyes fixed on Jesus Christ. For authentication, we know that she
consulted the best theologians of Spain’s Golden Age of theology. Because, before all eyes she had to show that
she wanted only what God wanted— what God wanted through the mediation of the
teaching Church.[6]
Prior to her conversion in 1554, Teresa (because of her converso origin and her warm, affective
personality) longed for acceptance, legitimacy, love and affection. That was the mine field in which she “struggled”
and in which God “struggled” to be present to her. Yet, she often tells us in the early part of
the Life that she was greatly loved. She possessed a warm, extravert, human personality
— she longed to love and had a profound capacity for love and friendship. However, within these great qualities was her
“shadow” or dark underside in which she lived ‘outside’ herself, caught in crippling,
dependant relationships, where she lived on the periphery of life. This prevented her from surrendering herself
more completely to God.
Daniel Chowning says, “Love is the most
important key for understanding her life and message and
also for explaining the intimate
conflicts that she suffered for many years.”[7] In fact, she defines prayer in its terms: “an
intimate sharing between friends — with Him, who we know, loves us”[8] — frequently
and secretly communing heart to heart with Him, in the intimacy of love. For
Teresa, it was “a loving friendship that grew in intensity and presence and
transformed her entire life”[9] — her
whole human personality caught up in Christ.
The question of Teresa’s formation in Christology:
1.
According to Tomás Alvarez, Teresa had the
fortune of a rich and complete formation in Christology, both in childhood and
as an adult.
2.
As a child she read the Flos Sanctorum, texts of the Passion according to the four Gospels.
The illustrated vignettes would have had
a powerful impact on the young Teresa.
One really impressive drawing was Jesus praying in the garden.[10]
3.
As an adult, Alvarez says Teresa’s real manual
of Christological formation was a four volume work of 1320 pages, The Life of Christ by the Carthusian,
Ludolph of Saxony. It contained an “immense
Christological spirituality.”[11] This comprehensive life of Jesus was one of
her favourite books for meditation and a rich source of Scripture — it was “the
equivalent of one of our intense biblical courses.”[12] [Scripture otherwise, was only available to
Teresa in Latin and she didn’t know Latin.]
Teresa’s quest for the Lord began in
childhood.
Even as a small girl she sought solitude for prayer. When her Mother died, Teresa was still a young
adolescent girl of 13 years. Bereft,
vulnerable and lonely, she was led to the practice of prayer – prayer as
friendship with Jesus, the God-Man. Most
nights, for many years, before she went to sleep, she would look at Our Lord’s
solitary suffering in the Garden. His
loneliness cried out to the Motherless girl.
She began to look at Him in the forsaken moments of His life – when He
was alone and afflicted. He was someone
like herself, who needed companionship and compassion. She felt that if Jesus was a person alone,
afflicted and needy, then He had to accept her in her brokenness and
poverty. And so, she would remain there
with Him in faith, as His companion — consoling Him by her compassionate and
loving presence.[13] Teresa says she gained a great deal through
this custom. It became so habitual that she
did not abandon it.[14]
When Teresa entered the Monastery of the
Incarnation, she threw herself into religious life with all the intense
enthusiasm and religious fervour of the Castilian character. And so very early in the Life, she says:
I
tried as hard as I could to keep Jesus Christ, our God and our Lord, present
within me, and that was my way of prayer.
If I reflected upon some phase of his passion, I represented him to
myself interiorly.[15]
Later in the Life she
continues:
This method of
keeping Christ present within us is beneficial in all stages of the spiritual
journey – beginning, middle and end.... It is what we of ourselves can do.[16]
Presence
to Jesus living within her — that
was her method of prayer. This
means drawing near in faith and love — to Jesus living within us.[17] “I am not asking you to do anything more than
look at Him,”[18] she
says. To
look at Jesus, means to study with the heart all the movements and sentiments
of His person,[19]
so that the truth that he is will be imprinted in us.
In the Life, Teresa writes:
If we are able, we should
occupy ourselves in looking at Christ who is looking at us, and we should
speak, and petition, and humble ourselves, and delight in the Lord’s presence.[20]
Later in the Way she instructs her nuns to look at
the life of Jesus, no matter what psychological state they experience.[21]
Every human emotion and situation, from pain and
sorrow to joy and ecstasy, finds an echo in the historical life of Jesus. By relating our lives to the mysteries of his,
we establish a relationship with Jesus, and will find renewed meaning, hope,
and transformation.[22]
Ways in which Teresa maintained her
presence to Jesus:
1.
She would identify with those characters of the
Gospel, with whom she could relate out of her own weakness and struggling
humanity and/or who stood in need of conversion. For instance, Mary in her desolation at the
foot of the Cross, the Samaritan woman, Mary Magdalene, St Paul at the moment
of his conversion, St Peter in tears after denying Christ and St
Augustine. Their prayer, their difficult
situation, their struggle, their longing for freedom and healing became
hers. The Samaritan woman especially,
was dear to Teresa. When Teresa prayed
she would often identify with this woman’s longing and with her, ask for the
living water which Jesus promised — that living water which alone slakes the
thirst of the human heart.[23]
2.
“The moment after receiving the Eucharist was
the privileged time for Teresa.”[24] She would free herself from all exterior
things, so that she could enter within herself and be lovingly present to Jesus,
her divine guest living within her.
But silent prayer was not the only means by which Teresa encountered the
presence of Christ. When reading the Life, we find that it was especially in
and through her experience of human limitations, crises and conflicts, that Teresa
was led to discover the transforming presence of Jesus in her life.[25]
Teresa’s first years in religious life were marked by intense religious
experiences. YET despite this, her
spiritual ascent stalled. For almost
twenty years, her journey towards inner freedom involved an intense battle and
conflict between friendship with God and friendship with the world.
Her overwhelming need to receive and give
love, although a God-given gift in itself and a sign of her capacity for the
infinite, ran the risk of living perpetually outside herself in others, in a state
of dependency and restlessness –mediocrity.
It clashed with her spiritual longings for God.[26] She was unable to integrate her affective
relationships with her relationship with God.
Because of her charming, outgoing personality, obedience required that she
be deeply and constantly involved with the city’s prestigious families —
soliciting funds for the monastery.
The same personal
conflicts which gave rise to her vocational crisis at boarding school still
divided her — God and the world (but then, the world was her family, friends of
childhood, and father). That affective crisis
was the beginning in embryo of the long battle and conflict to overcome her
inordinate or dependant relationships.[27] In the Life,
Teresa describes the state of inner conflict and fragmentation which
held her captive and unable to surrender herself more completely to God. She likened it to “voyaging on a
tempestuous sea.... a war so troublesome.”[28] Many times she searched for a remedy, but to
no avail — she felt she was struggling with a shadow of death. It was a major crisis — “the life I was
living,” she said, “was not life.”[29]
When she reached the point of complete powerlessness, she let go of the
trust she had in herself and placed it in God.[30] God’s healing love would set her free and
transform her. She was aged 39 when she
experienced a profound conversion. It
was the decisive turning point — after which her life began to change, to that,
which she says, God lived in her.
One day in Lent 1554, she entered the Oratory and was overcome by an
image of the wounded Christ — an image which bore the realistic and bloody
appearance, so typical of Spanish devotional art. The sight of Jesus’ wounds, his neediness,
loneliness, and brokenness, undertaken for love of her, struck a deep chord
within her. Overwhelmed by a sense of
her own sinfulness and “with the greatest outpouring of tears” she surrendered
herself before the power of the Risen Jesus.[31]
This grace, together with another in 1556 (under
the direction of the Jesuit Father Pradanos) liberated her from her unchanneled
affectivity. Her
act of surrender was paramount in her discovery of Christ.[32] It opened her heart to her loving Saviour,
who was at work healing and transforming her.[33] Rowan Williams says Teresa’ conversion
was her discovery of being desired by God in her entirety, as she was. She was ‘needed’ by Christ and she had a gift
to offer God and his people. She found
an integrating reality for her life, and thus a spring of motivation not
dependent upon her social and ecclesiastical context and its immediate
pressures.... She was set free from the constraint of needing to be approved.[34]
Her capacity
for love and friendship was integrated and channelled, because it was rooted in Jesus Christ, Love Incarnate. In him alone she would find satisfaction of
heart.[35] Her love was more
refined, more mature and free from egotistic demands.
Out of
Teresa’s long crisis and arduous struggle with friendships, there emerged an
experiential knowledge of Jesus as the true friend, who accompanies us in all
our undertakings and remains loyal to us when all others fail.[36] The title of
Jesus as friend is central to her experience of him and permeates all her
writings and understanding of the Christian life. She conceives of the Christian life as a
journeyin the company of our good Friend Jesus who leads us to union with the
Father and with one another.[37]
Whoever lives in
the presence of so good a friend and excellent a leader, who went ahead of us
to be the first to suffer, can endure all things. The Lord helps us, strengthens us, and never
fails; he is a true friend.... God desires that if we are going to please him
and receive his great favors, we must do so through the most sacred humanity of
Christ, in whom he takes his delight.... This Lord of ours is the one through
whom all blessings come to us. He will
teach us these things. In beholding his
life we find that he is the best example.
What more do we desire than to have such a good friend at our side, who
will not abandon us in our labours and tribulations, as friends in the world do.[38]
Eamon
Carroll tells us, “When Teresa speaks of the ‘humanity’ of Jesus,” she means,
“the whole Christ, including all aspects of His human life, crowned by the
Resurrection.”[39]
Teresa’s human need and search for redemption
and liberation made Jesus above all her liberator and friend.[40] We also see that paralleled in the Gospel
stories and in the New Testament.
For Teresa, the discovery of the human condition of God, i.e., the
humanity of Jesus, was the most transforming experience in her life.[41]
No longer would her search for God seem
in opposition to daily life or her humanity.
Rather, it would be integrated into concrete bodily existence, for in
Jesus, God has entered fully into human life and has become one of us.[42]
She discovered a friend, who would satisfy
all her desires—Jesus the God-Man. She
found him fully human, praying and struggling with God's will. And she never tires of reminding us that he
lived with trials during his entire life.[43] She says in the Life:
Christ is a very
good friend because we behold him as man and see him with weaknesses and
trials–and he is company for us.[44]
Teresa, looking at human nature, realized how much we need the humanity
of Jesus. Although propelled towards the
infinite, we have bodies and live in a world where we must eat, sleep and deal
with our limitations and material realities.
We are not angels, but human beings who need human support.[45] The body has to be integrated in our search
for God. For this reason, we need the
company of those who had mortal bodies in order to learn how to please God and
work for God. She says, “A good means to
having God is to speak with his friends.”[46] But then she continues, how much more
necessary is the Sacred HUMANITY of Jesus, from whom we learn about God and how
to do God’s will —what it means to be totally directed towards God, as well as
to be fully human.[47]
Teresa experienced that life is hard and we need the example and
companionship of one who has gone before us, so as to better support our human
weakness.[48] She writes in the Interior Castle:
Life is long,
and there are in it many trials, and we need to look at Christ our model, how
he suffered them, and also at his apostles and saints, so as to bear these
trials with perfection. Jesus is too
good a companion for us to turn away from him.[49]
For Teresa, Jesus supports us because he is fully human. He entered our human condition completely and
experienced human reality with all its brokenness, limitations, and weakness. Jesus’ solidarity with us in our human
condition is the basis of our confidence and trust in him. She says, this makes him our friend, brother,
and companion in life:
A much greater love for and
confidence in this Lord began to develop in me when I saw him as one with whom
I could converse so continually. I saw
that he was man, even though he was God; that he wasn’t surprised by the
weaknesses of men; that he understands our miserable make-up, subject to many
falls on account of the first sin which he came to repair. I can speak with him as with a friend, even
though he is Lord.[50]
As Jesus plunged Teresa ever more deeply into this world of flesh and
blood, life and death, joys, sorrows and instabilities, so did he empower her
to EMBRACE REALITY with confidence and trust in his faithful and enduring love. This accompanied her in the midst of all
life’s complexities and difficulties.[51] The presence of the Risen Jesus thrust Teresa
into the heart of life. He freed her to
live more fully in the here and now.
In conclusion, Teresa’s charism is thoroughly incarnational. “It involves obedience to life under God’s
conditions.”[52] Through all the obstacles, crises and
difficulties, the only way she could carry out what she perceived to be God’s
work, was to “Fix her eyes on Jesus.”
She put all her gifts of personality and grace at God’s disposal in
accomplishing that. The will of the
Beloved had become her sole compass.
[1] In this essay I acknowledge
the debt I owe to Daniel Chowning ocd in his two articles: “Jesus Christ, Friend and Liberator: The Christology of
St Teresa of Jesus” in Kevin Culligan ocd, ed. Carmelite Studies X: A Better Wine: Essays Celebrating Kieran Kavanaugh
ocd (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 2007), 3–61 and St. Teresa of Avila: Her Way of Prayer: Fix Your Eyes on Christ (Washington,
DC: ICS Publications Audio Cassettes).
Readers familiar with Chowning’s work will notice how much in debt I am
to him.
[2] See Rowan Williams, Teresa of Avila in Outstanding Christian Thinkers Series, edited by
Brian Davies OP (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1991). Under the heading, “Honour: ‘The Greatest
Lie,’” 18-25, Williams makes some interesting observations regarding acceptance
depending on fraud or secrecy. [We find]
e.g., “... roots of protest against a dishonest social order, an interest in
virtue or moral achievement in its own right, and a high valuation of
situations and persons that could make honesty possible, that could lift the
burden of concealment. Converso society would be interested in
value, weight, meaning beyond the
realm of social appearance, which tells us something of why New Christians
showed interest in radical religious movements that stressed interior
truthfulness and purity, and the conflict between inner promptings and social
networks of convention,” 21.
[5] Ibid.
[7] Daniel Chowning ocd, St. Teresa of
Avila. Her Way of Prayer: Fix Your Eyes
on Christ (Washington, DC: ICS
Publications Audio Cassettes).
[10] Cf. Tomás Alvarez ocd, St Teresa of
Avila: 100 Themes on Her Life and Work, trans. by Kieran Kavanaugh,
ocd. (Washington, DC: ICS Publications,
2011), 439.
[14] Cf. Life, 9.4
[19] Secundino Castro, "L’humanité du Christ selon Ste. Thérèse
d'Avila," Carmel 33 (1984), 41.
Cited in Daniel
Chowning, ocd, “Jesus Christ,
Friend and Liberator: The Christology of St Teresa of Jesus” in Kevin Culligan ocd,
ed. Carmelite Studies X: A Better Wine:
Essays Celebrating Kieran Kavanaugh ocd (Washington, DC: ICS Publications,
2007), 3-61 at 40.
[22] Daniel Chowning, ocd, “Jesus Christ, Friend and Liberator: The Christology of
St Teresa of Jesus” in Kevin Culligan ocd, ed. Carmelite Studies X: A Better Wine: Essays Celebrating Kieran Kavanaugh
ocd (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 2007), 3-61 at 35.
[26] Cf. Chowning, “Jesus Christ, Friend and Liberator: The Christology of
St Teresa of Jesus,” 22-23.
[27] See discussion of Daniel
de Pablo Moroto, Santa Teresa de
Jesús, doctora para una Iglesia en crisis (Burgos: Editorial Monte Carmelo,
1981), 47-52, cited by Daniel Chowning,
ocd, “Jesus Christ, Friend and Liberator: The Christology of St Teresa
of Jesus,” op. cit., 58, footnote 15.
[31] See Life 9.1.
[35] Cf. Chowning, “Jesus Christ, Friend and Liberator: The Christology of
St Teresa of Jesus,” 23-24.
[39] Eamon R. Carroll, “The Saving Role of the Human Christ for Teresa” in John
Sullivan ocd, ed., Carmelite Studies
3 (Washington, DC: ICS, 1984), 133–151 at 137.
[51] Cf. Chowning, ocd, “Jesus Christ, Friend and Liberator: The Christology of
St Teresa of Jesus,” 47.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)