Author of The Interior Castle, reformer of the Carmelite order, and pioneer of Christian mysticism, St. Teresa of Ávila is one of the most influential and inspiring saints in the realm of Christian spirituality.
Saint Teresa of Avila (1515 to 1582)
St. Teresa of Avila was born Teresa de Cepeda Ahumada, in Avila, Spain. Her father, Sir Alonso Sanchez de Cloister Cepeda, and her mother Beatrix d’Avila y Ahumada instructed her in piousness at an early age. Her parents had converted to Judaism. At age 19, Teresa secretly left her home and entered the monastery of the Carmelite nuns at Avila. She experienced the suffering of illness for many years, simultaneously experiencing periods of spiritual ecstasy. She practiced the devotions in the book Abecedario Espiritual, commonly known as the third, or spiritual Alphabet. This work consisted of common mystical teachings of the time. It included instructions for tests of conscience, spiritual self-examination and contemplation. During her early years, when she was suffering from illness, she saw the distinction between mortal and venial sin. She came upon a secret terror of sinful iniquity in the inherent nature of original sin. She saw the necessity of absolute subjection to God.
When friends and acquaintances pointed to what they saw as a diabolical nature in her visions, she took part in horrible self-inflicted tortures and mortifications far in excess of ordinary asceticism. When she was assured by the priest Francisco Borgia, to whom she made confession, that her visions were from God, she became firmly convinced that Christ was present to her in bodily form, though invisible. For more than two years she had an uninterrupted experience of direct communion with Christ. In one vision, a seraphim drove the fiery point of a golden lance repeatedly through her heart, causing spiritual-body pain. This caused her to cry out, in the characteristic quote attributed to her, “Lord, either let me suffer, or let me die.”
St. Teresa of Avila is well known for reformation work. She founded a Carmelite monastery for nuns in which she endeavored to reform the lax attitude of the nuns of The Incarnation, as well as other nuns she encountered. She established as her prime principles absolute poverty and renunciation within the monastery, as well as instituting flagellation, asceticism, and the wearing of sandals instead of shoes. She was joined in vision by Juan De LaCruz, who started the men’s movement, similar in its goal of reformation. Teresa went into seclusion to write from the depths of her mystical and visionary heart. During this period, Juan De LaCruz continued to carry the inner life of the movement.
Teresa and Juan were challenged by the elders of the Carmelite church, who forbade all further founding of convents by the two. She was told to retire to one of her convents, and she chose St. Joseph’s at Toledo. Many of her friends were subjected to trials of the Inquisition, and suffered more than she did. Eventually, after many letters written to King Philip of Spain, the Inquisition against her and other nuns was dropped. For 20 years Teresa and Juan worked side-by-side, creating 17 nunneries, as well as many men’s cloisters, holding true to the visionary reformation which was the heart of their work. Teresa’s writings described an “ascent of the soul in four stages.” They are described below:
The First, Heart’s Devotion which is that of devout contemplation or concentration, the withdrawal of the soul from without, and especially the devout observance of the passion of Christ and penitence.
The Second, Devotion of Peace in which at least the human will is lost in that of God by virtue of a charismatic, supernatural state given of God, while the other faculties, as memory, reason, and imagination, are not yet secured from worldly distractions. While a partial distraction is due to outer performances such as repetition of prayers and writing down spiritual things, the prevailing state is one of quietude.
The Third, Devotion of Union … an essentially ecstatic state. Here there is an absorption of the reason in God, and only the memory and imagination are left to ramble. This state is characterized by a blissful peace, a sweet slumber of at least the higher soul faculties, and a conscious rapture in the love of God.
The Fourth, Devotion of Ecstasy or Rapture, a passive state, in which the consciousness of being in the body disappears. Sense activity ceases; the memory and imagination are also absorbed in God or intoxicated. The body and spirit are in the throes of a sweet, happy pain, alternating between a fearful fiery glow, a complete impotence and unconsciousness, and a spell of strangulation, intermitted sometimes by such an ecstatic flight that the body is literally lifted into space. This after half an hour is followed by a reactionary relaxation of a few hours in a swoon like weakness, attended by a negation of all the faculties in the union with God. From this the subject awakens in tears; it is the climax of mystical experience, productive of the trance.
In speaking of these experiences, St. Teresa is quoted as saying, “This secret union takes place in the deepest center of the soul, which must be where God himself dwells, and I do not think there is a need of a door by which to enter it. I say there is no need of a door because all that has so far been described seems to have come through the medium of the senses and faculties… but what passes in the union of the spiritual marriage is very different. The Lord appears in the center of the soul, not through an imaginary, but through an intellectual vision (although this is a subtler one than that already mentioned), just as he appeared to the apostles, without entering through the door… this instantaneous communication of God to the soul is so great a secret, so sublime a favor, and such delight is felt by the soul, that I do not know with what to compare, beyond saying that the Lord is pleased to manifest to the soul at that moment the glory that is in heaven, in a more sublime manner than is possible for any vision or spiritual consolation. It is impossible to say more than that, as far as one can understand, the soul (I mean the spirit of this soul) is made one with God, who, being likewise a Spirit, has been pleased to reveal the love that He has for us by showing to certain persons the extent of that love, so that we may praise His greatness. For He has been pleased to unite Himself with His creature in such a way that they have become like two who cannot be separated from one another: even so He will not separate Himself from them.”
