The Way of Perfection: St Teresa of Avila

A few famous Protestants were mystics, I think and very Holy. The Founder of the Quakers George Fox appears to have had profound prayer. For instance it is said of him,

'One day Fox climbed up desolate Pendle Hill (believed to be a haunt of demons) and saw "a people in white raiment, coming to the Lord." The vision signified that proclaiming Christ's power over sin would gather people to the kingdom.'.

https://www.friendsjournal.org/mysticism-quaker-faith/

'Rufus Jones (1863–1948) was arguably the foremost Quaker scholar, writer, and advocate of opening to mystical experience as a central practice among Friends. He built on foundations laid by Meister Eckhart, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, William James, and many other Christian mystics—people who had had direct experiences of God and tried to describe them. Jones concluded that the founders of most great religions of the world got their spiritual understanding through mystical experience. The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament are filled with reports of direct experiences of God. Mystical experience “makes God sure to the person who has had the experience,” wrote Jones.'

I think Mr Jones compared the silence in Quaker Meetings to Contemplative prayer but I don;t think this is quite what Catholics mean by this.

There was also the English Protestant poet , artist and composer who certainly seems to have been a mystic.

The Lamb
By William Blake
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee

Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.

..and perhaps the founder of Methodism John Wesley perhaps.

But I would say Protestants generally don't have culture or theology to express or understand this when It occurs I think.

 

St Teresa was of Jewish heritage. Her parents were conversos I think that is interesting.

 

I belong to the Secular Carmelites. I just add the office to my regular norms and do exam with night prayer. I would miss the readings. It’s not required but I do it personally.

 

Prologue.

Poor St Teresa faced so many dangers from every direction; it is wonder she did not go crazy with worry. I have a feeling these concerns may have influenced her in writing the prologue and in much of the rest of her writings.

Let us first remind ourselves that Teresa wrote this book in the Year of Our Lord 1566 to put her in place of the huge events swirling around her.

The first great danger arose from the false mystic Magdalena de La Cruz who died only six years previously in 1560.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalena_de_la_Cruz

'Magdalena de la Cruz (1487–1560) was a Franciscan nun of Córdoba in Spain, who for many years was honored as a living saint. However, St. Ignatius Loyola had always regarded her with suspicion. Falling dangerously ill in 1543, Magdalena confessed that her stigmata and claims of performing miracles were fraudulent.[1] She was sentenced by the Inquisition, in an auto-da-fé at Córdoba in 1546, to perpetual imprisonment in a convent of her order, and there she is believed to have ended her days most piously amid marks of the sincerest repentance.

During the early decades of the sixteenth century she was considered saintly and believed to be in constant and intimate communication with God. Her devotees included the general of the Franciscan Order, Fray Francisco de los Ángeles Quiñones; Fray Francisco de Osuna, the mystic whose writings were so appreciated by Saint Teresa of Ávila; and the archbishop of Seville and inquisitor general, Alonso Manrique. Indeed, on the birth of the future Philip II in 1527, "the hábitos of this nun were sent off as a sacred object so that the infante could be wrapped up in them and thus apparently be shielded and protected from the attacks of the Devil." In 1533 Magdalena was elected abbess of her convent and was at the height of her power and popularity. But only in 1546, and after many false prophecies, visions, and miracles (including a controversial pregnancy), did the Cordoban Inquisition finally try her and sentence her to life imprisonment in a convent in Andújar.

According to Montague Summers, Magdalena went to the "pope (Paul III) as a Penitent, and confessed her sins, that at twelve years old the Devil solicited her, and lay with her, and that he had layen with her for thirty years; yet she was made the Abbess of a Monastery, and counted a saint. [...] She died full of sorrow and deeply contrite, in 1560. It may be remarked that on her confession of imposture and guilt, seventeen years before, the demoniacal stigmata disappeared."[2] The book mentions a Spanish manuscript, kept at the British Museum, and referred to Magdalena de la Cruz, Abbess of the Poor Clares Monastery of St. Isabel of the Angels, which was sentenced by the Holy Inquisition of Cordoba on 3 May 1546.[2][3]

In Cordoba, it is located the Convent of Saint Isabel of the Angels (Spanish: Convento de Santa Isabel de los Ángeles).[4]'

 

There were of course in 16th century Spain as there are in every age in every country whole armies of false mystics most prominent of whom were the Alumbrados:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alumbrados


The alumbrados (Spanish pronunciation: [alumˈbɾaðos], Illuminated) were the practitioners of a mystical form of Christianity in the Crown of Castile during the 15th–16th centuries. Some alumbrados were only mildly heterodox, but others held views that were clearly heretical, according to the contemporary rulers. Consequently, they were firmly repressed and became some of the early victims of the Spanish Inquisition.

Background
Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo found the name as early as 1492 (in the form aluminados, 1498), and traced the group to a Gnostic origin. He thought their views were promoted in Spain through influences from Italy.[1]

Beliefs
The alumbrados held that the human soul can reach such a degree of perfection that it can even in the present life contemplate the essence of God and comprehend the mystery of the Trinity. All external worship, they declared, is superfluous, the reception of the sacraments useless, and sin impossible in this state of complete union with God. Persons in this state of impeccability could indulge their sexual desires and commit other sinful acts freely without staining their souls.[2]

In 1525, the Inquisition issued an Edict on the alumbrados in which the Inquisitor General, Alonso Manrique de Lara, explained how the new heresy of alumbradismo was discovered and investigated. The text then gave a numbered list of forty-eight heretical propositions which had emerged from the trials of the alumbrados' first leaders, Isabel de la Cruz and Pedro Ruiz de Alcaraz [es]. After each proposition were given the grounds on which it was judged heretical. Among the odder of these propositions are that it is a mortal sin to read a book to console one's soul (No. 31), which the Inquisition's theologians described as "crazy, erroneous, and even heretical"; and that one sinned mortally every time one loved a son, daughter, or other person, and did not love that person through God (No. 36), which the theologians said was "erroneous and false, and against the common teaching of the saints". One alumbrado, seeing a girl cross the street, said that "she had sinned, because in that action she had fulfilled her will" (No. 40). The theologians commented: "The foundation of this proposition is heretical, because it seems to state that all action that proceeds from our will is sin."[3]

 

But why should this concern St Teresa? Well I suppose the answer is obvious. In a century were the Spanish had become terrified of false mystics along comes St Teresa who outwardly seems to be a mirror image of Sister Magdalene of the Cross, so like her in so many ways. Like Magdalena a nun, a Religious Superior, famous, a woman, someone endowed with a wide range of very special mystical gifts.

She had a huge target on her back right from the get go. Self appointed, 'Experts', were on the hunt to prove her false in baying droves (as indeed , 'Experts', go hunting in droves today). I suspect the only thing that saved her from getting burnt alive in an Inquisition fire was the support of Saint such as St Peter of Alcantara who gave her the thumbs up.

 

It sounds very strange to say nowadays but one of the things Saint Teresa might have gotten herself into hot soup about was in writing about private interior prayer. We take it for granted now that people should pray interiorly (not just using vocal prayers).

\I am not quite sure why people where so suspicious about this but I know that in many monasteries ,such as Cluny in France there was a very heavy emphasis on praying together in Church. So much so that in some places that's all they did all day..sit in Church and pray. It was the lay monks who went out and work so that the, 'Real', Monks could pray.

It all sounds so strange to us these days. But anyway St Teresa raised a bit of a storm by writing about interior prayer something we, these days take simply for granted.It was perhaps mainly due to Teresa that this became widely accepted.

I was myself about three years old when I first realised this. I was going up a hill pushing my wonderful red Sunburst bike that I had been given for Christmas. I was conducting a conversation with the friend I had been talking to since I suppose as far as I could remember, since I was a baby I suppose. Suddenly I became aware I was talking , haqd always been talking to someone inside me and I wondered who this person was. The persons poke,

'I am Jesus'.

This gave me a shock. Of course I knew Jesus was in Church in the Tabernacle, I knew He was in the Hosts. I knew He was in heaven and listened to me when I prayed at morning and at night. But Jesus inside me?

This made me very eager to talk to Him and ask Him many questions. I wish I could remember all that was said. Children hear the voice of God so much more clearly than we adults. But that was interior prayer. Just a simple talk with God.

1 John 3:1
1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

 

I suppose everyone related to God in a different way in Interior prayer. For myself it is always as the friend of my childhood days. Closer to me than my inmost self, as St Augustine beautifully put it.

https://catholicexchange.com/why-god-is-nearer-to-us-than-our-innermost-being/

“You were more inward to me than my most inward part and higher than my highest” (Confessions 3.6.11). (In the Latin, the statement is interior intimo meo et superior summo meo.)


Lord, you have probed me, you know me:
you know when I sit and stand;
you understand my thoughts from afar. …
Even before a word is on my tongue,
Lord, you know it all.
Behind and before you encircle me
and rest your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
far too lofty for me to reach.
Where can I go from your spirit?
From your presence, where can I flee?
If I ascend to the heavens, you are there;
if I lie down in Sheol, there you are.

If I take the wings of dawn
and dwell beyond the sea,
Even there your hand guides me,
your right hand holds me fast.
You formed my inmost being;
you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, because I am wonderfully made;
wonderful are your works!

My very self you know.
My bones are not hidden from you,
When I was being made in secret,
fashioned in the depths of the earth (verses 1-2, 4-10, 13-15).


I asked the earth; and it answered, I am not He; and whatsoever are therein made the same confession. I asked the sea and the deeps, and the creeping things that lived, and they replied, ‘We are not your God, seek higher than we.’ I asked the breezy air, and the universal air with its inhabitants answered, ‘Anaximenes was deceived, I am not God.’ I asked the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars: ‘Neither, say they, are we the God whom you seek (10.6.9.)’


I will soar, then, beyond this power of my nature also, ascending by degrees unto Him who made me. And I enter the fields and roomy chambers of memory, where are the treasures of countless images, imported into it from all manner of things by the senses (10.8.12). …

And men go forth to wonder at the heights of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the extent of the ocean, and the courses of the stars, and omit to wonder at themselves (10.8.15).


Great is the power of memory; very wonderful is it, O my God, a profound and infinite manifoldness; and this thing is the mind, and this I myself am. What then am I, O my God? Of what nature am I? A life various and manifold, and exceeding vast. … So great is the power of memory, so great the power of life in man, whose life is mortal. What then shall I do, O Thou my true life, my God? I will pass even beyond this power of mine which is called memory — I will pass beyond it, that I may proceed to You, O Thou sweet Light. What sayest Thou to me? Behold, I am soaring by my mind towards You who remainest above me (10.17.26).

But where in my memory do You abide, O Lord? Where do You there abide? What manner of chamber have You there formed for Yourself? What sort of sanctuary have You erected for Yourself? You have granted this honour to my memory, to take up Your abode in it; but in what quarter of it You abide, I am considering. For in calling You to mind, I soared beyond those parts of it which the beasts also possess, since I found You not there among the images of corporeal things; and I arrived at those parts where I had committed the affections of my mind, nor there did I find You. And I entered into the very seat of my mind, which it has in my memory, since the mind remembers itself also — nor were You there. For as You are not a bodily image, nor the affection of a living creature, as when we rejoice, condole, desire, fear, remember, forget, or anything of the kind; so neither are You the mind itself, because You are the Lord God of the mind; and all these things are changed, but You remain unchangeable over all, yet vouchsafe to dwell in my memory, from the time I learned You. But why do I now seek in what part of it You dwell, as if truly there were places in it? You dwell in it assuredly, since I have remembered You from the time I learned You, and I find You in it when I call You to mind (10.25.36).

 

..and yet there is a wonderful paradox in this, that the closer we draw to God the further away He seems. He certainly seemed a lot closer to me when I was three than He does now that I am 68.

Go figure.

 

Another source of danger to Saint Teresa was in that she was a woman. She once wrote that, 'When I recall that I am a woman my wings begin to droop'. She also at the start of autobiography mentions that she wished she were a man so she could fight against the Protestants in the religious wars at the time (at that period Spain was involved in a very bloody political/ religious conflict in the Netherlands.)

It is difficult for us to totally get our heads around the position of women at that period. They had very limited options as regards life choices. Basically they either got married, became a nun or became a Prostitute or Concubine, there really wasn't anything else unless perhaps you happened to be a Queen or Princess...even then. The way too women were regarded was often very stifling. St Thomas Aquinas believed that women became women because in the womb they lost the requisite body parts because the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. In other words that women were kind of failed men. Nor was he in any way exceptional in this.

Saint Teresa was a woman who very much jumped the tracks on all this which again painted another very large target on her back. She was a very prolific writer, a religious leader, a very capable administrator, the founder of a very successful Religious Order famous , tremendously influential in the highest quarters and widely regarded as a saint. In other words she was just about every thing that a woman was not , 'Supposed', to be. So he stood out and stood out big time.

When we turn to our history books there are few enough , maybe a handful of women who accomplished this, a Catherine of Sienna, Hildegard of Bignen, St Brigit of Sweden.

How on Earth id they get away with it? My guess would be in that they were widely be considered to be saints and this gave them a pass to proceed in what was a very difficult and dangerous path for a woman to tread.

 

I too have remembered being with Jesus and talking to Him since infancy, and even after I fell away as a teen, in my heart I knew He was there, I just ran away for some reason. In fact, the only true dream or wish of my life has always been to see Him, and that was granted to me in my worst and darkest hour. I was never taught about contemplative prayer either until I started reading St Teresa and am SO grateful for her. The Lord led me to her right after my conversion, and really, she was my only guide through this prayer that the Lord was initiating, I was just the recipient at the time enjoying His presence and company. NO ONE in my life at the time understood when I told them what was happening except a Carmelite Priest I was able to talk to.

 

If I may interject a little squeak in defence of the Middle Ages, especially the latter part. I really need to consult Jordan Aumann’s book on the history of Catholic spirituality but if I recall correctly there were strong spiritual currents running through the Age of Belief as it’s called. Teresa stands like a giant because she categorised the stages of spiritual development in a way that is most helpful.

However contemplative prayer was known before her. People like John Tauler were certainly aware of it, and my favourite Louis de Blois (Blosius) who died in the 1560s. There were spiritual movements like Devotio Moderna but now I’m sounding like someone who knows a lot and I really don’t.

Completely agree about Cluny. Their church was beautiful but prayer far too regimented. Bernard of Clairvaulx disapproved of their splendour. Perhaps he could see the problem with constant choir too?

 

Yes. I would regard Our Blessed Lady as the Queen of Contemplatives. What was she doing when she stared at the Baby Jesus but Contemplating God?



I have been praying recently that when I receive Jesus in the Eucharist I might hold Him in my arms as a baby as Mary once did.

 

Perhaps the reason why Contemplative prayer is so seldom taught is that it is so seldom experienced.

 

I don't know, perhaps I am being too hard but I get the distinct impression that the vast majority of people around me or not praying at all. I hope I am wrong. One great Sign of this is that people don't smile much. One of the great Sign of a person who prays is that they smile. I don;t see many smiles.

As Malachi Martin once said, 'Grace is draining from the World'.

So many grim, hard, faces in the streets.

 

Chapter One.

Someone once asked Padre Pio about the great works he had done , to which he replied, 'I am only a humble Friar who liked to pray!'

We can see this so well in this chapter were Saint Teresa says much the same. At the start of her pilgrimage she simply started to love prayer and wanted to give more and more time to it. She had no big plans to found a new religious order or even reform her own convent. She simply wanted to pray more and to pray better. So with Teresa in her spiritual life, as it is in our own, it was and is a case of one simple step at a time. Who knows where the one step at a time will lead? It is as the Chinese saying goes, 'The longest journey begins with a single step'.

Also the journey of Teresa is an inward journey. This reminds me of the the old Chinese Missionary prayer , 'Lord convert the whole World, starting with myself'. Her journey is a prayer of interior conversion. One step after another.

This is not the way of the World. If we look at say a Communist or a Socialist or a Radical Ecologist or say and Islamist. They want to change the world. They want to do this by forcing everyone else to change. Theirs is a political vision. It looks outwards. Saint Teresa also wants to help and change the World but she wants to do so by changing, through the grace of God herself.

It is very notable in the Church today that the Modernist Heretics who have seized control of our poor Mother the Church have the very same political vision. They want to create a heaven on Earth by forcing change . By forcing everyone else to change, as the Communists do. Saint Teresa I think makes a journey within, through prayer to create a heaven within that may spill over to change the world. One step at a time. This is not at all a political vision but a Mystical/ Supernatural one.

The Holy Spirit blows were it will St Teresa, like each of us had just no idea were the Gods winds would land her. We just have to let them pick us up and carry us where ever.

 

Although the author is anonymous. Master Eckhart was not the author of The Cloud of Unknowing. Eckhart was far more speculative and not as grounded as the author.

Contemplative prayer can not be taught. We can dispose ourselves to receive the gift however. Of course St Teresa teaches us ABOUT prayer and how to dispose oneself.

St Teresa did set out to reform her monestary once she took her vocation seriously, but it is true, her original intention was not to start a new order. She would later lament her own previous laxity .......from before the day she begged God to change her, and that day she refused to get up from kneeling until He did. She had already been a religious for 12 years at that point. She slipped all the way back to the second mansion before she begged God to change her.

It is a great lesson. As St. John of The Cross counsels, we must become detached from both material and spiritual possessions, power and pleasures if we are to advance. Poverty, Chastity, Obedience.

 

St John of the Cross devotes a great deal of his book, The Assent of Mt. Carmel explaining how even contemplates will fail to advance if they are attached to their spiritual consultations, visions, dreams etc....not to mention the visions etc. of others

 

Well stated! Thank you!

 

Sorry to interrupt the discussion, but for those of you who want to read The Way of Perfection by St Teresa of Avila, it is available online for free in PDF format, along with her other writings.

You can download them here:

Books by St Teresa of Avila (In particular, The Interior Castle)