Having spent 12 years at Valladolid in Spain, first as a student then later as a Spiritual Director, it was with much experience that Bishop Terence Patrick was able to open this year’s series of talks to the Cleveland Newman Circle by speaking about the life and works of St Teresa of Avila. On Wednesday 16th September 2009 at St Mary’s Cathedral, he shared his obvious enthusiasm for this giant Spanish mystic who used her whole personality to spread the kingdom of God.
She had been born Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada into a wealthy family of cloth merchants on 28th March 1515. In 1528, when she was only 15 years old, her mother died, leaving behind 10 children. Teresa was the most beloved of them all. She was of medium height, large rather than small, and generally well proportioned. In her youth, she had the reputation of being quite beautiful; retaining her fine appearance even until her last years. Her personality was extroverted and her manner affectionately buoyant, being able to easily adapt herself to all kinds of people and circumstances. She was skilful in the use of the pen, in needlework, and in household duties. Her courage and enthusiasm were readily kindled; for instance at the age of seven, she left home with her brother Rodrigo with the intention of going to Moorish territory to be beheaded for Christ, but they were frustrated by their uncle, who met the children as they were leaving the city and brought them home!
Teresa did not have a good relationship with her father, who despaired of her and had a terrible time trying to keep her under control once her mother had died. Seeing his daughter’s need of prudent guidance, her father entrusted her to the Augustinian nuns at Santa Maria de Gracia in 1531. Under the influence of Dona Maria de Brinceno, Teresa began to recover the piety which her mother Beatriz had been so keen to encourage and she began to wonder whether she had a vocation to be a nun. Her father refused to give his consent and so she ran away from home, entering the Carmelite Monastery of Incarnaçion at Avila on 2nd November 1535. The following year, she received the habit and began wholeheartedly giving herself to prayer and penance. Shortly after her profession though, she became seriously ill and returned home where her spiritual life deepened. Instead of regaining her health, however, she grew even more ill and on 15th August 1539, she fell into a profound coma. She did revive four days later but remained paralysed for three years and her spiritual life entered a period of mediocrity until 1555.
Despite this, she persevered in prayer and for 18 years did experience transitory mystical experiences. Some thought her favours were the work of the devil but in 1555, Francis Borgia heard her confession and told her that the spirit of God was working in her, she ought to concentrate upon Christ’s Passion and not resist the ecstatic experience that came to her in prayer. During this second conversion, she felt that God’s presence was within her and she was engulfed by him. Her prayer of quiet enabled her to be in the presence of her omnipotent one. Nevertheless, she had to endure the distrust even of her friends but God did not fail to comfort her, and she received the favour of transverberation, where an angel placed a spear deep within her heart, which was both exquisite and painful. In August 1560, St Peter of Alcantara counselled her: Keep on as you are doing, daughter; we all suffer such trials.
Her great work of reform began with herself. She made a vow always to follow the more perfect course, and resolved to keep the rule as perfectly as she could. However, the atmosphere prevailing at Incarnacion Monastery was less than favourable to the more perfect type of life to which Teresa aspired. Eventually, people did listen to her, even if they didn’t always agree with her, and once she had the approval of Fr Alvarez, her confessor, along with her sister she was able to buy a house in Avila and adapt it to a real ascetic convent life. Interestingly, Incarnacion never reformed until 1940s.
Teresa, therefore, was a tough pioneering woman who grew into a vocally important personality throughout Spain. Walking on foot or riding by donkey, she travelled the length and breadth of her country – purchasing land and building convents, all the time really living the reformed life herself. Eventually, she died on 4th October 1582 at the Convent of Alba de Tormes, where her coffin is still entombed today. She was canonised by Gregory XV on 12th March 1622 but not made a Doctor of the Church until 27th September 1970.
Among her writings are listed her autobiography, The Life, which she wrote between 1562 and 1565. It was a private book written at the encouragement of her spiritual directors and which described what was going on inside of her. Caution must be exercised by readers, however, as the doctrine expounded in it is different from that found in later works, largely due to the development of her own spiritual maturity over time. Her Way of Perfection, written between 1566 and 1569, was addressed to her sisters and aimed to teach them the major virtues demanded. It cast further light on the practice of prayer and used the Pater Noster as a vehicle for teaching prayer at greater depth. It is sometimes referred to as the apex of Teresa’s ascetical doctrine. The Interior Castle, written between 1577 and 1580, is the principal source of mature Teresian thought on the spiritual life in its integrity. The interior castle is the soul, in the centre of which dwells the Trinity. Growth in prayer enables the individual to enter into deeper intimacy with God, signified by a progressive journey through the apartments (or mansions) of the castle from the outermost to the luminous centre. When a man has attained union with God in the degree permitted to him in this world, he is at the centre of himself; in other words, he has integrity as a child of God and as a human being. Teresa also wrote about the various Foundations which she built plus a number of Poems and Songs too. Her sisters were not well educated and did not gain a huge amount of spiritual sustenance from The Office. So she wrote spiritual songs and hymns to be sung to the popular tunes of the day. Her sisters played a range of lutes and harps while Teresa kept beat with her drum!
Teresa cannot be thought to be systematic but rather an advocate of prayer being the whole of one’s life. She had very few resources at her disposal, for her source was her own experience of God’s revelation. She had a bold way of coming straight to The Lord, utterly convinced that the presence and reality of God was in the nitty-gritty of life everywhere. It is this forthright way which has made her influence still palpable throughout the world today. Her down-to-earth approach meant that she was a great spiritual director, even to her own family, for she also offered them a very deep spirituality. Also, through her reforms both she, and other discalced Carmelites, were able to accept genuine poverty, genuine obedience and a totally simple life. Her legacy, therefore, has been a radical living out of the Carmelite Rule which has become a major influence beyond Spain and throughout the world today. She really was a mover and shaker, who did all that she did for The Lord and The Church – and on her death bed she reiterated that all she tried to be was a loyal daughter of The Church.