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The St . Teresa of Avila Prayer Book THE ST. TERESA OF AVILA PRAYER BOOK THE St. Teresa of Avila Prayer Book BY VINITA HAMPTON WRIGHT Paraclete Press Brewster, Massachusetts 2015 First printing The St. Teresa of Avila Prayer Book Copyright © 2015 by Vinita Hampton Wright ISBN 978-1-61261-660-5 Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The Paraclete Press name and logo (dove on cross) are trademarks of Paraclete Press, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wright, Vinita Hampton, 1958- The St. Teresa of Avila prayer book / Vinita Hampton Wright. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61261-660-5 1. Teresa, of Avila, Saint, 1515-1582. 2. Catholic Church— Prayers and devotions. I. Title. BX4700.T4W75 2015 242'.802—dc23 2015022795 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in an electronic retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Paraclete Press Brewster, Massachusetts www.paracletepress.com Printed in the United States of America To every person learning to trust God’s intimate conversation with the human heart. CONTENTS Introduction xi I THE PRAYER LIFE OF ST. TERESA OF AVILA 1 Her Early Life as a Carmelite Nun 3 Her Years of Illness, Struggle, and Opposition 7 II PRAYING ALONGSIDE ST. TERESA 13 Morning and Evening Prayer AN INTRODUCTION 15 Themes for Seven Days of Prayer 18 vii III THE DAILY OFFICE FOR SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY 27 Sunday 29 Monday 40 Tuesday 51 Wednesday 63 Thursday 75 Friday 87 Saturday 97 IV ST. TERESA’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO OUR UNDERSTANDING OF PRAYER 109 viii V SPIRITUAL INFLUENCES ON THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA 119 Francisco of Osuna: Third Spiritual Alphabet 121 St. Peter of Alcantara 123 St. Augustine 125 St. Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuits 125 NOTES 129 BIBLIOGRAPHY 137 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 138 ix INDEX OF SCRIPTURES 140 INDEX OF AUTHORS AND SOURCES 142 x INTRODUCTION eresa of Avila lived during the long, tumultuous era in which Catholic Spain sought to conquer the world. MonarchsT sent armies to claim, for country and for church, lands close by and in the faraway New World. They drove out Muslims, Jews, and others who did not fit in a truly Christian kingdom. Today’s believer cringes to think of those bloody attempts at converting entire populations to the faith. But while the outward conquest marched across countries, certain pilgrims were traversing a different landscape: interior regions of the human soul. Teresa became one of those pioneers, joining the company of spiritual writers and teachers such as Francisco of Osuna, Peter Alcantara, John of the Cross, and Ignatius of Loyola. For them, the real battles must be waged within, and conversion had to begin, not with a battle between armed troops, but through encounter with a loving and merciful God. This is not to say that Teresa or others like her were rebels in the church; Teresa was loyal to the faith she had been taught and remained committed to obeying its authorities. She eventually worked diligently to reform the xi The St. Teresa of Avila Prayer Book Carmelite order, but it was a reform toward the order’s original calling to a life of solitude, poverty, and prayer, not to any new idea about what it meant to serve God. She did not intend to put herself in opposition to confessors or superiors or her sisters in the faith. She set out only to be the nun she believed she was called to be. She did not know that efforts to fulfill her religious vows would take her beyond her concept of the devoted life and into regions deep and beautiful, mysterious and sometimes frightening. As is the case with so many mystics, Teresa did not think of herself as spiritually gifted. In fact, she had a very low view of her moral state, her spiritual weakness, and what she considered her general stupidity when it came to prayer or any other form of relating to God, her “Majesty.” Teresa would say to each of us that not only is it possible to become intimately acquainted with God, but also that God desires our friendship before we even consider or want it. God waits, sometimes decades, for us to reach that point of trust and openness to what holy presence might accomplish in our lives. The saint would also be quick to say that some of our best progress happens when we are troubled, suffering, and battling against our own sinful resistance. You, my Lord, were prepared to be offended by me for almost twenty years, during which xii Introduction time I made ill use of your favor, so that in the end I might become better. When I look back on these actions of mine, I do not know what my intention could have been. All this, my Spouse, reveals still more clearly the difference between your nature and mine. Certainly distress for my great sins is often tempered by the joy that comes to me when I realize that they were the means of making known the multitude of your mercies. xiii I THE PRAYER LIFE of St.Teresa of Avila HER EARLY LIFE AS A CARMELITE NUN eresa’s early years as a Carmelite nun probably did not distinguish her from other young women in TSpain who took the veil in the 1530s. Like many who chose a religious vocation, she came from a devout and well-off family. Her mother had died when Teresa was thirteen, and during her teen years her father sent her to Our Lady of Grace, a local convent/boarding school run by Augustinian nuns. She was well educated for her time, having grown up in a home full of books on everything from theology to modern romances. She was acquainted with the prayers that would have been routine in a devout household, but she was also a typical girl of privilege who enjoyed her social life and probably gave little thought to prayer. However, a young woman of the time must choose either marriage or a religious vocation. At age seventeen, Teresa had to return home to recover from illness, and during the next few years she determined to enter the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation, also in Avila. She took her vows in 1536 at age twenty-one. 3 The St. Teresa of Avila Prayer Book The convent followed the Rule of St. Albert, which included renunciation of possessions, obedience to a superior, life in one’s own cell but with community meals and reading, and keeping the Divine Hours of prayer, as indicated: Those who know how to say the canonical hours with those in orders should do so, in the way those holy forefathers of ours laid down, and according to the Church’s approved custom. Those who do not know the hours must say twenty-five Our Fathers for the night office, except on Sundays and solemnities when that number is to be doubled so that the Our Father is said fifty times; the same prayer must be said seven times in the morning in place of Lauds, and seven times too for each of the other hours, except for Vespers when it must be said fif- teen times. In one of her later works, The Way of Perfection, Teresa devotes several chapters to the Our Father and how best to benefit from that prayer. Perhaps, when she was a young nun, she had had to pray repeated Our Fathers, along with others who were not well trained in the canonical hours. We should try to pray attentively. May God grant that, by using these means, we may 4 The Prayer Life of St. Teresa of Avila learn to say the Our Father well and not find ourselves thinking of irrelevant thoughts while we are reciting it. When this happens to me, I have found that the best remedy is to fix my mind on the Person who first spoke the words. Have patience and try to make this necessary practice into a habit. Daily, communal devotions presented challenges, but if Teresa hoped to develop a cloistered life of robust prayer, her environment was not entirely helpful: The Encarnation was a popular convent, housing daughters from most of the leading families in Avila. The large numbers (180 women) meant that the Rule was followed carefully by some, indifferently by others. Some wealthy women, including Teresa, came to the convent with an entourage of family members, friends, and servants and had the best quarters and food. Some wealthy nuns held soirees for male friends and fam- ily—enjoying music, poetry, and likely good wine. Nuns from less affluent families lived much more poorly. The nuns were free to come and go; return to family when ill; invite male and female friends to the convent; and often they were called upon to attend to the needs 5 The St. Teresa of Avila Prayer Book of wealthy patrons and benefactors in their homes for extended periods of time. This portrait clashes sharply with the image of a cloistered convent of enclosure, silence, and prayer and was among the reasons that even- tually led Teresa to desire reform. She confesses that those early years were quite difficult.
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