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The Interior Castle: the Mystical Wisdom of St A NOW YOU KNOW MEDIA STUDY GUIDE Exploring The Interior Castle: The Mystical Wisdom of St. Teresa of Avila Presented by Professor Keith Egan, Ph.D. E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE Now You Know Media Copyright Notice: This document is protected by copyright law. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. You are permitted to view, copy, print, and distribute this document (up to seven copies), subject to your agreement that: Your use of the information is for informational, personal and noncommercial purposes only. You will not modify the documents or graphics. You will not copy or distribute graphics separate from their accompanying text and you will not quote materials out of their context. You agree that Now You Know Media may revoke this permission at any time and you shall immediately stop your activities related to this permission upon notice from Now You Know Media. WWW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE Prof. Keith Egan, Ph.D. Ph.D., University of Cambridge Former President of the Carmelite Institute r. Keith J. Egan is the Aquinas Chair in Catholic Theology Emeritus at Saint Mary’s College where, in 1984, he founded F the college’s Center for Spirituality. He is also an adjunct professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame and former president of the Carmelite Institute (2007–2012). Dr. Egan’s doctorate is from the University of Cambridge, England. He lectures widely and has published extensively on Christian spirituality and mysticism as well as on Carmelite spirituality to audiences in North America, Ireland, England and Rome. Dr. Egan has been a charter lecturer of the North American Carmelite Forum and a corresponding fellow of The Institutum Carmelitanum in Rome. He has published three other programs for Now You Know Media, John of the Cross: Poet and Mystic, Teresa, Teach Us to Pray, and Come, Pray with Carmel. WWW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 i E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE Table of Contents Course Information Presenter Biography………………………………………………………………….i Course Overview ......................................................................................................... 1 Acknowledgement ....................................................................................................... 2 Course Materials Lecture 1. A Birth to Remember ................................................................................. 3 Lecture 2. Teresa’s Enduring Masterpiece .................................................................. 8 Lecture 3. A Snapshot of Teresa’s Castle .................................................................. 12 Lecture 4. The First Dwelling Places: Self-Knowledge and Humility ...................... 17 Lecture 5. The Second Dwelling Places: Fidelity to Prayer of Recollection ............ 21 Lecture 6. The Third Dwelling Places: A Life Ordered by Love .............................. 25 Lecture 7. The Fourth Dwelling Places: A Very New World .................................. 30 Lecture 8. The Fifth Dwelling Places: The Paschal Mystery .................................... 34 Lecture 9. The Sixth Dwelling Places, Part I: The Language of Love ...................... 39 Lecture 10. The Sixth Dwelling Places, Part II: The Intensification of Desire and Love ....................................................................................................... 44 Lecture 11. The Seventh Dwelling Places: Spiritual Marriage—Heaven on Earth .. 48 Lecture 12. Teresa of Jesus: A More Contemplative Church.................................... 52 Supplemental Materials The Stages of Prayer .................................................................................................. 57 Suggested Readings ................................................................................................... 58 WWW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 ii E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE Course Overview Walk with Teresa of Avila through her most profound mystical collection: The Interior Castle. 500 years ago, Teresa of Avila was born in Spain to the family of Cepeda y Ahumada. At the age of 20, she became a Carmelite nun. Despite her lack of formal education, Teresa would go on to become an inspirational mystic, reformer, and the first female Doctor of the Church. Today, her spiritual works are widely acclaimed as timeless masterpieces. Now, in this course, you will explore her most beloved work, The Interior Castle (El Castillo Interior). In this classic of Christian literature, St. Teresa will bring you on a journey towards the ineffable divinity of God. After receiving a vision from God, Teresa set out to write down her mysticism to lead others to a more contemplative understanding of prayer. At the center of The Interior Castle lies the conceit that the soul is like a castle, with each of its chambers bringing you closer to God. As you move through such “dwelling places” as self-knowledge, the prayer of recollection, and the Paschal Mystery, you will achieve greater peace and understanding. Presented by renowned Carmelite spirituality expert Dr. Keith Egan (Ph.D., Cambridge), Exploring The Interior Castle: The Mystical Wisdom of St. Teresa of Avila will bring you to the heart of Teresa’s mysticism. These lectures perfectly complement Dr. Egan’s previous program on Teresa, Teresa, Teach Us to Pray, which concentrates more generally on her wisdom and prayer. The Interior Castle has been cherished by Christians and non-Christians alike for centuries. Teresa of Avila is a woman with timeless wisdom, a wisdom that is especially apt for spiritual seekers of this new millennium. Share in her wisdom today. W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 1 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE Acknowledgement Brother Bryan Paquette, OCD, Business and Promotion Manager of the Institute of Carmelite Studies, Washington, DC, has graciously granted permission for this program to quote extensively from publications of this Institute. I am much indebted to Brother Bryan and the Institute for their very generous permission. – Keith J. Egan W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 2 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE Lecture 1. A Birth to Remember Overview very warm welcome to this series of lectures entitled Exploring The Interior Castle: The Mystical Wisdom of St. Teresa of Avila. I suggest that we call upon the Holy Spirit to guide us A as we ponder the wisdom of Teresa of Avila contained in her masterpiece The Interior Castle. These lectures are occasioned by a very special anniversary: the five hundredth anniversary of the birth of Saint Teresa of Avila. Anniversaries are an opportunity to pause and to ask what a person or event now means to us, a time of grace, a kairós time, in this case, an opportunity to ponder what wisdom Teresa of Avila has for us especially for anyone who seeks to get closer to God or who wants to consult Teresa’s wisdom about prayer, which is Teresa’s specialty. This Carmelite nun is one of Christianity’s great teachers of prayer. I. A Much Loved Child in a Large Vivacious Family Alonso Sánchez de Cepeda kept a notebook in which he recorded information on the births of his children. One laconic yet unforgettable entry reads: “On Wednesday March 28, 1515, my daughter Teresa was born more or less at five thirty in the morning” (Tiempo y Vida de Santa Teresa, 2nd ed., I, 22). Don Alonso could never have guessed how well-known throughout the world this daughter of his would become. He would have been amazed to discover that five centuries after her birth, in the year 2015, there would be numerous global events commemorating the birth of his lively daughter. In addition, the year 2014 is the four hundredth anniversary of the beatification of Teresa, who was canonized in 1622 on the same day that Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri, and Isidore the Farmer were named saints—a very distinguished cast of saints all canonized on the same day. Teresa was, by the way, the “first Carmelite saint to be formally canonized” (Joachim Smet, Mirror of Carmel, 214). Teresa has received countless other honors culminating in her being declared by Pope Paul VI, the first woman doctor of the church on September 27, 1970. Saints are named doctors of the church when they possess significant wisdom for the whole church. During her lifetime, Teresa was unimpressed with talk about her being a saint; in fact, Teresa scoffed at this idea; she wrote to a relative disdaining that “farce about my sanctity” (Letter 88, vol.1, 225). You can count on Teresa to say what she thinks. II. Teresa: A Mystic’s Mystic I intend these lectures as an act of gratitude to a woman whose life and writings have been an inspiration and a source of wisdom for countless God-seekers even for so many beyond the borders of Catholicism. Personally, much like Pope Francis said recently that he could not imagine the church without nuns, I cannot imagine making the spiritual journey without the inspiration of Teresa’s life and her amazing wisdom, so apparent on every page that she wrote. W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 3 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE Indeed, Teresa, in the centuries since her death in 1582, has become a mystic’s mystic. That is, her writings have provided wisdom for a theological understanding of Christian mysticism and for anyone who seeks to understand the transformational character of mysticism. From the end of the seventeenth century until the middle of the twentieth century, Christian mysticism endured a long eclipse that only subsided when the likes of Thomas Merton and others reawakened an awareness of the riches of the Christian mystical tradition. By the way, Thomas Merton will be one hundred years old on January 31, 2015. During that unfortunate eclipse of Christian mysticism, Teresa continued to be read and admired, and when the eclipse subsided Teresa and her writings were there to be embraced by those who sensed that modern religious culture was the poorer without access to the vibrancy of the mystical tradition.
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