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.
III. The Early Years of a Saint and Doctor of the Church
Teresa was born, not in Avila, but at the family’s country villa in the village of Gotarrendura, about 15 miles from Avila. She was baptized in the parish church of Saint John in Avila, and she was named for her maternal grandmother, Teresa de las Cuevas. With his first wife, Catalina, Alonso Cepeda had two or three children; we are not sure which. With his second wife, Beatriz de Ahumada, Alonso had nine children. Teresa was the third of these nine siblings of whom there were two daughters and seven sons. Doña Beatriz de Ahumada died when Teresa was only thirteen years old. Teresa describes her mother as beautiful, gentle and intelligent (BL 1.1-2). She writes of her mother and father as virtuous. Quite touching are the descriptions by Teresa’s of her father’s prayerfulness in the years before he died. With a delightful self-confidence Teresa wrote that of her siblings she was the “most loved” by her father, and she confessed how deep was her love for her father (BL 1-7 passim).
IV. Celebrating Teresa’s Wisdom about Prayer
Carmelites the world over have been preparing for the upcoming fifth centenary of the birth of Teresa. Numerous conferences, symposia, and cultural events will bring together Teresa’s devotees to learn from her what it means to be a prayerful Christian. Pope Francis has designated the year 2015 to the consecrated life. Teresa of Avila is one of the eminent members of the generous persons who chose to live the consecrated life. Teresa’s wisdom about prayer and the spiritual life has been widely recognized in her own time and ever since. Teresa’s collaborator, Saint John of the Cross, was a newly ordained priest who was tempted to transfer from the Carmelites to become a Carthusian monk. Teresa, however, twenty- seven years John’s senior, convinced him to remain a Carmelite, where she claimed that he would do the most good. When John of the Cross mentioned certain events occurring in mystical prayer, he had this to say about the woman who talked him into remaining a Carmelite: “…such a discussion will have to be left for someone who knows how to treat the matter better than I. Then too, the blessed Teresa of Jesus our Mother, left writings about these spiritual matters that are
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 4 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
admirably done and which I hope will soon be printed and brought to light” (CB 13.7). The first printing of most of her writings took place in 1588, only six years after Teresa died. The distinguished historian of prayer, Friedrich Heiler, wrote that Teresa “is probably the greatest woman mystic in the history of religion. No medieval female saint and mystic is her equal in depth of soul” (Prayer: A study in the History and Psychology of Religion, p. 129). Pope Paul VI, in 1965, named Teresa principal patroness of Spanish Catholic writers, and Pope Benedict XVI on February 2, 2011, spoke of Teresa as “…a saint who is one of the peaks of Christian Spirituality of all time….” One could go on and on citing accolades like these. Who knows how many there are who have learned about God’s lavish love from Teresa of Avila? From the time Teresa initiated the reform of the Carmelite Order, Teresa was known simply as Teresa de Jesús. No longer did she sign herself with the title of a hidalgo’s daughter: Doña Teresa de Cepeda y de Ahumada, used even for the first two decades of her life as a Carmelite.
V. Reformer and Daughter of the Church
Teresa and her friends at the monastery of the Incarnation just outside the walled city of Avila, where there were anywhere from 150 to 180 members of the community, determined that they needed smaller monasteries where they could have the solitude for prayer in imitation of the early Carmelite hermits on Mount Carmel. As the leader of this group of friends, Teresa founded the monastery of San José in the city of Avila. The San José monastery, which still thrives, was the first of the seventeen monasteries founded La Madre, as her nuns called Teresa. In 2015, there will be major celebrations in the cities where Teresa founded these monasteries. Busy foundress and prioress, involved administrator, counselor to many, and friend to even more, Teresa had a life of prayer that grew deeper and deeper. Her advisors saw to it that she wrote about her prayer life and the phenomena that accompanied her prayer. Teresa’s mid-life conversion at thirty-nine was a time that she described as “…not living but [I] Stained glass window of St. Teresa. was struggling with a shadow of death.” “…My Photo by Håkan Svensson. soul now was tired….” A statue of the “wounded Christ” caught her attention and “…my heart broke….” “ I threw myself down before Him with the greatest outpouring of tears.” (BL 8.12–9.1) The rest of Teresa’s life was an unfolding of the grace received at this key event in her life. She tells us in the Book of Her Life that after this conversion her life was a “new book from here on—I mean another, new life. … May the Lord be praised who freed me from myself.” (BL 23.1)
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 5 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Teresa reformer of her beloved order was at the same time a devoted “daughter of the church.” As she lay dying on October 4, 1582, she repeatedly said: “Finally, I die a daughter of the church.” October 4th became October 15th when Pope Gregory XIII adjusted the calendar in 1582 to catch up for lost days over the centuries.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 6 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Review Questions
1. What does it mean for you that Teresa of Avila was named a doctor of the church?
2. Have what has been said in lecture one inclined you to read more of Teresa’s other writings?
3. Have you felt a resonance with Teresa that inspires in you a more committed life of prayer?
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 7 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Lecture 2. Teresa’s Enduring Masterpiece
Overview
elcome to this second lecture in the series. I ask the Holy Spirit to accompany us as we ponder the wisdom of Teresa’s masterpiece, The Interior Castle. As I have re-read The W Interior Castle, now more times than I can count, I want, with you, to further my understanding of Teresa’s wisdom about God, about ourselves as God seekers, and Teresa’s acknowledged wisdom about prayer. I hope that in this lecture I can share some of what I have learned about improving our approach to The Interior Castle, a masterpiece that yields further wisdom each time one takes up this classic text. A classic is a text, event or person that contains inexhaustible wisdom. By any reckoning. Teresa’s The Interior Castle is a genuine classic of the spiritual life. In a Now You Know Media program entitled Teresa, Teach Us to Pray, I offered a general introduction to Teresa’s life and an overview of some of her writings. In this program, we focus attention on Teresa’s wisdom about prayer in her The Interior Castle. Teresa composed this milestone in Christian spirituality when she was sixty- two, five years after she received the gift of spiritual marriage and five years before she died. This was a time when Teresa had reached a very deep spiritual maturity and had achieved further clarity about the contemplative life: “…I know there are certain things I had not understood as I have come to understand them now, especially certain more difficult things.” (IC 1.2.7) Each time that I have walked with Teresa through her Castle has been a grace for me, and I hope that it will be so for you. Whatever profit these lectures may be for the listener will be enhanced if one reads The Interior Castle as we treat its various dwelling places in these lectures. I suggest that each time you turn to this classic that one begin with a prayer to the Holy Spirit, and why not a prayer for help from Teresa herself? May the Spirit of Jesus and Teresa guide us.
I. A Classic in the Making
Teresa had completed the first draft of The Book of Her Life in 1562. Ana de Mendoza y la Cerda, the Princess of Éboli, insistently pressed Teresa to loan her the manuscript. However, the impulsive and high-strung princess irresponsibly allowed members of her household staff to sample Teresa’s text. The outcome resulted in ill-founded rumors about the content of Teresa’s Book of Her Life. Unfortunately the princess insisted that she be allowed as a widow to enter a Carmelite monastery. Once there, the princess caused such commotion that the community had to move elsewhere. Out of spite, the Princess of Éboli sent Teresa’s manuscript to the Inquisition. This meticulous body, overly cautious guardians of orthodoxy, could find nothing amiss in Teresa’s manuscript; nonetheless the Inquisition held onto the manuscript of The Book of Her Lie until after Teresa died in 1282.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 8 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
The sequestering of Teresa’s book by the Inquisition led Father Jerome Gracián, Teresa’s dear friend and her superior at the time, and a confessor friend of hers, Alonso Velázquez, to tell Teresa that she should write a replacement for her sequestered book. Understandably, Teresa took up this task reluctantly, but happily for us who now have Teresa as a fully experienced and wise guide for the journey to God through prayer. Teresa makes a marvelous and wise compañera, a companion and guide, to help one grow in the search for the living and loving God.
II. The Writing of The Interior Castle
Teresa, who had to steal moments to write the Castle, began to compose her manuscript on Trinity Sunday, June 2, 1577. In little over a month, Teresa had reached the Fifth Dwelling Places. But obstacles soon arose: “God help me with what I have undertaken! I’ve already forgotten what I was dealing with, for business matters and poor health have forced me to set this work aside just when I was at my best….” Teresa added: “I can’t go back to read it over.” (IC 4.2.1) Teresa was unable to return to her task until early November. Yet, despite it all, Teresa finished her Castle by the 29th of November. Anyone who has to deal with publishers’ deadlines will be aghast that this busy Carmelite nun with impaired health wrote one of Christianity’s great classics in what amounted to about two months’ time, a feat that borders on the miraculous. When Teresa sets out to write The Interior Castle, she asks that the Lord “to speak” for her. She wants her readers to appreciate the gift of our inner life, the life of the soul as she would say: “…we consider our soul to be like a castle made entirely out of a diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms.” The words “many rooms” are taken from John 14:2: “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling Teresa of Avila by Peter Paul Rubens (1615) places” (NRSV). Stained glass window of St. Teresa. Photo by Håkan Svensson In Spanish, Teresa’s Interior Castle is known as Las Moradas, the Dwelling Places. Some, like the distinguished Hispanisist E. Allison Peers, refers to the Dwelling Place as Mansions, but it has been argued that Dwelling Places is a better fit for what Teresa had in mind. The translation that I am using is the very reliable Institute of Carmelite Studies’ The Interior Castle, translated by Fathers Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriquez and published in 1980. Teresa was intent on sharing with us her deep appreciation for “…so brilliantly shining and beautiful castle, this pearl from the Orient, this tree of life planted in the very living waters of life….” (IC 1.2.1). The soul for Teresa was a beautiful reality made in the image and likeness of God. Teresa had what we would now call a very positive Christian anthropology.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 9 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
III. Walking with Teresa through Her Dwelling Places
Teresa does not imagine her Castle to have these dwellings places all in a single row. She imagines her dwelling places to be like a palmetto plant, that is, a little palm tree: “So here, surrounding this center room are many other rooms….The things of the soul must always be considered as plentiful, spacious, and large….” (1.2.8). In fact, Teresa says that one should think “…not in terms of just a few rooms but in terms of a million” (IC 1.2.12). Virgil accompanied Dante through the Inferno and most of the Purgatorio, where in its 27th canto of the latter Beatrice took over because Dante was now libero, dritto, e sano, free, upright and whole, and so able soon to move on to Paradiso. Teresa, our guide, will walk with one through the dwelling places which ready one for heaven on earth, that is, ready one possibly for God’s gift of that contemplation which Teresa calls spiritual marriage in the seventh dwelling places and With Teresa we are pilgrims. Teresa wrote: “These revelations also helped me very much, I think, in coming to know our true country and realizing that we are pilgrims here below” (BL 38.6). Teresa is an ideal guide for our pilgrimage to the center of the Castle, where our God manifests God’s self in a very special way, an ongoing pilgrimage back to our Creator. Incidentally, Teresa never uses the phrase “spiritual direction.” Modern Carmelites have taken, from John of the Cross’s usage, to speak of spiritual guidance. Teresa is a wise and reliable companion for our pilgrimage. She is warm and witty, centered within but outgoing, and reaching out to others with compassion. She is deeply contemplative, but no one can doubt her practical and down-to–earth commonsense. Teresa is womanly to her very fingertips, but in her time she was considered to act like the best of men, that is, in Spanish she was varonil, manly. Moreover, Teresa has a robust sense of humor not always easy to catch in English. In summary, Teresa has a very rich personality. There is nothing one-dimensional about her. What a portrait Chaucer could have painted had Teresa been on the pilgrimage to Canterbury! I am unable to say in these lectures all that there is to say about such a gifted guide, not only wise but fun to be with. Teresa possesses the virtue of eutrapelia, that is, Teresa knows how to relieve the stress of soul-weariness that can afflict any of us as we make our way back to the Father. I suggest that we call on Teresa as we walk through her Interior Castle, consciously asking for her help in exploring her wisdom about prayer, knowing that we live as well as we pray, and we pray as well as we live.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 10 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Review Questions
1. Do you find Teresa’s personality attractive and intriguing?
2. Ask yourself how important it is to develop a positive anthropology like Teresa.
3. How important is it to have an experienced and wise guide for a life of prayer?
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 11 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Lecture 3. A Snapshot of Teresa’s Castle
Overview
et us begin, as always, by calling on the Holy Spirit to help us explore Teresa of Jesus’ Interior Castle. In this lecture, we will get a brief overview of the Interior Castle and its seven dwelling L places before embarking on the rest of our journey. We will look at Teresa’s powerful image of the castle and what prompted her to choose this imagery.
I. The Imagery of the Castle
One doesn’t have to search long for what may have led Teresa to use the castle as an image for the inner life, the life of the soul. The name of the region where Teresa lived is called Castile, that is, the land where numerous castles dot the landscape. Teresa herself writes that she was asking the Lord to speak for her “…because I wasn’t able to think of anything to say.” Now that’s hard to imagine that Teresa would have nothing to say! She does say “there came to mind … that we consider our soul to be like a castle made entirely out of a diamond or of very clear crystal, which there are many rooms, just as in heaven there are many dwelling places. [Jn Castile Region, Spain. Photo by Mirci. 14.2] “Sisters, we realize that the soul of the just person is nothing else but a paradise where the Lord says He finds His delight” (Prov 8:31) (IC 1.1.1). Teresa returns to her imagery of the Castle: “…you should consider what it would mean to this so brilliantly shining and beautiful castle, this pearl from the Orient, this tree of life planted in the very waters of life—that is, in God….” (IC 1.2.1) There are seven dwelling places in The Interior Castle. The first three dwelling places cover the pre-mystical dwelling places, while the last four dwelling place are mystical, or infused, or in Teresa’s often-used Spanish word sobrenatural, supernatural meaning for her the same as mystical. Teresa sees the first three dwelling places as what we can do with God’s ordinary grace. The last four dwelling places are what only God can do in us. The journey through these latter dwelling places culminates in the soul’s center where the Lord, the King lives.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 12 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Teresa is intent on making sure that we appreciate the beauty and the goodness of the soul which she imagines as a castle: “Well now let’s get back to our castle with its many dwelling places. You mustn’t think of these dwelling places in such a way that each one would follow in file after the other; but turn your eyes to toward the center, which is the room or royal chamber where the King stays, and think of how a palmetto has many leaves surrounding and covering the tasty part that can be eaten. … the things of the soul must always be considered as plentiful, spacious and large. … The soul is capable of much more than we can imagine” (1.2.8). It is so important that we appreciate Teresa’s understanding of the soul as a very special, beautiful place where in the center God lives in a very special way. Teresa wants us to know that with her imagery of the castle she is talking about the divine indwelling in the human person. Were Teresa teaching a theology class, she would say how important it is to have this very positive Christian anthropology. The human person is God’s creation made in the image and likeness of God with a natural desire for God’s very self. Yes, Teresa is more Platonist than Aristotelian, that is, her spiritual outlook is influenced by a tradition that does not does not have a richly positive outlook on the body; in fact, in one place Teresa speaks of the “prison of the body” (WP 32.13). But, Teresa, as we have been saying, has an extremely positive view of soul. It is good to keep in mind that, when Teresa speaks of the soul, she is speaking of the whole person but doing so with a profound appreciation for the spiritual dimension of the human person.
II. A Map of Teresa’s Castle
In our times, we are used to the idea that, when we take a journey by automobile, we consult an internet service like MapQuest to guide us on our way. On this spiritual journey, the Holy Spirit is our principal guide, and Teresa of Jesus, who shares with us her spiritual experience, is our human guide. Let me add a few words to prepare us for what lies ahead on this pilgrimage. Once one enters the Castle, there are two large divisions of the Castle. The first three dwelling Places are where Teresa treats the initial steps on this spiritual journey, which is lived under the influence of God’s ordinary grace. These dwelling places are where one grows in prayer and virtue so that one is ready, if God so wills, to be led onto dwelling places four through seven. These last four dwelling places are what Teresa describes as sobrenatural. Teresa uses this Spanish word to mean infused or mystical dwelling places. The first three dwelling places are what we travel using our own efforts helped by ordinary grace; the last four dwelling places are what only God can do and does with mystical graces. We shall see later how Teresa uses the imagery of contentos and gustos to differentiate these two differing experiences of the Castle. With these two large divisions of the Castle, Teresa is describing her version of the stages of an intensification of one’s consciousness of God’s presence. Here I shall only list these stages and then explain them as we encounter them in the various dwelling places. The stages of prayer according to Teresa are (Active) Recollection (Dwelling Places 1-3), Passive Recollection, the Prayer of Quiet (Dwelling Places 4, the Prayer of Union (Dwelling Places 5 and onward), a Spiritual Betrothal (Dwelling Places 6), and finally Spiritual Marriage (Dwelling Places 7).
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 13 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
III. Historical Context
One justly asks: why all these divisions and distinctions? The Iberian Peninsula during the sixteenth century had a widespread interest in deeper and more interior ways of prayer like meditation and contemplation. Some of this interest skirted very near the borders of a false mysticism. The Illuminist movement (or those who were described as the Alumbrados) put an emphasis on a complete abandonment to the love of God but which tended to deny the value of vocal prayer, discursive meditation and other practices which were seen as hindrances to abandonment to the love of God. The Alumbrados remind one of the Quietists of seventeenth-century France. Moreover, there was an atmosphere in Spain of caution about and protection against the Protestant movements in the rest of Europe. The Spanish Inquisition had a special role here in its attempt to ferret out any deviant forms of spirituality. Thus, it became important to give explicit guidance to what is acceptable and where one might be on a dangerous path. Moreover, Teresa wanted her daughters to have the guidance they needed to follow the tried and true ways of prayer and especially to have proper guidance when they traveled the path of infused, or as Teresa would say, perfect contemplation, where self-deception can occur and where Teresa wanted those she led to be on guard against the wiles of the devil. In one sense Teresa’s path through the Castle is simple and direct: growing in love of God and neighbor with the practice of the virtues especially humility. But Teresa knew well that human nature is susceptible to illusion, to pride, to self-centeredness.
IV. Carmelite Reform and Meeting John of the Cross
Early on in her Reform of the Carmelite Order Teresa knew that her daughters who arrived at her newly established monasteries were without formal educations, and they lacked theological training. That conviction sent Teresa in search of Carmelite friars with experience of and commitment to contemplative prayer as well as theological training. Where should she turn? Teresa was in Medina del Campo to establish a new monastery when she was told about a holy young Carmelite who had just been ordained a priest and was in Medina to celebrate Eucharist with his family. The young Carmelite was of course Fray Juan de Santo Matía, who would change his name to Juan de la Cruz, John of the Cross, when he joined Teresa’s reform. Teresa recognized the holiness and learning of this young Carmelite and dissuaded him from leaving the Carmelites to become a Carthusian monk. John told Teresa she could count on him if she move quickly to establish her reform among the Carmelite friars. John clearly had not yet taken full measure of La Madre, who was not one to dillydally as he would soon learn. Now Teresa had a friar and a half to begin her reform of the friars. The friar was Fray Antonio, and John of the Cross labeled by Teresa as the half because of his short stature. John’s spiritual stature would soon become well-known. Teresa reminds us as we make our way through the Castle what our destiny is—that is, to encounter the Triune God in what she calls Spiritual Marriage in his life if God so leads one to walk as far as one can and God permits into the depths of the Castle.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 14 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
It is high time that we get on with the pilgrimage through the Castle, a pilgrimage for which Christ invites us with his “Come, follow me.” And as an added grace, Teresa of Jesus offers to guide us a pilgrimage that she herself has made with determinación determinada, determined determination. Lead on, Madre.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 15 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Review Questions
1. Although castles do not dot the North American landscape, how helpful do you find Teresa’s castle imagery?
2. Although there are not Alumbrados circulating in our times, there are New Age cultures that tend to slight the spiritual and heighten the psychological. How can we adapt Teresa’s guidance for the temptation to mistake the psychological for the spiritual?
3. Teresa needed spiritual guidance for herself and for her daughters. How important is it to seek a guide with wisdom about and experience of a deeper life of prayer?
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 16 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Lecture 4. The First Dwelling Places: Self-Knowledge and Humility
Overview
elcome to this fourth lecture in the series: Exploring The Interior Castle: The Mystical Wisdom of St. Teresa of Avila. As we begin, we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us as ponder W Saint Teresa’s wisdom about growing in prayer and in love since love is the measure of prayer. In this lecture, we will look at the First Dwelling Places.
I. Teresa’s Care for Her Readers
I hope that you are able, as you listen to or view these lectures, to read in Teresa’s The Interior Castle the sections that we cover at the time. May your experience of reading Teresa’s masterpiece be similar to mine when I have read Teresa. During many years of reading Teresa, my experience has been that I feel her care for me, the reader, the kind of care that she had for those for whom she wrote this text, those she called her daughters. They knew Teresa as La Madre, The Mother. Teresa’s warm, outgoing, friendly personality, her generous and magnanimous spirit is evident on every page that she wrote. These qualities make Teresa a great storyteller, the storyteller of the life of prayer that grows “deep like a river” (Langston Hughes). I am grateful to have been guided over the years by such a wise, loving doctor of the church. My hope is that your experience will like mine. Teresa always had her feet firmly on the ground, and she wanted her daughters to do likewise. She is emphatic that the spiritual journey begin and always be made with self-knowledge, which she equates with humility. The word humility comes from the Latin humus which means the ground. T. S. Eliot claimed that “humankind/Cannot bear very much reality” (“Burnt Norton,” Four Quartets, I). With Teresa as our guide, I think that we have a good chance of bearing more and more reality and that, like Teresa, we will fall in love with the Reality who is God, the ultimate in goodness, truth, and beauty.
II. Teresa’s Positive Anthropology of the Soul
Teresa not only begins her First Dwelling Places with self-knowledge and humility, but these themes are constant themes throughout the Castle right up to and in the Seventh Dwelling Places. In the Sixth Dwelling Places Teresa wonders “…why our Lord is so fond of this virtue of humility…. It is because God is supreme Truth; and to be humble is to walk in Truth….” “Please God, Sisters, we will be granted the favor never to leave this path of self-knowledge, amen.” (IC 6.10.7) In her insistence on the importance of self-knowledge and humility, Teresa was following a wisdom tradition like that of Plato’s Socrates and an endless litany of Christian saints who, over the centuries, consistently affirmed the necessity of humility.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 17 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Teresa, wise adviser that she is, wants us to know that humility is knowledge not only of our weaknesses, faults, and sins but also of the gifts that we have received from God, gifts to be embraced like the beauty of the soul so sacred to God, our Creator. Teresa has a very positive anthropology, as we have already mentioned. She reminds us that the human soul possesses “sublime dignity” and is beautiful (IC 1.1.2). The soul, and for that matter the body, are made in the image and likeness of God. We have referred to Teresa’s imagery for the soul that reminds one of the goodness and beauty of the soul.
III. The Importance of Humility and Self-Knowledge
Teresa was thoroughly convinced of the necessity of humility in the spiritual life. She knew that a lack of humility is a constant obstacle to progress in the life of the spirit. Says Teresa: “While we are on this earth nothing is more important to us than humility” (IC 1.2.9). Our guide, Teresa, wants us to know how very necessary in these First Dwelling Places are this self-knowledge and this humility which are gained less by thinking about “our own misery” than by flying “…sometimes to ponder the grandeur and majesty of God” (IC 1.2.8). That grandeur stands in contrast to our meagerness. La Madre never lets one off the hook when it comes to the importance of self-knowledge and humility. Says Teresa: “While we are on this earth nothing is more important to us than humility. So I repeat that it is good, indeed very good, to try to enter first into the room where self-knowledge is dealt with rather than fly off to other rooms.” Teresa goes on: “In my opinion we shall never completely know ourselves if we don’t strive to know God. By gazing at His grandeur, we get in touch with our own lowliness…by pondering His humility, we shall see how far we are from being humble” (IC 1.2.9). Teresa also knew that for all one’s trying, a truly profound self-knowledge and humility are not possible until God has taken one into the in the Seventh Dwelling Places, where God completes the work of full union with God’s self. In the First Dwelling Places, one is still distracted by what Teresa calls “worldly” concerns. The entry into these first places of the Castle she says: is prayer and reflection (1.1.7). Teresa’s life and all that she wrote concerned prayer—prayer in search of the God who, she discovered, loved her lavishly. In The Book of Her Life (8.5). Teresa pauses and gives her readers a very succinct description of what she calls mental prayer. I have suggested elsewhere that we can call this prayer contemplative meditation (Egan, “Contemplative Meditation”). Here is Teresa’s description: “For mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us.”
IV. Teresa the Writer
If you are a first time reader of The Interior Castle, you will notice quickly that Teresa is not an orderly writer; she wrote as thoughts came to her. Indeed, Teresa was a reluctant writer but an avid reader. Editors have had to supply paragraphs and punctuation. Teresa’s sentences are often long,
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 18 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
and she digresses frequently. Moreover, her lovely sense of humor is easily missed if one is not reading her in Spanish. Teresa brings to a close the First Dwelling Places by an affirmation that “…true perfection consists in love of God and neighbor” (IC 1.2.17). Perfection is not our modern notion shaped by a popular psychology that perfection consists in doing everything to the highest degree possible, without any deviation from exactness. That is perfectionism, not perfection. Rather, perfection is precisely an ongoing growth in love of God and love of neighbor. Love of neighbor, Teresa insists, “…is so important that I would never want it to be forgotten.” She doesn’t want the devil to foster “the custom of gossiping.” Her last words for her daughters is that “[i]n this house, glory to God, there’s not much occasion for gossip since such continual silence is kept….” (IC 1.2.18). The Teresa who insists on self-knowledge and humility has a very practical bent; she always has an eye for the everyday practice of love. The ecstatic Teresa walks with us with her feet firmly on the ground. She had the courage to know and acknowledge her own weaknesses but also to accept her natural gifts and the gifts of grace that God had bestowed on this woman who was unafraid to know herself. Teresa is indeed writing for and to her daughters, but it is also clear that she knows that others in other states of life make this journey. In these First Dwelling places, she mentions that each one should adapt her recommendations according to one’s “state in life” (1.2.14). As we conclude this First Dwelling Places, my desire for you is that you and yours are much blessed.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 19 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Review Questions
1. How do we reconcile Teresa’s insistence on self-knowledge and humility with the modern preoccupation with the acquisition of a healthy self-image?
2. How can you foster within yourself a self-knowledge that acknowledges the gifts that you have received from God?
3. Can you fathom why Teresa is so insistent on self-knowledge and humility?
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 20 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Lecture 5. The Second Dwelling Places: Fidelity to Prayer of Recollection
Overview
elcome to these Second Dwelling Places of The Interior Castle. Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to be with us as we ponder Teresa’s wisdom about prayer. This second part of the journey W known as the Second Dwelling Places is for “…those who have already begun to practice prayer” (IC 2.1.2). In this lecture, we will explore how, for Teresa, prayer was an exercise in love. In this dwelling place, Teresa explores determined determination, avoiding distractions from prayer, the importance of the cross, and the Prayer of (Active) Recollection.
I. Recollection
Again Teresa tells us that “the door of entry to this castle is prayer” (IC 2.1.11). It is a journey into one’s inner life of the spirit. It is a process which Teresa calls “recollection.” We are warned by Teresa not “…to recollect yourselves by force but only by gentleness [con suavidad]” (IC 2.1.10). Teresa’s advice is gentleness, nothing violent. In the year before she died, Teresa wrote the following: “If God wants it, it will come about more gently…but it won’t come by force” (Letter 401), and earlier she wrote that one does not deal well with God by force…” (BL 15.6). From the time of her conversion at age 39, Teresa belonged solely to Jesus. Teresa brought to her relationship with Jesus and others a single- mindedness and steadfastness that is captured by her often repeated phrase determinación determinada, determined determination. In these Second Dwelling Places, Teresa is greatly concerned that we persevere in prayer. Says Teresa: “One always gains much through perseverance” (IC 2.1.3). Teresa confesses that she gave up interior prayer for about a year out of a false sense of humility. You will recall that Teresa describes this interior Teresa of Avila by François Gérard (1827) prayer/mental prayer this way: “For mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us” (BL 8.5). Every word of this description
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 21 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
was carefully chosen by Teresa. I find it a good idea to reflect often on the elements in this description. Teresa regretted her abandonment of this kind of prayer for the rest of her life. She reminds us of “…the evil of giving up prayer” (IC 2.1.10). The Second Dwelling Places remind us
how crucial it is to be faithful to prayer. Teresa is adamant about this importance.
II. Prayer: An Exercise in Love
Even if our prayers seem to be lukewarm, Teresa tells us that nonetheless “God esteems them highly” (IC 2.1.3). Teresa wants the soul to remember that “this true Lover never leaves it.” Here, as elsewhere, Teresa recommends that we realize that “prayer is an exercise in love” (BL 7.12). Prayer is not some abstract or theoretical expression of doctrine. God has loved us first (1 Jn 4:19) and called on us to return that love as well as to love our neighbor. We go to pray so that we may grow in love. We have in Teresa a guide who was deeply aware that our relationship with God is all about love: God’s love for us and our love for God and neighbor. “This Lord desires intensely that we love Him and seek His company” (IC 2.1.2).
III. Avoiding Distractions and Discouragements in Prayer
Teresa has a warning for those who have arrived at these Second Dwelling Places: do not get caught up in desires for consolations, for emotional satisfaction in prayer: “…souls shouldn’t be thinking about consolations at this beginning stage” (IC 2.1.7). Prayer, as we have heard from Teresa, is all about love, a love that directs us to seek and to do the will of God. Teresa remarks: “The whole aim of any person who is beginning prayer—and don’t forget this, because it is very important—should be that he work and prepare himself with determination to bring his will into conformity with God’s will” (IC 2.1.8). Teresa gives her mind on this conformity to God’s will emphatically: “We need to do God’s will always…” (Letter 304). And to the same recipient of that letter Teresa writes: “…when God wills a thing all becomes easy” (Letter 248.14). Teresa is concerned that those at this beginning stage not be discouraged by the difficulties that they may encounter in these Second Dwelling Places. Begin again, return generously to a life of virtue, and return to recollected prayer, that is, what Teresa calls mental prayer and elsewhere the Prayer of (Active) Recollection, about which her description is in her Way of Perfection (chapters 28, 29). The Institute of Carmelite Studies has a handy flyer describing this Prayer of Recollection. We had the word “Active” because there is for Teresa a Passive Prayer of Recollection, which we will get to in an upcoming lecture. We hear in these Second Dwelling Places about “poisonous little reptiles” (IC 2.1.8) that may afflict one in these early Dwelling Places. Teresa uses such colorful imagery to indicate a whole host of tendencies that slacken one’s fervor for prayer and virtue. In our day, we need to be able to take Teresa’s imagery and apply it to whatever impedes our progress in prayer and virtue. Teresa advises that we “[e]mbrace the cross your Spouse has carried” (IC 2.1.7). We live in what has been called “The Age of Anxiety,” in which we can fritter away in unwholesome fears the energy necessary to a commitment to daily prayer and a virtuous life. I use the word “energy” as a borrowing from Eastern Christianity, where energy is what in the West is
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 22 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
called grace. Teresa wants us to find a way to accept the peace that the Lord wants us to have peace: “Peace, peace, the Lord said…. Well, believe me, if we don’t obtain and have peace in our own house we’ll not find it outside” (IC 2.1.9). And here Teresa recommends that we remember to enter within ourselves as she learned from her reading of Saint Augustine’s Confessions (10.27.38): “Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there…. You were with me, and, I was not with you.” Teresa from her childhood was an avid reader. When the Confessions were translated into Spanish, Teresa wasted no time in reading this classic. She took to heart what Saint Augustine had to say about searching for God within. Teresa heard Augustine’s advice, internalized it, and lived it. This great Christian classic inspired Teresa to seek God within her, and she now teaches us to do the same with interior mental prayer, what I am calling contemplative meditation.
IV. The Journey to God
When one reaches these Second Dwelling Places, one is getting closer—yet still a distance from the center of the castle, where God is present in so special a way and where Teresa encountered the Triune God in the Seventh Dwelling Places. Teresa would be delighted were each one of us to receive the same gift. Teresa of Jesus desired that her daughters follow her by seeking within each one of them the God who loves each and every human person lavishly. A well-ordered life of virtue and the practice of the prayer of active recollection is what Teresa recommends at this time of the spiritual journey. May Teresa of Jesus with her generous and magnanimous heart intercede for each one of us that we have the courage to journey within to seek the God who loves us lavishly. Teresa says in these Second Dwelling Places, “…I ask those who have not begun to enter within themselves to do so….” (IC 2.1.9). She speaks again of the “evil of giving up prayer” (IC 2.1.10). Remember that the door of entry to this castle is prayer. For “…it is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves” (IC 2.1.11). And Teresa asks her daughters often: “What value can faith have without works….?” (2.1.11) If I were to summarize the Second Dwelling Places, I would say that Teresa emphasizes perseverance in prayer, being wary of the wiles of the devil, awareness of the importance of the cross, and the practice of the Prayer of (Active) Recollection. May you and yours be much blessed and be granted strong desires to grow in prayer and virtue, the kind of desires that God gave to Teresa of Jesus.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 23 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Review Questions
1. How difficult is it for the modern person to be faithful to interior/mental prayer?
2. Has Teresa convinced you that prayer is all about love?
3. Has Teresa helped you know how to find the peace that comes from fidelity to prayer?
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 24 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Lecture 6. The Third Dwelling Places: A Life Ordered by Love
Overview
et us ask the Holy Spirit to guide us as we ponder Saint Teresa’s wisdom about prayer. These Third Dwelling Places concern Teresa’s view of the ordinary, well-ordered life where one L practices what she calls mental prayer or the prayer of active recollection and where one live leads a virtuous life. Teresa wants her daughters to lead lives that “are so well ordered” (3.1.7).
I. Teresa: Aware of Her Weaknesses
Teresa shares with us in the Third Dwelling Places examples of her own humility. She speaks of a life “…as badly spent as mine…,” and of “…this miserable and bold creature…,” that she “….can boast only of His [God’s] mercy,” or “of my misery,” (IC 3.1.3) and of her “wretched” soul” (IC 3.2.11). Teresa uses the Spanish adjective ruin, wretched often and sometimes the noun mi ruindad, my wretchedness. What are we to make of what may seem at first flush like a poor self-image? Some readers of Teresa have been disconcerted about the way she, in our parlance, seems to put herself down. Perhaps, as some suggest this is Teresa taking a self-deprecating stance as a strategy of winning over her possible critics or of warding off accusations that she, a woman, is boldly setting herself up as a teacher of the spiritual life. I am more inclined to take Teresa at her word. When one loves God as much as Teresa loves God, then one becomes fully aware of one’s failings and weaknesses and of the truly vast difference between of God’s goodness and human goodness as good as Teresa was. Teresa’s putdowns are, I think, a dose of reality.
II. Humility Once More
Mention of Teresa’s self-deprecating language brings to mind the recurring theme of humility especially prominent in the First Dwelling Places. But, Teresa will continue to state her convictions about the necessity of self-knowledge and humility throughout The Interior Castle, with some very strong emphasis on humility in the Third Dwelling Places. Commenting on those who complain about dryness in prayer, Teresa writes: “Oh, humility, humility!” (IC 3.1.7). She adds: “Be convinced where humility is truly present God will give peace and conformity… (God’s will)” (IC 3.1.9), and Teresa remarks that “[h]umility is the ointment for our wounds because if we indeed have humility, the surgeon, who is our Lord, will come to heal us” (IC 3.2.6). Then there is the sobering statement: “With humility present, this stage is a most excellent one. If humility is lacking, we will remain here our whole life….” (IC 3.2.9). There is no denying that, for Teresa, humility is a major theme in the spiritual life, a humility that must grow ever more deeply, a humility that, once again is not only an admission of our sins, faults,
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 25 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
and weaknesses but also a recognition of the gifts that God has given to every one of us. Teresa reassures us that “[i]f souls are humble they will be moved to give thanks” (IC 3.2.10). The attainment of humility is no easy matter. Charles Dickens in his novel David Copperfield created the epitome of false humility with his creation of the character Uriah Heep and his famous words “your ‘umble servant.” In any case, we need to keep striving for the courage to be truly humble and to remember that humility will not be fully present until the love of God transforms one into an authentically human person here in the Seventh Dwelling Places or in the liberation that comes through death and an entry into eternity.
III. Detachment/Freedom
Teresa offers her readers a segue from humility to detachment. In The Way of Perfection (10.30), she writes: “…true humility can enter the picture because this virtue and the virtue of detachment it seems to me always go together.” In the same work she is convinced that God will give the gift of contemplation “(…if detachment and humility are truly present)….” (17.7). In these Third Dwelling Places (3.1.8), we hear from Teresa: “There is no doubt that if a person perseveres in this nakedness and detachment from all worldly things he will reach his goal.” Detachment in the spiritual tradition is a much misunderstood concept. Detachment is not a negative assessment of creation. Rather, detachment is freedom from disordered attachments to persons or things; in fact, detachment is a process of liberation from whatever hinders our love of God and love of neighbor. That is what asceticism is all about—the acquisition of the kind of freedom that makes it possible to relate to God and others with authentic love. Thus Teresa wants us to be free of any of our disordered emotions that hold us prisoner; she calls these emotions passions, which are neutral but which can be well used or abused. The same goes for the practice of penances. Teresa says that those who have come to the Third Dwelling Places will practice the penance that is “well balanced like their lives” (IC 3.2.7).
IV. Universal Call to Holiness
The Carmelite mystic from Avila would have been delighted with the bishops of the Second Vatican Council when, in their Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, they asserted that “…all in the church…are called to holiness…” (n. 39 citing I Thessalonians 4.3: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification….”). Teresa paused in the Third Dwelling Places to be sure that her readers knew that besides her daughters she also had in mind laity who were serious about growing in prayer and so in love of God. Teresa is well-known for her digressions, one of which went on for eleven chapters in the Book of Her Life. In these Third Dwelling Places, she fesses up to a digression: “I don’t remember what I as talking about, for I have digressed a great deal…I feel helpless, as a bird with broken wings, when it comes to saying anything good.” She comments that “the Lord has done them [those whom God has brought in to the Third Dwellings Places] no small favor, but a very great one, in letting them get through the first difficulties. I believe,” she says” that through the goodness of God there are many of these souls in the world.”
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 26 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Teresa then describes what these souls in the world are like: “[t]hey long not to offend His Majesty,” they are careful to guard against venial sins, they are fond of acts of penance, they practice times of recollection, they are judicious about how they spend time, they do acts of charity for their neighbors, and they are balanced in their use of speech and in the way they run their homes. Then Teresa caps off this description of the laity in the Third Dwelling Places with an extraordinary statement: “…in my opinion, there is no reason entrance even into the final dwelling place (sic) should be denied these souls, nor will the Lord deny them this entrance if they desire it….” (IC 3.1.5). Teresa thinks that not only her nuns and friars can lead a life that leads to a life enriched with contemplation as occurs in the Fourth Dwelling Places onwards to the Seventh Dwelling Places. Teresa pauses here to be sure that the laity know that union with God through love (spiritual marriage) is not beyond God’s gift for them who truly surrender to God’s love. Teresa experienced the journey through the Castle all the way to the Seventh Dwelling Places, and she became aware of others whom God had given the gift of spiritual marriage. She knows of what she speaks. Keep in mind too that Teresa guided her father and her brother in the ways of contemplative prayer (Her Father: see Peers, Handbook, p. 138; Lorenzo: Teresa, Letters, I, 618-620).
V. Well-Lived, Well-Ordered Life
In these first three dwelling places Teresa seems, as Father Kieran Kavanaugh has said, to be in a hurry to pass on from what Christians serious about prayer can do with ordinary grace to what only God can do as she describes the spiritual journey in the Fourth through the Seventh Dwelling Places (Collected Works of Teresa, II, 271). Teresa describes the prayer of the last four Dwelling Places as sobrenatural, supernatural, and the prayer of known as infused or mystical prayer. Yet, Teresa has from her own experience and that of others described these first three dwelling places as a portrait of the Christian as a mature, prayerful, loving, and quite committed Christian. Yet, they “need someone who is “free of the world’s illusions” (Ibid.) for guidance, and they need to be on guard not to be lured into a life where affluence and prestige, or over concern with health may tempt them to give up on their commitment to prayer and virtue. Teresa cautions that those in the Third Dwelling Places are still “close to the first dwelling places [and] they could easily return to them” (IC 3.2.12). Teresa also advises that Stained glass window of St. Teresa. those in the Third Dwelling Places not meddle in the Photo by Père Igor. spiritual lives of others. These are Christians who are ready, if they persevere in their commitments, to accept what God asks of them if they live and pray as Teresa has described for them.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 27 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Teresa concludes these Third Dwelling Places, by saying, “… the Lord will take care of these souls. If we ourselves are not negligent in beseeching His Majesty to do so, we shall, with His favor, do much good. May He be blessed forever” (IC 3.2.13). Teresa has a solid sense of what a well- ordered, loving, prayerful life is like: the Third Dwelling Places.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 28 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Review Questions
1. In what way do you think love orders life?
2. Do Teresa’s comments about the laity living a life as described in the Third Dwelling Places seem realistic in our day?
3. Describe what you think is in our day a well-lived, balanced life.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 29 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Lecture 7. The Fourth Dwelling Places: A Very New World
Overview
e begin asking the Holy Spirit to be our guide as we ponder these Fourth Dwelling Places. Teresa begins the Fourth Dwelling Places with the claim that she now has a special need of W the guidance of the Holy Spirit because “supernatural experiences begin here” (IC 4.1.1). For Teresa, supernatural, as we have already said, means infused, mystical—that is, it is a journey of transformation through the love that one receives from the presence of a loving God. This is a very New World, where human effort in prayer must give way to God’s work in the soul. The stance of the human person becomes more and more as a receiver of God’s love.
I. The New World
The title of this lecture, “A Very New World,” reminds one also that some of Teresa’s brothers were conquistadores in the New World discovered and conquered by Spain. But Teresa’s new world is an inner world, a significant stage on the journey deeper and deeper into the Castle, a stage closer to the King at the center the dwelling places. This is an amazing New World that Teresa wants her readers to better understand even though it is a world of mystery that taxes Teresa’s ability to find helpful metaphors. But she is intent on doing her best, and she does much better than she would have us believe. Teresa comes up with imagery that awakens one’s mind and heart to the world of God’s lavish love. Teresa writes that it was about fourteen years ago that she discussed such mystical matters in The Book of Her Life. Now she is in a better position to explain her meaning: “…I think I have a little more light about these favors the Lord grants to some souls….” Teresa uses the Spanish word merced (gift), where the English reads favor. Teresa will continue to be amazed as she describes the journey to intimacy with God. Teresa’s capacity to be amazed reminds me of Rabbi Abraham Heschel’s conviction that “[t]o be spiritual is to be amazed.” About these Fourth Dwelling Places, Teresa says, “Since these dwelling places are closer to where the King is, their beauty is great.” Teresa says that experience of these infused gifts will help one’s understanding, especially if there is extensive experience. One usually, says Teresa, will have spent “a long while” in the previous Dwelling Places, but there is no certain rule (4.1.2). All is in God’s hands and every person is unique.
II. A Cart before the Horse
Teresa is not beyond contributing some confusion on her own. For Teresa the usual stages in the mystical journey in her various texts are (Passive) Recollection, the Prayer of Quiet, the Prayer of Union, Spiritual Betrothal, and finally Spiritual Marriage. But, when she begins the Fourth Dwelling Places, Teresa rushes into an exposition of the Prayer of Quiet, before she speaks of the
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 30 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Prayer of (Passive) Recollection, “which I should have mentioned first…. The prayer of recollection is much less intense than the prayer of spiritual delight….” (IC 4.3.8). But, Teresa is not going to rewrite her text. Earlier she had already said that “…business matters and poor health have forced me to set this work aside just when I was at my best…I can’t go back and read it over” (IC 4.2.1). If Teresa were more precise, she would also have differentiated the Prayer of Active Recollection and the Prayer of Passive Recollection. She describes Active Recollection in Chapters 28 and 29 of The Way of Perfection. We, not Teresa, call this prayer active because it is performed with human effort and ordinary grace. Passive Recollection, Teresa says, is sobrenatural, infused, mystical. It is, however, as Teresa says, less intense than the Prayer of Quiet, since in Passive Recollection are the beginning moments in the mystical journey. We need to resist a temptation to view the stages of prayer as if they like a spiritual thermometer. Rather than some measurement of growth, Teresa is trying to help one understand the mystery of God’s loving action and how to walk in that world of gracious mystery. Teresa writes so that others may profit from her experience.
III. Consolations and Spiritual Delights
Teresa wants her readers to know something of what occurs in prayer through one’s own effort with God’s ordinary grace. For this kind of prayer, Teresa uses the Spanish word contentos, which is translated as consolations, the kind of happiness that one has from the enjoyment of the ordinary good things of life. Teresa uses contentos as a way of understanding the consolations in non-mystical prayer. Then there is what only God can do in prayer, what Teresa says is supernatural or infused. Teresa uses the Spanish word gustos, from the Latin meaning to taste, and which is translated as spiritual delights. Consolations (contentos) begin in the human person and end in God; Spiritual delights (gustos) begin with God and end in the human person. Such is the way Teresa describes these two images. (See helpful discussion of contentos and gustos in R. Williams, Teresa of Avila, pp. 120 ff. –in Bibliography below.) Teresa the writer frequently breaks into prayer. Anxious to be as clear as possible, she prays: “O Jesus, how I long to know how to explain this!” (IC 4.1.4). She desperately wants her readers to be well prepared when they navigate the waters where one is becoming ever more conscious of the loving presence of His Majesty. In a Spain where the King was such a Vision of the Dove, Teresa of Avila by Peter dominant figure, it is not unexpected that Teresa refers Paul Rubens (ca. 1614) to God as His Majesty.
In the prayer of consolations, one engages in discursive thinking or what is called meditation. These meditators are advised to make “acts of love, praising God, rejoicing in his goodness…in desiring
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 31 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
His honor and glory.” And when God gives these acts not “to abandon them” “for the sake of finishing the usual meditation.” (4.1.6) Teresa very much wants her readers to know that “…the important thing is not to think much but to love much” (IC 4.1.7). In the Book of Her Foundations, a much neglected work, Teresa says that “…that not all imaginations are…capable of this meditating, but all souls are capable of loving,” and that “…the soul’s progress does not lie in thinking much but in loving much.” (F 5.2) There is no mistaking Teresa when it comes to her conviction that “[p]rayer is an exercise in love,” [BL 7.12] ultimately the love that God grants in the mystical stages that occur in Dwelling Places four
to seven. Teresa is concerned that her reader knows what love is: “…it doesn’t consist in great delight but in “…desiring with strong determination to please God in everything, in striving, insofar as possible, not to offend Him, and in asking Him for the advancement of the Honor and Glory of His Son and the increase of the Catholic Church. These are the signs of love” (IC 4.1.7). And remember that Teresa says the sign of love of God is love of neighbor (IC 5. 3.8).
IV. Teresa’s Dilemma
Teresa ran into a problem that took time to solve. When she was deep in prayer, her imagination could run wild. In The Way of Perfection (19.2), Teresa wrote: “There are some souls and minds so scattered they are like wild horses no one can stop.” Guess who Teresa was talking? A letrado (a learned man) taught Teresa the difference between intellect and mind. For Teresa, mind is what we would call the imagination (Spanish: pensamiento). What is so important for Teresa was the discovery that the mind/imagination could run wild during deep prayer: “…the soul is perhaps completely joined to Him in the dwelling places very close to the center while the mind [the imagination] is on the outskirts of the castle.” And, “All this turmoil in my head doesn’t hinder prayer…but the soul is completely taken up in its quiet, love, desires and clear knowledge” (IC 4.1.9). Teresa is dealing with the issue of distractions, the lot of everyone who prays. I suggest that you may wish to consult a book by my dear friend and colleague, now deceased, Sister Vilma Seelaus: Distractions in Prayer: Blessing or Curse? St. Teresa of Avila’s Teachings in The Interior Castle (Staten Island, NY: Society of St. Paul, 2005). Distractions ought not surprise us, but Teresa assured her daughters that “[t]he Lord wants to prepare us for tranquility.” (IC 4.1.12) Teresa says that the Prayer of Passive Recollection is usually the first infused prayer that one experiences. The Prayer of Quiet is a deeper experience of contemplation but not yet what Teresa calls the prayer of union, which begins in the Fifth and endures in rest of the Dwelling Places. The descriptions of these initial gifted prayers of Passive Recollection and the Prayer of Quiet can be complex when tossed about in a lecture like this. Let Teresa’s efforts here at giving us a sense of mystical prayer stir you to try to gain some notion of what God gives in mystical/infused prayer. Teresa is helpful on this score in the Book of her Life, 10.1. Until we meet for the text of lecture 8, may you be much blessed and may you find inspiration in Teresa’s last four Dwelling Places.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 32 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Review Questions
1. Does Teresa help you gain some sense of what God’s gift of infused/mystical prayer is?
2. Do you find Teresa’s use of the imagery of contentos and gustos helpful?
3. Since Teresa, like us, endured distractions in prayer, does her discovery that, even in very deep mystical prayer there can be distractions, reassure you as you face your own inevitable distractions?
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 33 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Lecture 8. The Fifth Dwelling Places: The Paschal Mystery
Overview
ome Holy Spirit, be with us as we explore the Fifth Dwelling Places of Teresa’s Interior Castle. In this topic, we will talk about Teresa’s concept of the Prayer of Union with God, the Carmelite C call to contemplation, and Teresa’s powerful image of the silkworm. St. Teresa had a powerful vision of the love of God.
I. Prayer of Union
Union with another through love is a common theme in human relationships and has long been an important element in Christian mysticism. Theologians speak of a natural union of God with creatures that keeps these creatures in existence. Mystical authors speak of a special union of God with the human person that is part of the mystical journey. Teresa devotes the Fifth Dwelling Places to a consideration of what she calls the Prayer of Union with God. She begins with an admission that one can’t understand nor explain the “riches and treasures and delights” of these Fifth Dwelling Places. But, then Teresa proceeds to ask the Lord to send her light so that she can help her sisters understand these places because “some of them ordinarily enjoy these delights.” La Madre doesn’t want her daughters to be deceived by themselves or by the devil. Only a few of Teresa’s daughters fail to enter the Fifth Dwelling Places, Teresa submits. She says that there are various degrees of union with God, but she believes “…that only a few will experience some of the things that I say are in this room.” Teresa also mentions that in the Prayer of Union there are various degrees of intensity (5.2.1). Is not the contemplative journey a growing intensification of the human consciousness of God’s loving presence? This is an important comment on the nature of mystical encounter. We need to be careful about the use of the word experience because in our time the word experience often implies for us only the realm of the emotions or psychological awareness. We need to be open to the world of the spirit and to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
II. The Call to Contemplation
Teresa recalls that Carmelites have a call to contemplation. Here is Teresa’s clarion announcement of this call: “So I say now that all of us who wear this habit of Carmel are called to prayer and contemplation. This call explains our origin; we are the descendants of men who felt this call, of those holy fathers on Mount Carmel who in such great solitude and contempt for the world sought this treasure, this precious pearl of contemplation that we are speaking about. Yet few of us dispose ourselves that the Lord may communicate it to us.”
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 34 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Teresa urges her sisters to the acquisition of the necessary virtue that must accompany growth in prayer, and she reminds her daughters that the treasure “lies within our very selves” (IC 5.1.2). Teresa will say more about disposing oneself for the contemplation that is union with God.
III. Union: Not Some Kind of Dreamy State
The word “union” can sound abstract and even philosophical. That is not the way Teresa uses the term. For her, union with God is a union in Christ and Christ in us. She says that this union is not some kind of “dreamy state.” But, Teresa acknowledges that the faculties of intellect, memory, and will are inactive as are the sense faculties during this event of union. In Teresa’s language, the faculties are asleep. So there is no need for technique in this prayer, only awareness of the loving presence of Christ. The devil is kept at bay because “…if prayer is truly of union with God the devil cannot even enter or do any damage.” “His Majesty is so joined and united with the essence of the soul that the devil will not dare approach.” Here and throughout the rest of The Interior Castle all is gift: “What will He not give, who is so fond of giving….” (IC 5.1.5). Moreover, “This union is above all earthly joys, above all delights, above all consolations” (IC 5.1.6). Teresa wants her daughters to know that there is a great difference between what is experienced here and what is experienced in the Fourth Dwelling Places. Therefore, Teresa wants to offer a clear sign that this “union is from God.” Teresa pauses here to be sure that we know why she keeps saying, “it seems to me.” She is offering a nod to the theologians because they have “a certain ‘I don’t know what’” (un no sé qué), so she bows to The Vision of Saint Teresa by Bartolomeo their learning. (IC 5.1.7) La Madre admits that she Guidobono (late 17th century) has “a great deal of experience with learned men…and half learned, fearful ones who have “cost me dearly.” But Teresa’s respect for learning and the learned is very real. She wants access to the wisdom of the truly learned. Sometimes her experience manifests itself in a way that she wants us to know it is her experience so she says —“it seems to me.” For her daughters she urges that they
serve and praise God with “humility and simplicity” (5.1.8).
IV. Back to the Sign
This union is “always short” and seems “much shorter than it probably is.” One can detect the firmness in Teresa’s voice that when the person returns to herself, she can “…in no way doubt that it was in God and God was in it.” Teresa is speaking of a conviction of the divine presence. This event is something that she will never forget. Only God can give that certainty.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 35 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Teresa had consulted a half-learned man about this presence of God who wasn’t helpful, but then she learned the truth about the ways God is present in the soul. (IC 5.1.10) The Lord, in fact, enters “into the center of our soul.”
V. Teresa’s Silkworm
Teresa takes delight in sharing with her readers her extended metaphor of the birthing and dying of the silkworm that becomes a butterfly—a metaphor for the Paschal Mystery. Here is Teresa’s version of this transformation: “The silkworm, which is fat and ugly, then dies, and a little white butterfly, which is very pretty, comes forth from the cocoon.…” After describing the dying of the silkworm and the rising of the butterfly, Teresa tells her daughters that this process makes for a good meditation when “…you can consider the wonders and the wisdom of our God.” She then asks: “…what would happen if we knew the property of every created thing.” [5.2.2] Teresa caught the importance of the various ways that God is present in creation. The silkworm “begins to spin the silk and build the house wherein it will die.” For those in these Fifth Dwelling Places, this “house is Christ.” “…I have read or heard that our life is hidden in Christ or in God (both are the same), or that our life is Christ.” This is a reference to Colossians 3:3-4: “…for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Teresa adds that His Majesty “…becomes the dwelling place we build for ourselves.” God does what needs to be done in this process (IC 5.2.4). Teresa continues: “…courage, my daughters! Let’s be quick to do this work and weave this little cocoon by getting rid of self-love and self-will, our attachments…, and by performing deeds of penance, prayer, mortification, obedience, and of all the other things you know.” “Let it die; let this silkworm die….” “And you will see how we see God, as well as ourselves placed inside his greatness….” Teresa talks here of a seeing God in the sense in which the union with God in the Fifth Dwelling Places is a kind of seeing God (IC 5.2.6).
VI. Teresa’s Test: How Do I Know If I Love God?
Teresa was a highly insightful “reader” of the scriptures. She grasped the centrality of Jesus’ key message: “…you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” “There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mk 12: 29-31). La Madre shows that she fully realized that these “first” and “second” commandments are of central importance to those who have received the gift of union with Christ. There is a decided emphasis in Teresa’s comments on love of neighbor as the test of love of God: “The most certain sign, in my opinion, as to whether or not we are observing these two laws is whether we observe well the love of neighbor. We cannot know whether or not we love God, although there are strong indications for recognizing that we do love Him; but we can know whether we love our neighbor. And be certain that the more advanced you see you are in love for your neighbor the more advanced you will be in love of God” (IC 5.3.8). Once again Teresa is no Quietist: growing love of God includes growth in virtue especially love of neighbor. Teresa wants
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 36 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
to make sure that her daughters have heard her on love of neighbor “…if we fail in love of neighbor we are lost” (IC 5.3.12). As always, Teresa has her feet firmly on the ground: “…if we practice love of neighbor with great perfection, we will have done everything.” But, with a solid sense of the necessity of grace, Teresa reminds us that love of God is the “root” of the love of neighbor. While still discussing the Fifth Dwelling Places, Teresa begins to make comments about the Spousal Love that becomes Spiritual Betrothal, but this subject belongs to the Sixth Dwelling Places, where we shall go next as we make our way on the journey to the very center of The Interior Castle, in the Seventh Dwelling Places. There Christ as well as the Triune God manifest themselves in Spiritual Marriage. Be much blest until we gather again, this time for the Sixth Dwelling Places.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 37 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Review Questions
1. What is Teresa’s intent in warning her readers that contemplation is not some “dreamy state”?
2. How important is Teresa’s firm statement that love of neighbor is the sign of one’s love of God?
3. How helpful is Teresa’s extended metaphor of the silkworm?
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 38 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Lecture 9. The Sixth Dwelling Places, Part I: The Language of Love
Overview
lease join me in calling on the Holy Spirit to guide us as we explore Teresa’s use of bridal Mysticism in these Dwelling Places where she explores the theme of spiritual betrothal. The Sixth P Dwelling Places are by far the longest section of The Interior Castle, some eleven chapters that amount to sixty-seven printed pages. In a second lecture on these Sixth Dwelling Places, I shall address some issues that arise as one reads what Teresa has to say in these Sixth Dwelling Places. This lecture, however, deals with a significant issue in the study of mysticism, that is, a problem of the use of language to describe divine mystery. How can one describe what is indescribable, or as some say the ineffable? There are no words adequate to describe the world of divine mystery or even the mystery of the human person. Ordinary, everyday prose language fails to communicate the mystery of who God is or what the action of God is in divine encounters with humans. Throughout the centuries, biblical authors, theologians, and spiritual writers had to resort to images, symbols, and various other figures of speech to speak of mystical encounters.
I. Bridal Mysticism
The Christian spiritual tradition, with authors like Origen, Gregory the Great, Bernard of Clairvaux, and many others have used the language and symbols of the Song of Songs to talk about Christ’s love for the church and his love for individual Christians. However, in the medieval Carmelite tradition, this bridal mysticism was not prominent. Besides scripture, the principal literary influence on the medieval Carmelite tradition was John Cassian, a contemporary of Saint Augustine who became a favorite resource for religious communities throughout the Middle Ages. In fact, to understand religious consciousness during the patristic and Middle Ages, one must pay attention to the writings of John Cassian, especially his Conferences.
II. Meditations on the Song of Songs
My claim is that Teresa of Jesus initiated the presence of bridal mysticism in the Carmelite tradition. Teresa daringly composed what is now called her Meditations on the Song of Songs sometime between 1571 and 1575. She composed The Interior Castle in 1577. One of Teresa’s confessors, the Dominican Diego de Yanguas, found nothing amiss in Teresa’s short treatise, which is a commentary on only the first few verses of the Song of Songs. Yanguas told Teresa to burn the manuscript because it was unseemly for a woman to write a commentary on a book of the Bible. Teresa complied with her confessor’s instructions, but the horse was already out of the barn. Copies
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 39 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
of these Meditations on the Song of Songs were, thank God, already circulating before Teresa burnt her manuscript. This brief work on the Song of Songs should be better known than it is because one finds there important aspects of Teresa’s teaching especially on contemplation. In the prologue to the Meditations, Teresa wrote this: “For a number of years now the Lord has given me great delight each time I hear or read some words from Solomon’s Song of Songs” (MS, Prologue, 1). Then as she was concluding this work, Teresa wrote: “When I began, my intention was simply to explain how you can find comfort when you hear some words from the Song of Songs, and how even though they are obscure to your understanding, you can reflect upon the profound mysteries contained in them. It would be bold of me to go on at any length” (MS 7.9). Teresa found inspiration in these ancient love songs and she thought that her daughters would greatly benefit from them. However, Teresa knew that she was dealing with sensitive scriptural matters in light of the St. Teresa of Avila interceding for souls in Purgatory decision at her time that when the church was from the Workshop of Peter Paul Rubens (1630-33) concerned about preserving authentic biblical texts. In the Fifth Dwelling Places (4.3), she writes: “You have already heard that God espouses souls spiritually. Blessed be His mercy that wants so much to be humbled! And even though the
comparison may be coarse, one cannot find another that would better explain what I mean than the sacrament of marriage. … For it is all a matter of love united with love, and the actions of love, but the actions of love are most pure and so extremely delicate and gentle that there is no way of explaining them, but the Lord knows how to make them very clearly felt” (IC 5.4.3). Perhaps the very popular Sermons on the Song of Songs composed by Bernard of Clairvaux plus her own experience with these Songs prompted Teresa to turn to the Songs as a way of expressing the inexpressible love that God poured into her heart. Teresa’s use of bridal mysticism made it a key element in Carmelite mysticism from Teresa’s time forward. I credit Teresa with the introducing of the Songs tradition to Carmel and Teresa’s collaborator John of the Cross as the one who refined the use of the Songs in his poetry and commentaries. Catholic spirituality followed Teresa and John in finding that the Song of Songs (and its tradition) is the best way to pass along intimations of the great mystery of God’s love for humans and the power of that divine love to elicit
a return of this love by those who have discovered God’s lavish love.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 40 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
III. The Song of Songs in Christianity
I bring up this issue of the appropriateness of the Song of Songs because Christian communities, by and large, have neglected this treasure. How often have you heard homilies on the Song of Songs? When I question students about whether they know anything about the Song of Songs, only a few of them have read this book of the Bible, and then usually because it was a class assignment. Moreover, there are serious contemporary authors who have questioned the viability of the Songs in this sex-soaked era. I have addressed this issue in writing. See the bibliography below for my essays. The issue is important so I shall make a few comments here. Admittedly there has been some progress made in appropriating the Song of Songs into Christian culture. No one has done more in this regard than my beloved professor of Old Testament, the Carmelite Father Roland Murphy. Yet, there are pressing reasons for a correction of the neglect of Bridal Mysticism. First of all, authors like Bernard of Clairvaux, Teresa, and John of the Cross have found no better way to express the ineffable love that God has for humanity than through this tradition. Indeed, Thomas Aquinas and some other traditions rely on the analogy of friendship to describe God’s love. Interestingly, Teresa of Jesus and John of the Cross, while they use bridal mysticism extensively, also make use of the friendship model. So it is not an issue of either/or, but once again of both/and.
IV. Eros and Agape
In the 1930’s, Anders Nygren, a Swedish theologian who later became a Lutheran bishop, published two volumes on Eros and Agape, which had a far-reaching impact on the Christian understanding of both éros and agape. Nygren’s books led to an undervaluing of éros and for the Christian an exclusive understanding of agape. Without ever mentioning Nygren, Pope Benedict XVI in his first encyclical, God is Love, speaks of agape as descending love and éros as ascending love and makes a plea for the integration of these two aspects of love, arguing that these two loves “can never be completely separated” (n. 7). An important patristic author, Pseudo-Dionysius (ca. 500 AD), refers to God as both Agápe and as Éros, as love and as desire (The Divine Names 12).
V. God’s Lavish Love
I have addressed this issue here because I am convinced that we would lose a crucial tradition if we lose contact with bridal mysticism. Apropos of Teresa of Jesus, her wisdom will be truncated if we do not allow her to draw us into her powerful world of desire for God that is depleted if the erotic element is ignored. Recall Richard Crashaw’s Poem “The Flaming Heart,” a tribute to Saint Teresa where he describes her as “thou undanted (sic) daughter of desires.” Teresa has a very deep appreciation of the dynamic nature of divine and human love. We do not want to lose the power, beauty, and dynamism of the love that Teresa discovered in God’s lavish love. So it is Teresa’s appreciation of bridal mysticism that culminates in the last two dwelling places. The Sixth Dwelling Places mines the sixteenth-century Spanish customs of betrothal as a way of telling the story of the journey that brings one ever closer to the center of the soul, where God the
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 41 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Great Lover is uniquely manifested. Finally, in the Seventh Dwelling Places, Teresa is exuberant about that it means to be gifted with spiritual marriage. For now, be much blessed as you let Teresa’s wisdom about the journey to loving intimacy with God pierce your heart.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 42 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Review Questions
1. How important do you think it is to develop a biblical imagination? Do the Song of Songs speak to your religious sensibilities even though we live in a sex-soaked culture?
2. Do you find that Teresa’s use of bridal mysticism helps you to gain some sense of the great mystery of God’s love for us?
3. Teresa also uses the imagery of friendship to explore our relationship with God. Is her use of friendship imagery helpful to you?
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 43 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Lecture 10. The Sixth Dwelling Places, Part II: The Intensification of Desire and Love
Overview
et’s begin by calling upon the Holy Spirit as we do at the epiclesis of the Eucharistic Prayer, that, as we ponder Teresa’s wisdom we may be in the presence of Jesus who comes to us through the L action of the Holy Spirit. In the last lecture, I mentioned how lengthy the Sixth Dwelling Places are, so lengthy that I decided that it would be helpful were I to divide these dwelling places into two lectures. But, even then I shall have to omit much from these very wisdom filled pages. So I must choose, and by choosing I shall have to omit much. And I have a confession to make. The last time that I taught a course on Teresa of Avila I permitted the students to omit the Sixth Dwelling Places. If I teach that course again, I shall find a way to cover these Sixth Dwelling Places. What follows are a few topics that arise in these dwelling places.
I. The Humanity of Christ
In these Sixth Dwelling Places, Teresa returns to a theme that she wrote about previously but about which she feels strongly—that is, that one should not bypass the humanity of Christ through an attempt to move on to the divinity of Christ. I recommend that besides these Sixth Dwelling Places that one read Chapter twenty-two of Teresa’s Book of Her Life. There and here in the Sixth Dwelling Places, Chapter Seven, paragraphs 9–13, Teresa of Jesus argues for prayer that is an encounter with the humanity of Christ. She would have had support in this from her Jesuit advisors who would have been formed by the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. Teresa was an inveterate reader, hungry for wisdom about the spiritual life and prayer. We learn from chapter 22 of The Book of Her Life that she had read about advice that, for the spiritually advanced, they set aside the consideration of the humanity of Christ and focus only on the Christ’s divinity. Teresa for a time tried to follow this advice; she even “thought the humanity was an impediment. O Lord of my soul and my good, Jesus Christ Crucified! At no time do I recall this opinion without feeling pain; it seems to me I became a dreadful traitor—although in ignorance.” (BL 22.3) Teresa became fully aware of her mistaken notion about the humanity of Christ. Prayer that neglects the humanity of Christ slights the Incarnation, for Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (Jn 14.6). Teresa came to realize that the Lord can draw one to the Lord’s self in various ways. Says Teresa, “God leads souls by many paths” (IC 6.7.12). However, clearly this neglect of Christ’s humanity was not for Teresa. She firmly believed that “…even if you are at the summit of contemplation,” do not neglect the mysteries of the life of Christ, for, she says, “….on this road you walk safely” (BL 22.7). Teresa mentions great contemplatives who were devoted to the humanity of Christ: Francis of Assisi, Anthony of Padua, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Catherine of Siena (BL 22.7).
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 44 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
She thinks that there is a lack of humility in an approach that would neglect creation, corporeal things, or the Incarnate God. Humility is a constant reminder to those who wish to grow in love through prayer: “…this whole groundwork of prayer is based on humility….” (BL 22.11). If Christ wishes to absent Himself, then well and good (BL22.10). Teresa warns against trying to lift oneself into some abstract form of prayer and once again warns against seeking consolations in prayer. Think of Christ’s life and death “…let the rest come when the Lord desires.” (IC 6.7.13) Indeed in deep infused prayer one becomes unable to practice discursive prayer or to think about these mysteries. But says Teresa: “Look with a simple gaze at who “Christ is.” (IC 6.7.11) Doing so says Teresa “…will not impede the most sublime prayer.” (IC 6.7.12) To try to practice discursive prayer when the signs are that the Lord is calling one to simple, loving presence is a hindrance to God’s desire to manifest God’s love within one. In all these delicate matters of when one should cease discursive prayer and simply be before the Lord in loving attention, one needs the advice of a seasoned, experienced and wise guide who can identify the signs for moving from discursive prayer to what Teresa and John of the Cross call passive prayer, that is, letting God and God’s love do the work that needs to be done. Saint John of the Cross has articulated clearly the signs for the cessation of meditation and the call to be before the Lord as the Lord wants one to be. Those signs appear in John of the Cross’ The Ascent of Mount Carmel (2.13–2.14; Dark Night 1.9.2-8; Sayings 119)
II. Mystical Phenomena
Mysticism frequently draws interest for the wrong reasons. There is a fascination that phenomena like visions and locutions sometimes accompany mystical encounters. That interest in these extraordinary phenomena is misplaced because these phenomena are not what Christian mysticism is about. Bear with me for a moment while I share with you a reliable description of mysticism by Bernard McGinn, retired professor from the University of Chicago, who is writing a history of Western Christian mysticism. So far Professor McGinn has published five volumes in this history with at least several more to come. For McGinn mysticism refers to “…those elements in Christian belief and practice that concern the preparation for, the consciousness of, and the effects attendant upon a heightened awareness of God’s immediate and transforming presence.” I want to say a few
words about the elements in this description of mysticism. Preparation for, consciousness of, and heightened awareness of God’s immediate presence and transforming presence. The key to authentic mysticism is the transformation of someone into the loving person that God created that person to be. That transformation presumes that one disposes oneself to receive God’s love, to be become receptive to and conscious of God’s loving presence and finally that one surrenders to God’s mercy and love. In early Christianity, the word mistikós was used to describe Christians who deeply encountered Christ in the scriptures and found there a mystical meaning. The word was also used for the encounter with Christ in baptism and Eucharist. Only later in the hands of a Syrian monk from about 500 AD did Christianity begin to put emphasis on the individual deep prayerful and transforming encounter with Christ in prayer.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 45 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
In our day there is a need to retrieve a biblical and sacramental foundation for everyday, ordinary sacramental mysticism, which is equivalent to Teresa’s Third Dwelling Places. God can then, if God sees fit, offer those who are ordinary, sacramental mystics an invitation to a deeper mystical life where transformative encounters occur.
III. Contemplation
In these Sixth Dwelling Places, Teresa is concerned that those among her daughters whom God has gifted with contemplation have advice about the differing phenomena that sometimes accompany deep mystical encounters. Teresa is offering advice out of her own experience. In our time that kind of advice would be helpful for someone whom God has gifted with profound transforming encounters with which are connected phenomena. Teresa and her collaborator John of the Cross want us to know is that these phenomena do NOT constitute holiness. Holiness consists in a deep, growing love of God and neighbor. See bibliography below for a reliable book on visions and other phenomena. In The Way of Perfection (17.2), Teresa offers her daughters sage advice about contemplation. To be a contemplative is all gift: “And it would be very distressing for the one who isn’t a contemplative if she didn’t understand the truth that to be a contemplative is a gift from God; and since being one isn’t necessary for salvation, nor does God demand this, she shouldn’t think anyone will demand it of her.” The heading to this chapter The Communion of Saint Teresa by Juan notes, “Not all souls are suited for Martin Cabezalero (ca. 1670) contemplation….” But I add that everyone one has developed her contemplative disposition to a greater or lesser degree extent that makes it possible to receive what God wants one to become. Teresa adds: “Be sure you do what lies in your power, preparing yourselves for contemplation with the perfection mentioned, and that if He doesn’t give it to you (and I believe He will give it if detachment and humility are truly present), He will save this gift for you so as to grant it to you all at once in heaven.” (WP 17.7) All of love and all of life are gift. The ordinary, sacramental mystical life is for all Christians, based in baptism and Eucharist is a gift that may dispose one so that God takes one deeper into contemplation. But God knows best what we can handle and what is best for us. But to seek consolations or the phenomena that may accompany mystical prayer is to take a perilous path. Seek only a loving union with God and an appreciation for the presence of Christ in scripture and in Eucharist, and you will be on a very safe and exciting path. Bless you who have persevered through these lectures. May you be filled with a personal, growing loving relationship with Jesus Christ.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 46 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Review Questions
1. How real to you is the human Christ in your prayer?
2. How can one free oneself from the fixation on the phenomena that sometimes accompany infused prayer?
3. How can one foster the conviction that the mystical life is all about growth of love of God and love of neighbor?
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 47 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Lecture 11. The Seventh Dwelling Places: Spiritual Marriage—Heaven on Earth
Overview
elcome to this lecture where we enter the final Dwelling Places, the Seventh Dwelling Places, where Spiritual Marriage occurs and where one encounters the King at the center, at the W deepest center of what Teresa says is spirit, that is, very deep within oneself. Says Teresa in Spanish en lo muy, muy interior, that is, in the very, very interior of the human person. This is a sacred place where, Teresa says, the King lives, there where God manifests God’s self in God’s fullest identity as Triune. In these Seventh Dwelling Places “the Most Blessed Trinity, all three Persons is, . . . revealed” (IC7.1.6). We need as always the guidance of the Holy Spirit to help us understand what God has accomplished in our sister Teresa. She wants us to know what God has done for her so that, if God does not do this for us in this life because were not ready, then through what growth in love and fidelity to our God we will receive this gift in eternity. God will bring us as gift the encounter with the Triune God following our passage from this life into life eternal. Saint Gregory of Nyssa speaks of God’s great gift of epektasis, not mere coming to rest in God but, in fact, growing in love for God forever.
I. Transforming Union in God through Love
In these Seventh Dwelling Places all things are gathered up in Christ (Eph 1:10). These Seventh Dwelling Places bring together whatever occurred in the previous places, e.g., humility surpasses the humility of the past, and love of God and neighbor are deeper than what love was in the previous stages of the journey. What happens here is what John of the Cross calls transforming union in God through love. But John reminds us that even in this high state of transformation, spiritual marriage, there are degrees of intensity, an ever-growing deeper love. Teresa knows that one cannot come even close to reckon what God is and God does. Teresa needs here, as she has said before, the grace of speech. In The Book of Her Life (17.5), she says “…it is one grace to receive the Lord’s favor; another to understand which favor and grace it is; and a third, to know how to describe and explain it.” What happens in the Seventh Dwelling Places is so far beyond what has transpired previously that Teresa is left almost speechless. But she is always willing to try to share with her readers what is essentially unsayable.
II. Spiritual Marriage
Spiritual marriage is all gift, a transforming gift through which one becomes what the Creator has intended one to be. What has the person done? Only “what it has already done in surrendering itself totally to God” (IC 7.3.10; see also 7.3.3). When I think of this loving surrender to God, and God’s transforming gift, I recall the words of T. S. Eliot in “East Coker” of the Four Quartets: “I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope/For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 48 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
love/For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith/But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting./Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:/So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.” Let me add: this is not idle waiting for as Teresa says: “love is never idle.” (IC 5.4.10) This loving surrender is done with a realization that one is surrendering to the God who loves one lavishly, whose love wants only what will bring us to full stature in Christ—all that we can be. Teresa received the gift of spiritual marriage on November 18, 1572, at the monastery of the Incarnation at the time John of the Cross was her confessor at the Incarnation. The Lord appeared to Teresa in an imaginative vision (recall what we said about visions in the Sixth Dwelling Places). Teresa describes this event: The Lord “… gave me his right hand and said: ‘Behold this nail; it is a sign you will be My bride from today on. Until now you have not merited this; from now on not only will you look after My honor as being the honor of your Creator, King and God, but you will look after it as My true bride. My honor is yours, and yours mine” (Spiritual Testimony 31). The Lord shared with Teresa what an effect of this spiritual marriage would be. “The Lord said: ‘You already know of the espousal between you and Me. Because of this espousal, whatever I have is yours. So I give you all the trials and sufferings I underwent, and by these means, as with something belonging to you, you can make requests of my Father.’ … It seemed to me the Father accepted the fact of this sharing; and since then I look very differently upon what the Lord suffered, as something belonging to me and it gives me great comfort” (Spiritual Testimony 46). Teresa thus became more consciously a partner with Christ in his sufferings. But all is peace here in these Seventh Dwelling Places. The Ecstasy of St. Teresa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1647-52)
Teresa is careful to affirm that this spiritual marriage is not a confirmation in grace: the soul “…has strong confidence that since God has granted this favor He will not allow it to lose the favor” (IC 7.1.8). Teresa goes on to say: “It seems I’m saying that when the soul reaches this state in which God grants it this favor, it is sure of its salvation and safe from falling again. I do not say such a thing….” (IC 7.2.9) and “From what these souls can understand they are free from mortal sin, although not immune.” (IC 7.4.3)
III. Teresa’s Daughters
Teresa anticipates objections from her daughters about what this journey means for them. They are not nursing the ill, feeding the poor, teaching the young, or preaching the Word of God. So what does it mean that “…unable to bring souls to God….” “Apart from the fact that by prayer you will
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 49 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
be helping greatly, you need not be desiring to benefit the whole world but must concentrate on those who are in your company, and thus your deed will be greater since you are more obliged toward them. Do you think such deep humility, your mortification, service of all and great charity toward them, and love of the Lord is of little benefit? This fire of love in you enkindles their souls, and with every other virtue you will be always awakening them. … By what you do in deed—that which you can—His Majesty will understand that you would do much more” (IC 7.4.14). Teresa continues to deal with what she thinks her daughters can be feeling as she concludes the Seventh Dwelling Places: “You will say that such service dos not convert souls because all the Sisters you deal with are already good. Who has appointed you judge in this matter? The better they are the more pleasing their praises will be to our Lord and the more their prayer will profit their neighbor.” Teresa, if she were writing a little later, could have quoted John of the Cross on the love of one who has been given the gift of spiritual marriage. John wrote: “For a little of this pure love is more precious to God and the soul and more beneficial to the Church, even though it seems one is doing nothing, than all these other works put together.” John points out “…the notable benefit and gain that a little of this love brings to the Church.” (CB 29.2) Teresa says, “…we shouldn’t build castles in the air. The Lord doesn’t look so much at the greatness of our works as at the love with which they are done.” Teresa wants her daughters and us to know that “…if we do what we can, His Majesty will enable us each day to do more and more, provided that we do not quickly tire.” … “Even though our works are small they will have the value our love for Him would have merited had they been great” (IC 7.4.15).
IV. Becoming Like God
Teresa wants her readers to serve the Lord with the kind of “determined determination” she had but always with peace, peace like that Teresa received from the gift of spiritual marriage. Teresa concludes her treatment of the Seventh Dwelling Places this way: “May it please His Majesty, my Sisters and daughters, that we all reach that place where we may ever praise Him. Through the merits of His Son who lives and reigns forever and ever, may He give me the grace to carry out something of what I tell you, amen. For I tell you that my confusion is great, and thus I ask you through the same Lord that in your prayers you do not forget this poor wretch” (IC 7.4.16). Our destiny is to become like the God who created us in God’s own image and likeness—to be like God in love. The fullness of that love is experienced in the Seventh Dwelling Places—the Places that Teresa calls Spiritual Marriage.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 50 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Review Questions
1. With the Seventh Dwelling Places looking so far from our experience, what value is there in our pondering what Teresa writes about these Dwelling Place?
2. Do Teresa and John of the Cross convince us of the value of prayer in relationship to whatever ministry we perform?
3. Having walked with Teresa through the Seven Dwelling Places of her Interior Castle what wisdom about life and prayer have we gained from her?
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 51 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Lecture 12. Teresa of Jesus: A More Contemplative Church
Overview
ay the Holy Spirit guide us as we ponder in this last lecture of this series on Teresa of Jesus’ wisdom about prayer in The Interior Castle. For a long time, the group of Carmelites with M whom I have worked since 1982, the Carmelite Forum, have been convinced that, reading the signs of the times, there is a pressing need for a more contemplative church, that is, a church were meditation, contemplative prayer and contemplation need to be practiced not only by members of religious communities but by as many of the laity as possible. This is a conclusion based on the challenge of the Second Vatican Council in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chapter 5: The Universal Call to Holiness. In the light of these lectures, I suggest that unique and major resources for a more contemplative church are the life and writings of Teresa of Jesus, saint and doctor of the church. There are, of course, other great resources from the Christian Contemplative Tradition that can be accessed according to one’s knowledge and preference for one or other resource. Yet, Teresa is one of the great teachers of prayer in the Christian tradition and is surely a prime candidate as a classical resource for a more contemplative life.
I. Thomas Merton
From the late seventeenth century until the beginning of the twentieth century, there was an eclipse of mysticism and contemplation in Western Christianity. Both contemplation and mysticism were reserved for the few. There was a presumption that mystical or contemplative prayer could be expected only behind the grills of cloistered convents. That attitude began to change in the early twentieth century with scholars who studied the mystical tradition. The turn to the mystical became fairly popular when a young Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, from his monastery at Gethsemani, Kentucky, published his memoir. The Seven Storey Mountain was published in 1948 and surprisingly became a bestseller. Merton followed up his memoir with a deluge of publications, books, and articles that challenged the presumed elitist take on contemplation, books like Seeds of Contemplation and New Seeds of Contemplation. Merton democratized the contemplative tradition. Countless other writers, spiritual guides, spiritual formators followed Merton’s lead. By the way Thomas Merton, were he alive, would be one hundred years old on January 31, 2015, the 500th anniversary of the birth of Teresa of Avila.
II. The Legacy of St. Teresa of Avila
When we members of the Carmelite Forum began our conversations in 1982 on the occasion of the four hundredth anniversary of the death of Teresa of Jesus, we pledged ourselves to do all in our power to share with English speakers as much of the Carmelite contemplative tradition as we could
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 52 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
master. Thus, annual summer seminars on Carmelite spirituality were offered, beginning in 1985, at Saint Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana, from which tapes, CDs, and various publications have emerged. It seems unimaginable that there are any Christians who have not heard of the Pope Francis. If you have been keeping up with his homilies and speeches, you have noticed how often Pope Francis uses the words “contemplation” and “gaze.” Surely the wisdom of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, is evident in these words. What we can expect from a more contemplative church are the hallmarks of the new pope’s many messages with an abundance of themes like joy and mercy
III. Teresa’s Advice for Contemporary Christians
A more contemplative church surely will look to the wisdom of Teresa of Jesus, a mystic’s mystic and doctor of the church. What might Teresa say to us if we were to ask her what advice she has for Christians who desire to become more contemplative and who wish to see their church become more contemplative? I shall be audacious and presumptuous by thinking that I can say what Teresa’s advice might be. 1) Teresa’s very first advice would be this: Be faithful to prayer. I think that she would add: and be faithful to contemplative prayer, that is, prayer that is open to the gift of contemplation, whether that contemplation be ordinary everyday contemplation or that special gift of infused contemplation if one were to be ready for that gift from God. Teresa’s ordinary, everyday contemplative prayer would be the Prayer of Active Recollection described in chapters 28 and 29 of her Way of Perfection. I repeat my recommendation that you may profit from the flier that the Institute of Carmelite Studies has prepared for those interested in Teresa’s Prayer of Recollection. This prayer recommended to her daughters by Teresa belongs to the tradition, which have given birth to modern forms of contemplative prayer like centering prayer and Christian meditation (the latter advocated by the Benedictine John Main). Teresa urges fidelity to that kind of prayer that is a going within, a going within that she had learned from Saint Augustine. Teresa also knows that to pray recollectedly or contemplatively one needs to develop one’s contemplative disposition—to know the truth, to love the good and to admire the beautiful. That is a matter of John of the Cross would call loving attention. 2) Next, I am sure that Teresa would recommend that we get to know ourselves, our gifts, as well as our weaknesses so that we can be what she thinks a contemplative must be: someone who has the courage of self-knowledge—humble enough to accept one’s weaknesses as well as gifts. 3) Teresa wants us to be free of whatever may stand in the way of growing in love of God and neighbor—what she calls detachment. “There is no doubt that if a person perseveres in this nakedness and detachment from all worldly things he will reach his goal” (IC 3.1.8). Teresa knows also that one practices this detachment, this freedom, according one’s state of life. 4) Teresa wants us to know and to constantly remind ourselves that prayer is all about love: the discovery of God’s lavish love and a return of that love so that it becomes a mutual love through God’s grace. We surely need to remember that Teresa’s test of one’s love of God is growing in love of neighbor. Thomas Aquinas changed what he thought came first—desire or love. His
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 53 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
initial take was that desire comes first; then he realizes that, as the heart grows more and more in love, one’s desires grow far beyond what they were at first. These desires become purified. Remember Richard Crashaw’s poem in honor of Saint Teresa, “The Flaming Heart.” There Crashaw spoke to Teresa in these words: “O thou undanted (sic) daughter of desires.” Speaking in the Fifth Dwelling Places, Teresa says: “This union with God’s will is the union I have desired all my life; it is the union I ask the Lord for always and the one that is clearest and safest” (IC 5.3.5). Teresa’s heart was full of the desires that flow from a heart full of love. 5) Finally, Teresa knows that our spiritual journey is built on the foundation of a growing, personal, loving relationship with Jesus Christ. She wants us be present as often as possible to the humanity of Christ (representar Cristo).
IV. A More Contemplative Church: What Will It Be Like?
A more contemplative church will be a church that Pope Francis would recognize and rejoice in: a joyous, warm and hospitable church, where love, forgiveness, and compassion emanate from our hearts and shine on our faces—where peace as absence from discord would reign and where an enduring peace will fill our hearts. For Teresa, the contemplative heart is a heaven on earth. The unnamed and truly humble priest in the novel The Diary of a Country Priest says, “Hell is not to love any more” (p. 127). A more contemplative church will be a church where love flourishes because we have learned to gaze on one another as God gazes on us. Does not John of the Cross remind us that for God to gaze is for God to love (CB 31.5)? To be a contemplative is someone who has learned to gaze as God gazes.
V. Some Words of Farewell
In the printed versions of The Interior Castle , there is an epilogue which was a letter that Teresa sent with the original manuscript to the Carmelite nuns in Seville. This letter contains some typical Teresian messages that can send us off to try to live Teresa’s wisdom. Teresa’s humor never strays far from her pen. She tells her nuns that for entertainment they may want to walk through this castle knowing they do not need the prioress’s permission. She adds that the Lord, not your own efforts, will bring you where he wants you to be in this castle. Use no force, she says. Remember that the Lord “is very fond of humility.” Walk even through the Dwelling Places of union, if the Lord so wills, so that the Lord may bring you into the final Dwelling Places here or hereafter. Even if obedience takes you away, Teresa tells her daughters that “you will always find the door open when you return” and “you will have the hope of returning to the castle which no one can take from you.” Teresa also reminds her daughters that she has taken them through seven dwelling places but that in each of the Dwelling Places “there are many others, below and above and to the sides, with lovely gardens and fountains and labyrinths” that you will be “dissolved in praises of the great God who created the soul in His own image and likeness.” Teresa has a reminder for her daughters and for us toward the end of the Seventh Dwelling Places: “Fix your eyes on the Crucified and everything will become small for you” (IC 7.4.8). Teresa concludes her thoughts here with a prayer: “May God Our Lord be ever praised and blessed, amen.”
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 54 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
As I conclude these brief lectures that barely scratch the surface of the wisdom which Teresa shared with her daughters and us, I thank you for listening to these remarks. Forgive the imperfections you have had to put up with. But, if anything that I have said prompts you to go to Teresa herself whether in prayer or to read her words, then I shall be grateful. Having walked through Teresa’s Castle together, we have walked on sacred ground. Having done so I want to pledge as Thomas More did to his precious his daughter Meg: Pray for me as I shall for thee until we meet merrily in heaven. May the Lord bless you and yours with blessings beyond all measure. I thank you for participating in this Program: Exploring the Interior Castle.
The Coronation of Saint Teresa by Bartolomeo Guidobono (late 17th century)
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 55 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Review Questions
1. Does your reading of Thérèse’s Story of a Soul make you want to sample her other texts?
2. What would you add to the above proposal for approaches to reading Thérèse’s texts?
3. If you have found Thérèse a reliable and inspiring companion for your spiritual journey, what elements in her life and writings have had the most important impact on your discovery?
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 56 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
The Stages of Prayer
Growth in Prayer as a Journey to Union with God through Love: The Stages of Prayer Book of Her Life Way of Perfection Interior Castle Chapters 11-22 1. Taking water from a well Active Recollection Dwelling Places 1, 2, 3: Active Recollection Chap. 26, 28, 29 Active Recollection Chap. 11-13
2. Water wheels and aqueducts Prayer of Quiet: Chap. 30-31 Dwelling Places 4: Prayer of Quiet: Chap. 14-15 Chap. 3: Passive Recollection 3. Stream of River Dwelling Places 4: Sleep of Faculties: Chap. 1-2: Quiet Chap. 16-17 (gustos, not contentos)
4. A Great Deal of Rain Prayer of Union: Dwelling Places 5: God’s Lavish Love Chap. 31 Prayer of Union Chap. 18-22: Dwelling Places 6: Spiritual Betrothal
Dwelling Places 7: Spiritual Marriage
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 57 E X P L O R I N G THE INTERIOR CASTLE STUDY GUIDE
Suggested Readings
For items frequently used in this program, entries are preceded by the abbreviations used in the above text:
Primary Sources: The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila. Translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriquez. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies. 1976: BL: The Book of Her Life ST: Spiritual Testimonies 1980: WP: The Way of Perfection IC: The Interior Castle MSS: Meditations on the Song of Songs 1985: F: Book of Her Foundations.
See the Institute of Carmelite Studies website for a list of the above books that have Study Editions. The Collected Letters of St. Teresa of Avila. 2 vols. Translated by Kieran Kavanaugh. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 2001, 2007.
Secondary Sources: Now You Know Media, Carmelite Programs by Keith J. Egan: 1) “Teresa, Teach Us to Pray” 2) “John of the Cross: Poet and Mystic” 3) Thérèse of Lisieux: Wisdom’s Daughter” 4) “Come, Pray with Carmel”
Books: Gillian T. W. Ahlgren, Entering Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle. NY: Paulist Press, 2005.
Egan, Keith J., ed., Carmelite Prayer: A Tradition for the 21st Century. NY: Paulist Press, 2003.
Ernest E. Larkin, Contemplative Prayer for Today: Christian Meditation. Singapore: MedioMedia, 2007.
Rowan Williams, Teresa of Avila. Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 1991.
Articles: Keith J. Egan, “Contemplative Meditation: a Challenge from the Tradition,”
Handbook of Spirituality for Ministers, vol. 2. Ed. Robert Wicks. NY: Paulist Press, 2000, pp. 442-455.
Ernest Larkin, “Today’s Contemplative Prayer Forms: Are They Contemplation,” Review for Religious Issue 57.1 (1998), 77-87.
W WW.NOWYOUKNOWMEDIA.COM / 1 - 8 0 0 - 955- 3904 / © 2 0 1 4 58