Teresa of Ávila: Weekly Summary

Sunday
Teresa’s life provides us with an exceptional example of bringing the contemplative and active life together; it displays both a profound internal depth and an exceptionally productive outcome.
—Megan Don

Monday
Teresa teaches the way of perfection as practicing fraternal love, nonattachment to material things, and authentic humility.
—Richard Rohr

Tuesday
Like us, Teresa of Ávila was petty or generous, irritable or unconditionally loving, attributing everything to her progress along the path of contemplative prayer. But she never ceased showing up for the spiritual work.
—Mirabai Starr

Wednesday
You well know that I would gladly forfeit all the blessings you have given me and transfer them to these rulers. If they could experience what I have experienced, I know that it would be impossible for them to allow the violations they have been condoning.
—Teresa of Ávila

Thursday
When we have trouble praying, Teresa recommends that we turn to nature: “Go to some place where you can see the sky, and walk up and down a little.” Since God is infinite and everywhere, sometimes we rejoice as much in meditating on creation as in meditating on the Divine.
—Tessa Bielecki

Friday
The important thing is not to think much but to love much, and so to do whatever best awakens you to love.
—Teresa of Ávila

I Love You Prayer

We invite readers to join with the CAC community in this guided prayer experience led by CAC teacher James Finley. This brief practice of stillness, breath, and surrender to God’s unconditional love returns us to a deeper knowing of who we are in God and who God is in and with us.

Reference:

James Finley, “I Love You Prayer,” Center for Action and Contemplation, January 24, 2023, YouTube video, 5:41.

Image credit: A path from one week to the next—Les Argonauts, Camino de Santiago, Unsplash. Jenna Keiper, Winter Bird. Jenna Keiper, Mystic. Used with permission. Click here to enlarge image.

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Let Nothing Frighten You

Let nothing disturb you. / Let nothing upset you. / Everything changes. / God alone is unchanging. / With patience all things are possible. / Whoever has God lacks nothing. / God alone is enough. —Teresa of Ávila

In CAC’s Turning to the Mystics podcast, Father Richard shares what drew him to Teresa of Ávila:

I first opened her Book of My Life when I was in college, and it just seemed like gobbledygook. I was nineteen or twenty years old; I just had no real inner experience. I conveniently shelved her, and only came back in my early years here in New Mexico. Realizing I had much more to learn if I was going to present myself as a teacher of contemplation and action, I had to go to the best in the field, and she was there. And I found what I once thought was so abstruse was now striking home again and again. [1]

Richard describes the gifts of mystical experience, particularly those Teresa emphasizes:

Mystics always bring this message in some form: “Do not be afraid.”

They know that it is all okay and will be finally okay, too! They want to tell us so that we can stop fretting and fearing and enjoy divine union now. Enjoy is the operative word. Mystical experience allows us to enjoy our own lives and to stop creating enemies and thinking we need to be afraid of certain people; to stop fearing nations and races we feel we have to punish and kill.

Where can we expect to go in life if we follow this way of perfection? What are its fruits? When we are enjoying deep union, we won’t need to create divisions, mistrust, and separation.

True spiritual encounter changes our politics, our attitude toward money, our use of time, our relationships toward foreigners and the weak, our attitude toward war and nationalism. We are citizens of God’s Big Kingdom now (see Philippians 3:20). Be prepared to have a very different lifestyle afterward.

If you are not ready to change, don’t seek out God. Once we have one sincere moment of divine union, we will want to spend all our time on the one thing necessary, which is to grow deeper and deeper in love every chance that we get.

Talk to those who have had a near-death, or nearing-death, experience. They all agree: it’s all about love. It’s all about union.

Saint Teresa of Ávila and her Way of Perfection are time-tested, reliable guides to this life:

Of love, nonattachment, and humility.

Of letting go, entering luminous darkness, and being ambushed by the Lover of the Cosmos.

Of recognizing union on the other side of fading dualisms. [2]

Teresa herself reminds us:

Remember: if you want to make progress on the path and ascend to the places you have longed for, the important thing is not to think much but to love much, and so to do whatever best awakens you to love. [3]

References:

[1] Adapted from James Finley with Kirsten Oates, “Bonus: Richard Rohr on Turning to Teresa of Ávila,” September 14, 2020, in Turning to the Mystics, season 2 (Albuquerque, NM: Center for Action and Contemplation, 2020), podcast, MP3 audio.

[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, foreword to The Way of Perfection, by Teresa of Ávila (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2017), 14–15.

[3] Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle, trans. Mirabai Starr (New York: Riverhead Books, 2004), 91.

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Story from Our Community:

This year’s Daily Meditations theme of the Prophetic Path has been a wonderful guide to me in a year so far spent mostly in the hospital with a treatable but rare neurological condition. When I realized I was not well, I handed myself over utterly to God’s providence in the whole process, whatever that may be, whatever outcome. I have been held in love in amazing ways and am encouraged to use this time as a special Lenten retreat. I am so grateful for the inspiring threads I can follow on the early Christians, desert mothers and fathers, and other topics. I am such a beginner on this path—but I’m finding great riches in that experience. Thank you. —Anna W.

Zest for Life, Love for Creation

Contemplative teacher Tessa Bielecki captures Teresa of Ávila’s love for God revealed through creation:

Teresa teaches us how to live the human adventure with zest and enthusiasm. She was in love with every dimension of life: with people and places, music, laughter and celebration, with nature and its abundance.

We see her enthusiasm in the vibrant imagery she draws from her experience of the earth. She speaks of sun and wind and rain, clouds, crystal, and falling comets, tempests, thunderclaps and lightning. She calls God the Sun in the interior of the soul, casting brilliant light into every corner of our being. When she prayed, Teresa loved to look at fields and flowers, “reading” from the book of nature. She loved to live near water, with good soil and gardens….

Teresa urges us to embrace nature in our prayer because nature awakens us, reminding us of the Creator. She can’t contain her praise and glorifies God as Lord of the world and Beauty exceeding all other beauties. “Who could make known the majesty with which You reveal Yourself!” she cries out in one of her spontaneous prayers. “O my God, God, God, author of all creation! And what is creation if You, Lord, should desire to create more? You are almighty; Your works are incomprehensible.”

When we have trouble praying, Teresa recommends that we turn to nature: “Go to some place where you can see the sky, and walk up and down a little.” Since God is infinite and everywhere, sometimes we rejoice as much in meditating on creation as in meditating on the Divine. Why limit ourselves to only one of creation’s mysteries when there are so many? Teresa mentions the mystery of water, the sparrowhawk, and the tiny ant. Any of these is enough for a whole period of prayer, immersing us in the wonder and wisdom of God. What would happen if we knew “the property of every created thing?”

Bielecki shows how Teresa drew upon nature to describe the soul’s journey with God:

Since [Teresa] lived close to the earth, she said the spiritual life is like bees making honey, silkworms spinning their cocoons, fish swimming in a running stream. Depending on our stage of spiritual growth, we may be like mice, toads or snakes, flitting moths, butterflies, doves, wild horses or wounded deer. We may encounter God’s majesty as a mighty eagle or a roaring lion.

Teresa’s favorite nature image was water. She speaks lavishly of flowing springs, pools, wells, and fountains, rivers, waves, and the sea, urging us to irrigate our hearts with the waters of Life. When instead we clog our lives with triviality and endless distraction, she sees us bogged down in a swamp, struggling to get muddy water out of a puddle.

Teresa also loved fire imagery. If we build a fire in our living room or out in the wilds, we can reflect with her on the raging conflagration which enkindles us with the fire of divine love.

Reference:

Tessa Bielecki, Holy Daring: The Earthy Mysticism of St. Teresa, the Wild Woman of Ávila, 2nd ed. (Rhinebeck, NY: Adam Kadmon Books, 2016), 11–12.

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A Heartfelt and Humble Prayer

In this heartfelt prayer from Teresa of Ávila, we witness her concern for the whole world, her desire to speak truth to power, and her willingness to risk everything in order to be of service. Here is CAC friend Mirabai Starr’s translation:

Blessed be the soul the Lord brings to an understanding of the truth! If only world leaders could enter this exalted consciousness. It would be so much more worthwhile for them to strive for this state of prayer than for all the power in the world. What righteousness would prevail in a nation like this. What atrocities would be avoided.

Any man who reaches this stage has such unshakable love of God that any fear of risking his honor or his life falls away. This is an especially great blessing for someone who has the obligation to lead his community….

O Lord, even if you were to give me the authority to proclaim these truths publicly, no one would believe me…. But at least it would satisfy me to have a real voice. I would count my life as nothing if it meant that I could clearly communicate even one of these sacred teachings to the world….

I keep having these irresistible impulses to speak the truth to political leaders. But since I do not have access to these men, I turn to you, my Lord, and beg you to make all things right. You well know that I would gladly forfeit all the blessings you have given me and transfer them to these rulers…. If they could experience what I have experienced, I know that it would be impossible for them to allow the violations they have been condoning.

O my God! Please help world leaders understand the magnitude of their responsibilities….

I sincerely pray for our leaders, and I would like to be of some help to them. Such an urge makes a soul reckless. I would gladly risk my life to gain what I believe in….

Once a soul has attained this level of prayer, she does not merely desire to serve God; his Majesty [a name Teresa uses for God] gives her the strength to manifest the desire. The soul would not hesitate to try anything that might be of service to him. Any sacrifice for his sake feels like nothing, because she knows that anything other than pleasing him means nothing….

Here is my life. Here is my honor. Here is my will. I give them all to you. I am yours. Use me as you will….

The soul is his soul. He is in charge. He illuminates her. It seems that he is guarding her against offending him. He helps her to wake up in service of him….

As long as she receives God’s favors with humility and gratitude, always bearing in mind that the Beloved gives them and that she herself does almost nothing, she will retain her equanimity.

Reference:

Teresa of Ávila, The Book of My Life, trans. Mirabai Starr (Boston, MA: New Seeds Books, 2007), 150, 151, 152, 154, 155.

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Story from Our Community:

I currently find myself in a desert, accompanying a beloved child though dark paths of severe and life-threatening depression. In some moments, it has seemed as though every resource in me has dried up, exhausted. I am not sure I have ever experienced myself as so separate and distinct from another person, so solitary and powerless. Only God has filled the vast emptiness of my soul in the face of this unfathomable illness. During this desert time, I have come face to face with my limitations and also the incredible reality of God’s endless love. —Laurie M.

The Beloved Desires Action

Teresa of Ávila was investigated several times during the Spanish Inquisition. At the insistence of her superiors, she wrote of her many visions and raptures to prove they came from God, and that she was firmly rooted in “orthodox” Catholicism. Translator and spiritual teacher Mirabai Starr writes:

Through her many writings, Teresa of Ávila openly shares her humanity with the world. There were times when she was paralyzed by fear of rejection and others when she was so courageous in the face of what she knew to be her sacred destiny that she risked being executed as a heretic. She made mistakes, as we all do. Some she apologized profusely for; others she refused to admit to until years later. Like us, she was petty or generous, irritable or unconditionally loving, attributing everything to her progress along the path of contemplative prayer. But she never ceased showing up for the spiritual work. [1]

Teresa was a real person with real advice for real people of her time—and our own. Here are some examples from her masterpiece, The Interior Castle:

It’s tempting to think that if God would only grant you internal favors, you would be able to withstand external challenges. His Majesty [a name Teresa uses for God] knows what is best for us. He does not require our opinion on the matter and, in fact, has every right to point out that we don’t have any idea what we’re asking for. Remember: all you have to do as you begin to cultivate the practice of prayer is to prepare yourself with sincere effort and intent to bring your will into harmony with the will of God. [2]

Teresa was also an astute spiritual director who turned people away from an emphasis on perfection and piety and toward compassionate action:

Sometimes I observe people so diligently trying to orchestrate whatever state of prayer they’re in that they become peevish about it. They don’t dare to move or let their minds be stirred for fear of jeopardizing the slightest degree of devotion or delight. It makes me realize how little they understand of the path to union. They think the whole thing is about rapture.

But no, friends, no! What the Beloved wants from us is action. What he wants is that if one of your friends is sick, you take care of her. Don’t worry about interrupting your devotional practice. Have compassion. If she is in pain, you feel it, too. If necessary, you fast so that she can eat. This is not a matter of indulging an individual, you do it because you know it is your Beloved’s desire. This is true union with his will. What he wants is for you to be much happier hearing someone else praised than you would be to receive a compliment yourself. If you have humility, this is easy. It is a great thing to be glad when your friends’ virtues are celebrated. [3]

References:

[1] Mirabai Starr, Saint Teresa of Ávila: Passionate Mystic (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2007, 2013), xix.

[2] Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle, trans. Mirabai Starr (New York: Riverhead Books, 2004), 60–61.

[3] Teresa of Ávila, Interior Castle, 142.

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Perfection Is Practicing Love

In his foreword to The Way of Perfection, Teresa of Ávila’s book on the practice of prayer, Richard Rohr asks:

What is “the way of perfection”? (It isn’t about our perfection, by the way, but the recognition of God’s seamless perfection, woven into the fabric of our life and present all along.)

Saint Teresa writes:

Let the truth be in your hearts, as it will be if you practice meditation, and you will see clearly what love we are bound to have for our neighbors. [1]

Teresa teaches the way of perfection as practicing fraternal love, nonattachment to material things, and authentic humility. Some aspects of this wisdom might seem counterintuitive to readers today. Forgive me, but these virtues of nonattachment and humility don’t often make the vision boards of contemporary spiritual seekers!

Why is this?

What the mystics know, and what we’re having to relearn, is that it’s through a kind of luminous darkness of nonattachment and humility that we come to be seized by real love, God’s love.

I wonder if the only way that conversion, enlightenment, and transformation ever happen is by a kind of divine ambush. We have to be caught off guard. As long as we are in control, we are going to keep trying to steer the ship by our previous experience of being in charge. The only way we will let ourselves be ambushed is by trusting the “Ambusher,” and learning to trust that the darkness of intimacy will lead to depth, safety, freedom, and love.

God needs to catch us by surprise because our very limited, preexisting notions keep us and our understanding of God small. We are still trying to remain in control. We still want to “look good”!

God tries to bring us into a bigger world.

A world where, by definition, we are not in control.

A world where we no longer need to look good.

A terrible lust for certitude and rigid social order has characterized the last five hundred years of Western Christianity, and it has simply not served the soul well at all. Once we lost a spirituality of darkness as its own kind of light, there just wasn’t much room for growth in faith, hope, and love.

So God, as The Way of Perfection attests, has to come indirectly: catching us off guard and out of control, when we are empty instead of full of ourselves.

That is why the saints—including Teresa—talk about suffering so much. About nonattachment to the fleeting passions that put us on a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs.

The mystics are not masochistic, sadistic, negative, morbid, or oppositional. They have seen the pattern and, as Teresa says in one place, it is not that we are happy for the suffering. Who could be? Who would be?

No. We are happy for the new level of intimacy with God that the suffering has brought us to.

References:

[1] Teresa of Ávila, The Way of Perfection, chap. 20, trans. E. Allison Peers.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, foreword to The Way of Perfection, by Teresa of Ávila (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2017), 11–12, 13.

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Story from Our Community:

Last year, I took part in Jim Finley’s course on Teresa of Avila and I have been studying “The Interior Castle” in the way he suggested—one paragraph per day. I was reeling from the trauma of my 30-year-old daughter’s illness. During her recovery, my husband and I said over and over again, “Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, all is fleeting, God alone is unchanging, Patience obtains everything, They want nothing who possess God, God alone is enough.” This brought us peace during the long days and allowed us to sleep at night. I felt Teresa was with us. I’m so grateful to her for showing us the love of God. —Heather D.

Prayer Leads to Purpose

Author and interspiritual teacher Megan Don introduces the Spanish mystic Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) as an exemplar of action and contemplation:

Teresa’s life provides us with an exceptional example of bringing the contemplative and active life together; it displays both a profound internal depth and an exceptionally productive outcome.…

At the age of twenty, after much deliberation, she chose to enter the Carmelite Monastery in Ávila. She did not make this choice because of a vocational “calling” but because Teresa understood it to be a favorable alternative to marriage….

Her fascination with the world continued while she lived in the monastery, since it was not an enclosed order, and a stream of visitors occupied much of her time…. Prayers were ordered and recited by rote, which left her soul dry and uninspired. She attempted to enter her own “prayer of quiet,” but finding the thoughts in her head far too noisy and disturbing, she gave up any attempt to develop a more meaningful way to pray. Her relationship with the Beloved [God] at this time was fairly superficial.

For twenty years she lived a divided life. On the one hand her ego desired worldly attachments, while on the other her spirit was calling her to a deeper communion with the divine. At the age of forty, Teresa finally surrendered completely to her Beloved. Her real life and work had begun. She returned to her prayer of quiet, allowing the Beloved to lead her, no longer relying on her own techniques. Meditation became essential to Teresa in establishing a clear and firm foundation with the divine, and as she walked further on her spiritual pathway, she came to understand that this external Beloved also “rests within.” It was to this place that she would constantly return to receive guidance, love, and a feeling of deep peace that she could not find elsewhere. [1]

From that place of peace and inner authority, Teresa worked to return the Carmelite order to its original emphasis on prayer, poverty, and simplicity, going on to found seventeen new convents and monasteries. Don continues:

Contrary to popular belief, the pinnacle of the mystical life is often lived in the world, even though it is not of the world. Having come into a full consciousness of the reality of existence, the mystic is now returned to society, displaying an extraordinary energy for the work required. This energy is none other than the divine force working in and through this willing worker of the Beloved, and it far surpasses anything we human beings can do alone. Teresa’s life is one such example of a person in and through whom the Beloved worked, and throughout her life she reiterated that the ultimate purpose of the sacred marriage [or union with God] is to give birth to good works in the world. [2]

References:

[1] Megan Don, Meditations with Teresa of Ávila: A Journey into the Sacred (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2011), 1, 2–3.

[2] Don, Meditations with Teresa of Ávila, 218.

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Teresa of Ávila: Weekly Summary

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Let Nothing Frighten You

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Zest for Life, Love for Creation

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A Heartfelt and Humble Prayer

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The Beloved Desires Action

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Perfection Is Practicing Love

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Prayer Leads to Purpose

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Teresa of Ávila: Weekly Summary

Let Nothing Frighten You

Zest for Life, Love for Creation

A Heartfelt and Humble Prayer

The Beloved Desires Action

Perfection Is Practicing Love

Prayer Leads to Purpose

Category Archive

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