This is the first of a few reflections on Teresa of Avila’s classic, The Interior Castle.
The first and obvious question when approaching this spiritual classic is, why concern ourselves with a book written for a small number of cloistered nuns over four hundred years ago? The reason is that the text is a spiritual classic. As such, it speaks to the human heart in a profound and meaningful way beyond the limits of culture and history. For this reason, it has been translated into dozens of languages.
In the book, Teresa uses the image of a castle to address the relationship between God and the human beings. Teresa understands well that every human heart hungers for happiness. The castle represents the human person. The journey to the center is where God dwells and true happiness will be found.
The saintly Carmelite spells out where we will find happiness. Only in God will the heart realize its true and lasting fulfillment.
When we read Teresa‘s text, it is an invitation beyond thought and intellectual insight and reflection. We are drawn into a unique experience of God. She clearly portrays her life as a story of God’s mercy. Teresa shows how the experience of God is rooted in a continual struggle that involves a series of conversions. With the gifts and challenges emerging from the deepening encounter with God, she tackled her deficiencies and brokenness. In the end, growing self-knowledge drew her away from her independence. She saw the utter importance of God’s mercy and her need to embrace it.
The Interior Castle is an organized and insightful reflection on her experience. She describes the experience in the seven stages or dwelling places of the journey to the center. This rendering is a manual for us on our pilgrimage to God. She says the soul is like a castle “made entirely of a diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in heaven there are many dwelling places.” (IC 1.1) The spiritual life of the individual in the castle is complex. It involves the talents, commitment and individuality of the person at various spiritual depths.
Here are some of the highlights that we need to be aware of as we approach our engagement with The Interior Castle.
- Deep, personal prayer is our point of entry into the Castle.
- The first three dwelling places are about our beginning. They stress our effort in prayer. The last four dwelling places are about God’s initiative and special activity in our prayer. This is contemplation.
- Teresa always has her eyes fixed on Jesus. He is the model. He is our companion at all times.
- Teresa seems in a hurry to pass through the first three dwelling places. She sees her special gift is to explain the mystical experiences in the final four dwelling places. This is one of her greatest contributions to Christian spirituality over the ages.
- The goal is union with God. This will take place in this life by purification and transformation in the journey to the center, where God dwells. Otherwise, we will pass through purgatory in the next life. We will end up united to God. The method and time are our choice.
- The journey to the center, where God awaits, unfolds in the ever-deeper awareness of God’s love and mercy.
- The way forward in the experience of God is a process of letting go of our selfishness. There is a relentless exposure of the depth and breadth of our self-absorption. Teresa is clear that only God can both expose and transform the deeper levels of self-love.
- At some point one enters the Castle by casting off the spiritual blindness and paralysis that characterizes life in isolation from God. One begins the long passage to the center and union with God. Every step of the way is all about love.
- Teresa’s emphasis in the text is always as a guide. She presents a vision for our journey to the Center. There is little said about method of prayer only the constant call to be open to the Spirit on the journey.
II
Description of the Interior Castle
Teresa sets the stage for the journey with the image of the castle. In reality, she is talking about the human soul. The path is to God at the center, the ultimate destiny of all.
The expedition through the seven dwelling places is a description of the experience of God. It all begins when the individual realizes there is more to life. This is triggered in many ways. It may be a personal crisis, an enlightening sermon, movie or book, or just frustration with continuing dead-ends in the false quest for happiness. In the end, they are all an expression of our mortality.
Prayer in its most simple form initiates the movement inward. This constitutes the entry into the Castle. This is the beginning of human interiority.
The seven dwelling places are all unique. They are like a set of spheres within a sphere. Each globe contains a variety of experiences. Teresa is emphatic that it is not a linear passage straight ahead. There is much backward and forward movement in and around each dwelling place. This includes movement to the next dwelling place and regression when the effort and cooperation is not consistent.
The first three dwelling places, while considered similar, cover a great expanse. These dwelling places share the common component of action by the individual. The first begins with the almost hidden glimmer of the transcendent. In the third dwelling places there is real growth. Prayer is a regular practice in one’s life. There is order and discipline. The risk is a dominant sense of having arrived. There is an urge to settle down. In addition, there is a danger. The raw selfishness of the first two levels now goes underground. It emerges in the problematical guise of spirituality.
The movement to the fourth dwelling place is the contemplative switch. Self-knowledge has been present from the beginning. Now there is greater clarity of the depth of selfishness. In a grand irony, Teresa states that when we grasp the gravity of our personal brokenness and sin, we truly see the glory of God.
“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 looking at his purity, we shall see our own filth; by pondering his humility, we shall see how far we are from being humble.” (IC 1.9) In this exchange of the vision of human depravity and God’s majesty, Teresa sets forth a vision of Christian life. We are urged inward and onward in a growing intimate relationship with Christ. This relationship is based on a deep yearning for salvation flowing from greater self-knowledge leading to humility. Christ is seen as the way forward in the ultimate expression of mercy in the cross and resurrection. There is only one goal available in faithfulness to Christ. This is union with God who is waiting in the final dwelling place.
The fifth and sixth dwelling places are the experience of the final purification. These dwelling places receive the most extensive treatment from Teresa. They are, in many ways, her special gift to the wisdom of Christian spirituality.
In the end, the pilgrimage to the center produces a switch in emphasis from ourselves as the center to God as the center. The Carmelite contemplative’s gift is to describe in great detail how this refocusing from self to God takes place. Teresa puts it this way. God is the Creator. We are the creature. God is the loving and merciful creator and Savior. We are the sinful and broken creature both loved and forgiven.
Teresa makes it clear that not only is God available to all, but this is the passionate desire of God. She shows that contemplation and mysticism are part of the normal Christian vocation. The fact that they are not seen this way is a distortion. It is time to refocus. It is time to regain God’s true desire for all.
