XPart Two
Self-knowledge Opens to God’s Mercy
People spend billions of dollars on advertising to encourage us to feed the exaggerated demands of the false self. The unending pulls of a consumer society are a singular and horrendous obstacle on the road to the true self. All these deviations work together to weaken, and even hide, the longing of the true self calling us to move on to the center for a more authentic life.
Here again, self-knowledge, an awareness of what is going on within us, is critical in the necessary conversion that comes when we hear God’s word and obey God’s will in prayer.
The Importance of Prayer
Prayer becomes an energizing force on the passage to this life-giving self- knowledge. The encounter with God’s word and God’s will in deep personal prayer is our ticket to our true destiny at the center. Prayer is an invitation to redirect our lives. The light of the Scriptures often opens new horizons in our normal awareness. This leads to deeper self-knowledge. This new spiritual maturity leads to novel ways of accepting others. Our relationships and responsibilities move out of a narrow world of self-concern. They grow into a more spacious stance of openness, acceptance and service for others.
For Teresa, prayer was the answer to almost all problems. However, she had an expansive notion of prayer. It took place in the context of the relationship between God at the center, our person and our life experience. In the interaction of these elements in prayer, self-knowledge has a pivotal role. The mystery of God unfolds in the dynamic of the person’s prayer and life experience. Self- understanding brings this process together. The movement, in accepting the reality of God’s place and our place, brings God’s mercy to the forefront. As Teresa advanced in self-knowledge, she became more convinced in her oft-repeated belief: “My life is the story of God’s mercy.”
The Loving and Merciful Creator and the Loved and Forgiven Creature
Teresa identified two elements as the foundation of her spirituality. The first was her sinfulness. Through self-knowledge, she slowly accepted her helplessness to change. Through the growing light of God’s presence within her, she truly saw herself as a world class sinner. Secondly, she realized she was loved and forgiven, in spite of her opinion, that she was deeply flawed. The path of self-knowledge gradually opened Teresa to the grandeur of God and her total dependence on God. She was the creature caught in sin but both forgiven and loved as a child of God. Her ever-expanding awareness of herself as a sinful creature let her realize that she lived in a sea of mercy. Self-knowledge was a critical component of Teresa’s fundamental grasp of her reality as a sinner both loved and forgiven.
Pope Francis echoes these insights of Teresa in Laudato Si. 1 He says any authentic spirituality must start with the recognition of God as the all-powerful Creator. Otherwise, we place ourselves or some other creature such as the state as the final measure of all things. This leads to destructive activity against God, our brothers and sisters, and all creation. The news each day tells us the story of the ravages of evil unleashed by this most fundamental denial of all reality.
The only answer is to accept ourselves as we are, creatures in need of liberation from the forces of evil through the mercy of God.
Conclusion
In the Dark Night, John is the theologian, offering an ever-expanding analysis of the issues leading to the experience of God. His gifts are clear and his message is powerful.
On the other hand, Teresa is a great balancing factor to John’s sometimes overwhelming analysis. The Interior Castle lays out the growth in spiritual experiences and the practical consequences of the unique spiritual journey to the center, the dwelling place of God. Self-knowledge and the search for the true self are helped by humility and love. Along the way, she describes many mystical gifts such as visions, locutions, and absorptions. However, she always keeps the focus clear.
The goal is to bring ones heart to the true center where God dwells. The entire spiritual search and journey is to move to the center. This can only happen with true self-knowledge, the unending gift of self-discovery. To Teresa, this wise woman of faith and true daughter of the Church, this journey of self-discovery brought her to the Trinity dwelling in the depth of her being.
Once again, John and Teresa discovered and described the same destiny, union with God. His gift was the clarity of analysis and precision in the details. Her gift was more the warm acceptance of the human experience with a much more delicate human touch.
