SAINT TERESA OF AVILA, PRAYER AND THE CALL OF THE GOSPEL -4

Teresa of Avila and the Importance of Self-Knowledge

In the special section on the prayer of the four waters in the book of her Life, Teresa has a rich quote on self-knowledge:

“This path of self-knowledge must never be abandoned, nor is there on this journey a soul so much a giant that it has no need to return often to the stage of an infant…Along this path of prayer, self-knowledge and the thought of one’s sins is the bread with which all palates must be fed.” (Life Ch 13:15)

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 the limits of her ability to break loose of her brokenness. Through the growing light of God’s presence within her, she truly saw herself as a world class sinner. This is one of great ironies of the spiritual life. The more we grow in love with God, the more we are mindful of our personal sinfulness. Her sense of sin centered on the time wasted in so many ways that kept her from loving Jesus.

Secondly, she realized she was loved and forgiven in spite of her deeply flawed condition. This is why Teresa held self-knowledge in such esteem. 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. Nevertheless, she experienced herself as 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. This experience motivated Teresa to place God as the loving and merciful center of her reality. At the same time, her self-importance diminished constantly as her love for God, and consequently, her love for her neighbor, intensified.

Self-Knowledge: Key to the Spiritual Journey

Self-knowledge demands a relentless quest for a deeper and more extensive awareness of our personal reality. The demands and benefits of self-knowledge will never be exhausted in this lifetime. Learning what truly is going on within ourselves is a task that is never completed. One way of getting insight into the search for self-knowledge is seeing the conflict in our lives as a struggle between the false self and the true self, between sin and grace.

The false self involves layer after layer of self-deception, fallacies and a sense of self-grandiosity that places us at the center of our consciousness. We tend to become blinded to our faults and failures and, more importantly, blind to the presence of God at the true center of our being. We emphasize the shortcomings of others. Jesus put it ever so clearly when he pointed our inability to see the log in our own eye yet totally aware of the splinter in our neighbor’s eye. (Mt 7:3) Self-righteousness dominates our worldview. As we become mindful of the false values flowing from our fragmented heart, we find ourselves facing a fork in the road.

We have a choice of life or death. We choose death when we double down on the clamoring of the false self for more attention. We choose life when we open ourselves to the mercy of God which draws us toward the true self. At the heart of this decision is the perennial challenge of knowing ourselves.

Teresa of Avila was unyielding in declaring the importance of self-knowledge as the special avenue to God in the center of our being. In one of her many statements on self-knowledge she said:

“Well now, it is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering ourselves, reflecting on our misery and what we owe God and begging Him often for mercy.” (The Interior Castle 2.1.11)

Many of the Gospel mandates are an expression of this practice of leaving the false self of our self-centeredness and moving on to the true self which is seeking God at our center. In Mark we read: “If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all.” (Mk 9:35) Matthew tells us: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Mt 10:39) Again, John says: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a grain of wheat, but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (Jn 12:24) Finally, Matthew adds: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” (Mt 16:24) The Gospels contain numerous other statements with the same message. Fundamental to all these teachings of Jesus is the treasure of knowing ourselves in relation to God. This is self-knowledge.

The Importance of Prayer

Prayer becomes an energizing force on the passage to this life-giving self-knowledge. Prayer is an invitation to redirect our lives. The encounter with God’s Word and God’s will in deep personal prayer is our ticket to our true destiny at the center where God awaits. Meaningful reflection and prayer draw us into the light of the Scriptures which often open new horizons in our normal awareness. This unlocks the way 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. This is what the spiritual life hopes to accomplish. As she advanced in self-knowledge, the great Carmelite Saint became more convinced in her oft-repeated belief: “My life is the story of God’s mercy.”

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SAINT TERESA OF AVILA, PRAYER AND THE CALL OF THE GOSPEL -3

Teresa and the Humanity of Christ 

Part Two

Devotion to the Passion

In responding to her mistake about the importance of the humanity of Christ, Teresa soon moved to a great love for the Passion and Death of Christ.

For Teresa, this emphasis on the suffering and death of Jesus gave her an anchor to embrace the deeper dimensions of the spiritual life. It let her be more connected and more committed to her everyday human experience.

Here are a series of quotes from the Holy Mother that enlighten the stages of her growth in devotion to the Passion:

“I could only think about Christ as He was as man…The soul can place itself in the presence of Christ and grow accustomed to being inflamed with love for is sacred humanity…this is an excellent way of making progress, and in a very short time.” (Life, Ch, 9:6; Ch12:2; Ch 13:22)

Teresa understood that the movement in all of Jesus’ life was a faithfulness to walk the Road to Jerusalem. Teresa recognized that in his Passion and Death, Jesus embraced all of humanity’s suffering and experience of evil. Jesus not only heard the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth; Jesus entered into this agony wholeheartedly. It is in the heartbreak and the mockery and the rejection and the crown and nails that Jesus became our cry for justice, for peace, for healing and reconciliation.

In her devotion to the Passion, Teresa was more connected to life than today’s headlines. The suffering and death of Jesus will always be the clearest expression of commitment and discipleship. There is no more concrete bond to our broken world and our broken lives than the Crucified Christ. Teresa understood that walking with Jesus always must move forward to the Cross on hill on the way to the glory of the Resurrection.

The Importance of Humility

It is at this stage of development, the genuine devotion to the Passion and Death of Christ, that Teresa returns to one of her most consistent teachings. “Since this edifice is built entirely on humility, the closer one comes to God, the more progress there must be in this virtue; and if there is no progress in humility, everything is going to be ruined.” (Life Ch 12:4)

Even when we are making real progress, we will eventually face the challenge of compromise. This is the ego’s desperate maneuver to maintain control. We are driven persistently to seek a space between the costly demands of the Gospel and the comfort of the world. We subtly create our own gospel and make Jesus over in our image. This produces the heavy burden of mediocrity. This has been a truly destructive element throughout Christian history.

We should let Peter’s example encourage us in this struggle that is the human curse of ambivalence. In spite of Peter’s total failure in the threefold rejection, Jesus did not give up on him. It is the same for us. He is always calling us to life. Each crisis manifests a deeper insight into the depth of our weakness and the magnitude of God’s merciful love revealed in Christ Crucified and Christ Risen.

The four Gospels, in all their diversity, finally bring us a picture of Jesus which is a mirror for us. We look at Jesus and see what is most authentic about ourselves. We are children of God, loved and forgiven. In his Exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis describes the joy and beauty of discovering our true selves when we respond to Jesus’ call.

“The Lord does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step toward Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms. Now is the time to say to Jesus, “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord. Take me once more into your redeeming embrace.” (The Joy of the Gospel: #3)

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SAINT TERESA OF AVILA, PRAYER AND THE CALL OF THE GOSPEL -2

Teresa and the Humanity of Christ
Parte one

One of the great blessings of today’s spirituality is the rich and challenging teachings of Vatican II. It is the steady effort to bring Jesus back to the center of our search for God. This venture of centering on Christ has always been an element of every authentic renewal in our long and varied Christian history

Teresa says one of her biggest mistakes was thinking reflection and awareness about the humanity of Christ was only for beginners. She came to understand the centrality of Jesus’ role and deeply regretted her error. Afterwards, she always put Jesus at the center of her personal prayer and her teachings and writings no matter how advanced her spiritual development.

In the book of her Life, there are special chapters, eleven to twenty two, on the four stages of prayer. Here, she has a special message on the importance of focusing on the humanity of Christ.

“The soul can place itself in the presence of Christ and grow accustomed to being inflamed with love for His sacred humanity. It can keep Him ever present and speak with Him asking for its needs and complaining of it labors, being glad with him in its enjoyments and not forgetting Him because of them, trying to speak to Him not through written prayers but with words that conform to its desires and needs,” (Life ch12:2)

Teresa has these types of statements on the sacred humanity throughout all of her writings. She always highlights the need for the encounter with Christ as an essential part of our search for our true self and for God.

Here is a statement from John of the Cross that is especially supportive of Teresa’s teaching on the sacred humanity. It describes the beginners’ need to encounter the Jesus of the Gospels.

“First, have a habitual desire to imitate Christ in all your deeds by bringing your life into conformity with His. You must then study His life in order to know how to imitate Him and behave in all events as He would,” (Ascent Book 1: Ch 13, #3)

Teresa found the humanity of Jesus truly helpful in developing a balanced approach to contemplation and all of her spirituality. Jesus was the center of her life and prayer. The Gospels were the primary source of her prayer. She was continually proclaiming to all the urgency of being friends with Jesus and lovers of Christ.

This commitment to Christ will always involve the cross. “Whether in the beginning, the middle or the end, all have their crosses even though these crosses be different. For all who follow Christ, if they do not want to get lost, must walk on this path that He trod.” (Life 11:5)

Teresa knew well that only in Jesus of the Gospels can we find genuine righteousness in our Christian faith. Every age must face deceptions and cultural flaws pulling us to an easier route. Whether it is the search for true fraternal charity or honest prayer, the demands of justice or our clinging to our possessions, the power of the ego is constantly attacking our Gospel commitment like a cancer. It is eating away at the Gospel truth. This leads to an image of Jesus far less demanding than the Jesus of the four Evangelists. This false Jesus has been an ever-repeating occurrence in the history of our faith.

Teresa taught that we always need to return to Jesus for the light and the truth, no matter how uncomfortable or challenging. Jesus alone is the source of all true integrity in life.

Taking the Risk of Jesus: “Not my will,, but thy will be done.”

We constantly have to keep our eyes on Jesus. We have to let his word enter into our mind and heart to transform our inner being.

The Gospel reveals the basis of all authentic spirituality and calls us to the transparency of a true Christian identity. It teaches us that to be a disciple of Jesus is to follow him. This is what Christian life is, following Jesus.

Teresa teaches us that the heart of the encounter with Jesus is a transition moving from our vision for happiness, from our priorities, to Jesus’ vision and call. This initial conversion repeats itself many times. It expands our world as we stay faithful with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. Prayer leads to an ever more generous acceptance of God’s will. A new and more mature experiences of prayer, flowing from the series of conversions, empowers us to live in a way that is genuinely guided by God’s will. The demands of justice and the environment are always knocking at the door of our heart as are the needs of our neighbor. This openness to our life’s circumstances is how faithfulness grows within us.

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SAINT TERESA OF AVILA, PRAYER AND THE CALL OF THE GOSPEL -1

Over the ten plus years of my blog on deep personal prayer, Praying Alone Together, I have referenced Teresa of Avila many times. During this time, my understanding, experience and love of Teresa and her teachings has matured. I hope to share that spiritual growth and insight in a series of blogs on this great Carmelite Saint and her vison on prayer and the Gospel calling

I am going to emphasize Teresa’s teaching on the beginning of deep personal prayer as described in her special message on prayer in chapters eleven to twenty-two in the book of her Life. There are many other rich teachings on prayer in her numerous other writings. I will make a few references to her other works. However, I will focus on the twelve chapters from her Life. This section offers a clear, practical and manageable expression of the Carmelite’s profound teachings on deep personal prayer.

Teresa of Avila: Doctor of the Church and Superb Teacher of Prayer

Teresa does not offer a well-defined theological message on prayer. Her writings are dominated by her personal experience. Likewise, her writings, while most often clear and deeply insightful, are also disrupted by almost continual interruptions and distractions from her designated theme. This makes it a little difficult to read. The extra effort benefits the reader with a pathway into true wisdom and spiritual enrichment.

The Experience of God

Teresa’s mysticism, like all other true mystics, was about the extraordinary experience of God in the ordinary activities of her daily life. While she had many visions and other spiritual occurrences of various kinds, she always would point to the lived daily experience, free of self-interest and committed to the love of neighbor, as the most authentic experience of God. When you read Teresa with an open and searching heart, the sense of the reality and the presence of God shines out in a spectacular way.

God feels so real and so special and so inviting that it is truly an overwhelming experience. She drives us from a shallow awareness of God to an indisputable experience of God. One author describes Teresa’s writings as “taking a bath in God”.

Few authors on prayer would be as emphatic in stressing the importance of silence, solitude and withdrawal as part of any trustworthy prayer life. Yet, Teresa was far from proclaiming an escape from the demanding realities of daily life. She clearly teaches that we will find God among “the pots and pans”, by which she means the often challenging “give and take” of living in a sinful and broken world with sinful and broken people. For Teresa, we withdraw into silence, solitude and prayer only to enter into life with a more intense and genuine presence.

Today, any meaningful spirituality is going to attack the false separation of the experience of God and truly responsible presence to our daily life and the concrete demands of being faithful to relationships and our expanding and ever-more inclusive responsibilities. This requires a commitment to prayer and a life of meaningful service in our actual historical situation. It is not life or prayer, not service or a true spiritual life. These items always go together in Teresa’s agenda.

However, for Teresa, the historical experience first takes place in prayer. She saw prayer every bit as part of our human experience as a form of service and ministry. For Teresa, there was no substitute for prayer in our pursuit of God which is the most real measurement of life’s true goal. We suffer drastic, and often destructive consequences, when we share in the common belief today that prayer is supplementary to the truly important issue of service to our brothers and sisters. Teresa is clear that prayer is a non-negotiable on our journey to God. Fraternal service needs to complement and be integrated with prayer.

For Teresa, prayer is part of life. In our day, there are many obstacles blinding us to the true importance of prayer. One must struggle to keep a genuine focus on the value of prayer in one’s life. Teresa clearly understood the pull of the ego to diminish the importance of prayer. Likewise, she was clear we have no authentic prayer without self-sacrifice and discipline.

Teresa sees prayer as the development of friendship and intimacy with God through the person of Jesus. The Carmelite Saint defines 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.” (Life Ch 8, 5) This is a skill that needs to be developed. This demands much work and sacrifice in the practice and growth in prayer. The following reflections will attempt to describe and encourage the use of the many guides Teresa offers to achieve a vital life of prayer.

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