Yes, what a life it was! What a glorious life! Incredibly a close
walk with the Lord, and the recipient of favors from the Lord to a large
measure, which cannot be imagined by anyone living today!
Teresa was born in 1515 AD, at Avila, Spain, born into a
noble family. At the age of 21 she ran from home and joined the Incarnation of
the Carmelite nuns at Avila, without telling her father who was opposed to it.
Once she joined he relented. For three years she suffered from Malaria which
left her very sick and during that time she developed mental prayer to Jesus
Christ.
Once she was well, she started to practice her prayer life. As
she started to get divine visions and visitations, she was scared and upset thinking
these may be delusions from the devil and gave up her method of prayer and just
lived as a nun under very relaxed conditions of convents of those days. Almost
20 years passed when a priest to whom she confessed exhorted her to continue
these prayers, assuring her that these visions are not from the devil but from
Christ himself.
Thereafter she started to practice her prayers again and she
quickly started to receive divine favors, including visions, interior voices,
revelations, ecstasy, rapture and visitations of angels and Christ himself. She
was again plagued by doubts whether these are from the Lord or from Satan, who
was trying to deceive her! But she never gave up her prayer life this time.
In spite of all these heavenly favors, she felt that she was
a wicked person living on earth, worst sinner, and not in the least meriting
any such favors from the Lord. What genuine humility! It might have been harsh
self-criticism, but shows the caliber of a person of saintly nature.
St. Teresa, on being coaxed to write about her experiences
and her method of prayer writes her autobiography, which I happened to read
recently. She also wrote other books like “The Way of Perfection,” “The Interior
Castle,” “The Foundations” and “Meditations on the Songs.” Each one I am sure is
worthy of reading.
The Ascent of the soul through prayer, according to St.
Teresa, is achieved in four stages: Devotion of heart, where mental prayer,
contemplating on the passion of Christ is engaged in; next stage is Devotion of
Peace, where the will is completely surrendered to God; the third level is
Devotion of Union, where the soul becomes absorbed in the goodness of God and
is in a state of rapture submerged in the love of God and finally the Devotion
of Ecstasy, where the spirit almost leaves the body to commune with God,
inducing trance and even levitating.
The Protestant Christians may not even know about the existence
of St Teresa, for they shun anything Catholic, because of Reformation
literature and tradition. I would consider this attitude as a huge loss. Many
of St. Teresa’s experiences, her own Carmelite order considered as induced by
Satan and she was emotionally persecuted for the same. But for a few of her confessors
and their encouragement to her, we would have lost all these!
Even I used to have doubts whether these could be true! But the
Lord had assured St. Teresa that it was all from Him. If it were from the
Devil, there would be no peace and quiet produced in the soul. The soul would
be in turmoil and agony and be distraught.
More over every experience must be in conformity with the
Scripture. Hasn’t Paul the Apostle written about visions and revelations? In
the Second Epistle to Corinthians chapter 12, verse 2, he writes like this: ‘I
know a man in Christ …who was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in
the body or out of the body I do not know – God knows...this man … was caught
up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted
to tell.” It is about such favors that St. Teresa writes, having experienced
them herself.
Every religion has it mystics, Sufi saints of Islam, great
ascetic swamijis of Hinduism (not the 21st century swamijis
discredited with sex and money scandals!) and St. Teresa is the Spanish mystic
of the Roman Catholic church, belonging to the order of Carmelite convent.
St. Teresa was a Reformer of Catholic church during the movement
of Counter Reformation. Amidst strong opposition, founded 12 Reformed Carmelite
Order, St. Joseph’s Carmelite Monastery, all over Spain, where only 13 girls
were admitted as nuns and they took vows of absolute poverty, austerity,
contemplation, obedience and chastity. The monastery did not have financial
provision or endowment, but was only based on faith in the Almighty Provider. Today
they exist in almost all parts of the world, known for their piety, quite
contemplative life and social work.
How great it is even to think of such an order, where young
people would join just to lead a life of contemplation of Jesus Christ,
discarding the great materialistic attraction of the world and to live in
self-imposed privation and poverty! Admirable to say the least!
Along with St. John of the Cross, she founded Decalced Carmelite
order which could be called as Barefoot Carmelites, a Catholic mendicant order.
These are for men and women and are found today all over the world.
St. Teresa died in 1582, and forty years after her death she
was canonized and was also awarded the title of Doctor of Prayer for her
expositions on the methods and power of prayer.
It is not without effort she became such a great Saint. I
think she read almost all available literature on prayer and spiritual
discipline and ways of close walk with Jesus Christ, known as mystical theology,
written in Spanish or translated into Spanish.
She says in her autobiography, she used to think of Jesus
Christ as present within her and it was in that way she prayed. She says she
desired nothing neither the world nor anything that is worldly, and nothing
seemed to give her pleasure unless it came from Him. Everything else seemed to
her a heavy cross.
Her mental prayer was a sort of friendly communication and
frequent solitary converse with Him. She sought solitude and quiet where she
could concentrate on her Beloved. She used to imagine she was with Christ in
his loneliest of times, like in the Garden of Gethsemane and meditate on that,
which helped her to understand the severity of human sin and the great price
Jesus paid for it.
She further states that all these help to develop within us a
love of God entirely devoid of self-interest and that a person stats to desire
periods of solitude in order to have such times with Him alone. The soul is not
satisfied by the pleasures of the world and has no desire for them, because it
has found its joy in God. It is a life lived to please God and not man or the
world.
She never ceased from prayer; even when asleep, she writes,
she seemed to be praying, for this made her grow in love. The Lord had promised
her that He would readily do whatever she asked Him. Of course, she knew that
she would never ask Him anything which He would not grant. Hasn’t Jesus said in
the Gospel of John, chapter 16, verse 23, “…Very truly I tell you, My Father
will give you whatever you ask in my name.”
The Lord Jesus Christ had assured her, St. Teresa writes,
that He would never leave her and as a sign of His great love he said, “Now
thou art Mine and I am thine.” How great and what a wonderful life! Are we not
the Bride of Christ, getting ready for His Wedding Banquet?
Hasn’t the Lord said in the Gospel written by the Apostle John,
chapter 15, verse 4, “Abide in Me and I in You?” How wonderful it would be, if
we could learn how to abide in Him, as St. Teresa had learnt and have a close
walk with Him as Enoch in the Bible had lived! (Genesis 5:24).
God grant us this grace so we could learn to live a life
pleasing to the Lord Jesus Christ, as shown by these great souls.
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