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 Saint
Teresa of Avila
by
Linda
Douty
Portrait of Saint Teresa of Avila by Sally
Markell
I
never expected a sixteenth century saint to enter my twentieth
century
spiritual journey. After all, my United Methodist background contained
no exposure to historical Catholic figures like St. Teresa of
Avila.
Yet it seemed that every time I turned around, there she was again,
with an unexpected word to expand my idea of God or chart the
next
step of spiritual growth for me.
One
of my mentors pointed out
that St. Teresa seemed to “expose my spiritual growing edge.”
I suppose she spoke a timeless
sacred language that had a way of jolting me into the growing awareness
that God and I were not separate. Though I had been
brought up to say my prayers to God, the Divine Other…to
“lift up” my prayers, as if to some far off heavenly
realm, St. Teresa spoke of God in ways that exploded those concepts.
She
talked of relationship, connection, communion—a
constant interplay between doctrine and experience. When she
spoke of the
indwelling of the Holy - and of herself as dwelling in God
- she expressed it in powerful metaphors:
It
seemed to me there came the thought of how a sponge absorbs
and is saturated with water; so, I thought, was my soul, which
was
overflowing with that divinity and in a certain way rejoicing
within itself and possessing the three Persons. I also heard
the words:
“Don’t try to hold ME within yourself, but try to hold
yourself within Me.”
Though
her style was often rambling and unsophisticated, her mystical
experience was unmistakable.
Oddly enough, the intensity
of her
prayer life did not lead her to cloistered isolation, but
into vigorous action and service, despite a lifetime of illness
and adversity.
She is remembered not only for her passionate metaphors
but
also for championing reforms within the Carmelite order.
Teresa
was born in Avila, Spain, in 1515 during tumultuous times.
She had to deal with the Spanish Inquisition, the
Protestant
Reformation,
and a culture in which the theological opinions of women
were thought to be absolutely worthless. Very early, she
began to
feel an attraction
to the religious life, but she was her father's favorite,
and he was unwilling to allow her to enter the convent.
However, Teresa
followed her own yearnings, and at age 20, she ran away
from home and entered the Carmelite Monastery in Avila. Later
her
father grudgingly
gave his blessing, so she could be openly enthusiastic
about
her new life.
But
her troubles were not behind her. At age 23, she fell severely
ill—with no discernible cause. She
was forced
to leave the
cloister
to undergo experimental and drastic treatments, which
almost killed her. One can only imagine what "experimental" might
have meant in the 1500s. Though she survived the ordeal,
she suffered
the rest of her life from complications of that experience.
Teresa also experienced ups and downs in her spiritual
life, largely as a result of guilt-based theology and
ideas about
human depravity
that still exist in the minds of many today. At age 39,
however, she experienced a transformation that gave her
a new kind
of freedom
in Christ and a new outlook on life. Though a mystic,
she went on to lead an extremely active life as a teacher,
reformer in the Catholic
Church, poet, and author.
Her
most famous work, The Interior Castle, came to her in
a vision in 1577. She “saw” a
magnificent crystal globe like a castle in which there were
seven dwelling places. In the seventh,
in the center, was the King of Glory. This seventh
room, one of complete union with God, is expressed in language
reminiscent
of
the Song of Songs, in which the relationship is likened
to spiritual marriage. The fruit of this mystical connection
is the strength
to live in service to God and neighbor.
The
rooms in the castle depicted spiritual conditions along the journey
that
have illuminated the path for
seekers
for almost
five
hundred years. However, it was another of her images
that painted the spiritual landscape in vivid colors
for me.
Her descriptions
of the life of prayer (and consequently of personal
growth) became for me more an experience than an
idea, something
that could
only
be seen in retrospect. I had to live into it rather
than merely understand it. So, in a way, I “borrowed” her
image and made it my own. Here’s the way I
experienced it.
- When
we get serious about our spiritual journeys, we expend a great
deal of effort. We are obsessed with trying harder. Teresa imagined
a field that needed watering (our spiritual state in need of nurture).
In the first stage of spiritual growth, it is as if we are dragging
a heavy oaken bucket, dipping it into a well, hauling the water
up, bucket by bucket, and watering the field. This represents
the condition where we try desperately to please God, to obey
the rules, to get it right for God.
- In
the second stage, our prayer and progress lead us to notice
a stream running
beside the
field. All
we have
to do
is drag
the
oaken bucket through the water and haul it
to the field and water it. A little easier, but we still
control
the pace
through our
own
efforts. That is, we decide what tasks and
projects we will undertake, what the content of our prayer
will be,
how we
will nurture our
spiritual lives and be pleasing to God.
- In
the third stage, we become aware of a gate at the end of
the field that opens to an
irrigation system.
All we have
to
do is fling
the gate open, and the water comes pouring
into water the field. It seems that God meets us with
grace so
nurturing
and powerful
that we have only to open ourselves to
it. Our faith journey becomes
not so much what we can do for God, but
what God can do through
us, for us, in us.
- In
the final stage, we merely stand in the rain. When I first
internalized
the image
of standing
in a cleansing
rain,
immersed
in the saving love of God through no
effort of my own, I was overcome
with the realization that Divine Love
didn’t
require my effort. It was not dependent
on my deserving. It was truly, profoundly,
eternally unconditional.
Thanks
to St. Teresa of Avila, I finally got it.
©2006 Linda Douty. |
