Sta. Teresa de Avila

The Ecstasy of St. Teresa of Avila

Spending 16 years of my life studying in a Catholic school, I had grown to regard October as some kind of a holy month.  It is the month of the Holy Rosary, that time of the year when we would delight in having shorter class days because we prayed the Rosary as a whole academic community at the end of the day.  

Having worked with different religious congregations for a decade commencing on my late 20s, I've come to know and grown to appreciate two saints who are both associated with the Carmelites.  As they say, one's baptismal name carries one's identity. Perhaps, too, unlike the Ignatian spirituality which I also appreciate and where I grew in spiritual consciousness, there's something about the more feeling orientation of Carmelite spirituality that made me gravitate towards it.   

They are both Teresas - St. Therese of the Child Jesus whose feast falls on 1 October and Sta. Teresa de Avila whose feast we celebrate on 15 October.  These two St. Teresas are two of only four women in the list of 35 Doctors of the Church. (Talk about gender balance in the Church).  

Although both have been part of my inner journey at different junctures of my life, I feel a special affinity with Sta. Teresa de Avila perhaps because I see more of myself in her. My rebellious, wilder side finds a companion in Sta. Teresa of Avila, who apparently is also the patron paint of those who suffer from headaches.  She is said to have entered the convent by serendipity.  Being too much of a headache to her strict father because of her rebelliousness and preoccupation with boys and materialism, she was sent to the convent. It would take years before she would experience spiritual "conversion" but as they say nothing is ever late in God's time.  Her life reminds me that our journey is not a fragmented road of deadends but one of a continuous journey in which our past shapes us and how we will respond to God's unique call to each of us. 

Three things make it so easy for me to gravitate toward her. 

First, Sta. Teresa was not afraid to stand for what she believed to be God's invitation even if it meant going against social norms and religious traditions and losing friends and the approval of others.  She worked toward reforming the Carmelite order by founding a new convent, the Carmelites Discalced, which aimed to return to the essence of the life of poverty.  The part of me that wants to make this world a better place and that makes unconventional choices in the name of living a life of integrity and deep spirituality resonates with this side of Sta. Teresa. 

When I feel drawn to complacency and apathy, I turn to these words of Sta. Teresa:  

Christ has no body on earth but yours; no hands but yours; no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ must look out on the world. Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which He is to bless His people. 

Second, she sees prayer as a personal relationship with God as opposed to a mere recitation of standard prayers.  Once when I was stuck in my prayer life, my spiritual director introduced me to a way of contemplating and praying attributed to Sta. Teresa - to simply be in the presence of Christ crucified looking at me, lovingly. 

For me, nothing captures this very personal element in her prayer as her description of a contemplation:

"... Beside me, on the left hand, appeared an angel in bodily form... He was not tall but short, and very beautiful; and his face was so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest rank of angels, who seem to be all on fire... In his hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times ... and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, nor is one's soul then content with anything but God. This is not a physical, but a spiritual pain, though the body has some share in it-even a considerable share ..."  

(http://www.artble.com/artists/gian_lorenzo_bernini/sculpture/the_ecstasy_of_saint_theresa) 

This contemplation would become the basis of the famous marble sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini at the Santa Maria Della Vittoria church in Rome. Aptly called The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, the sculpture and the contemplation from which it was based reflects her humanness, the influence of her past, and how she has made prayer as something that happens in the real world of flesh and blood rather than a mere cognitive exercise.  The Mystic in her touches me deep down. 

Third, and related to the second, she believed in nurturing one's interior life.  In her work, Interior Castle, she likened the interior journey to a journey through a castle, each gate leading to a deeper part of the Self and each one inviting us to face different aspects of the Self where at the core we find the God within. 

When I find myself trapped in what seem to be tunnels without end, I seek solace in God through this prayer of Sta. Teresa:  

Let nothing disturb you; 

Let nothing frighten you. 

All things are passing. 

God never changes. 

Patience obtains all things. 

Nothing is wanting to him who possesses God. 

God alone suffices.

(Photo taken from Google photos)