Teresa of Avila

In the midst of the world’s turmoil, the start of a new week of unrest in the Middle East, political battles in Washington and other nations’ capitals, crime in the headlines and confusion in the culture…..today is the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila, and I wouldn’t have brought it up here except that knowing her and her writings so well, I thought she belonged squarely in the middle of the news day and the unrest. Because that’s where she spent much of her life even as a nun, and she gave about the best advice for dealing with it, which is why a lot of people flocked to her.

She’s the patron saint of headache sufferers, for one thing. And one of only three women declared Doctor of the Church, for her brilliant writings about faith and spirituality, and her own example of personal holiness. Despite those headaches, and lifelong trials and persecutions.

She was both so ordinary, and extraordinary.

Still, when the time came for her to choose between marriage and religious life, she had a tough time making the decision. She’d watched a difficult marriage ruin her mother. On the other hand being a nun didn’t seem like much fun. When she finally chose religious life, she did so because she thought that it was the only safe place for someone as prone to sin as she was.

But…

Teresa suffered the same problem that Francis of Assisi did — she was too charming. Everyone liked her and she liked to be liked. She found it too easy to slip into a worldly life and ignore God. The convent encouraged her to have visitors to whom she would teach mental prayer because their gifts helped the community economy. But Teresa got more involved in flattery, vanity and gossip than spiritual guidance. These weren’t great sins perhaps but they kept her from God.

Yes, folks, the Church has a colorful history. Teresa was one of its colorful characters. People today can well relate to her, like in her terrible struggles with basic prayer.

“I was more anxious for the hour of prayer to be over than I was to remain there. I don’t know what heavy penance I would not have gladly undertaken rather than practice prayer.” She was distracted often: “This intellect is so wild that it doesn’t seem to be anything else than a frantic madman no one can tie down.” Teresa sympathizes with those who have a difficult time in prayer: “All the trials we endure cannot be compared to these interior battles.”

Overcoming them produced one of her greatest works, one of today’s spiritual classics, Teresa’s “Interior Castle.”

My copy is all maked up, with underlining and highlighting and marginal notes. Though it was written for the nuns of her Discalced Carmelite Order, this classic has both practical and spiritual wisdom for everyone.

Here’s a random snip:

Let us look at our own shortcomings and leave other people’s alone; for those who live carefully ordered lives are apt to be shocked at everything and we might well learn very important lessons form the persons who shock us.

What a good pause for thought that is…

Our outward comportment and behaviour may be better than theirs, but this, though good, is not the most important thing: there is no reason why we should expect everyone else to travel by our own road, and we should not attempt to point them to the spiritual path when perhaps we do not know what it is. Even with these desires that God gives us to help others, sisters, we may make many mistakes, and thus it is better to attempt to do what our Rule tells us–to try to live ever in silence and in hope, and the Lord will take care of His own.

You can’t make others ‘see’ what they don’t see, no matter how well you elaborate the belief or promote the truth. But what others do see is how you conduct yourself. That’s what Teresa is saying, and I think that’s a far better way to break down barriers and change hearts and minds than what is currently being tried in politics and the culture.

Teresa is usually pictured with an open book and pen in hand. I think her writing speaks volumes to individuals today struggling with their own worldly trials. Here’s what she kept on her own bookmark:

Let nothing disturb you; 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.

Oh, and one more thing….At the end of “Interior Castle” Teresa tells the sisters that they can’t help everybody in the world, but they can do the work at hand and doing it well.

…I will end by saying that we must not build towers without foundations, and that the Lord does not look so much at the magnitude of anything we do as at the love with which we do it.