Monday, 10/15/12
Today is the feast of St. Teresa of Avila, one of our
Church’s greatest personalities. Born in Spain in 1515, she was one of ten
children. With the Inquisition having
questioned her grandfather about his Jewish roots;, her father; to establish
his orthodoxy, had purchased a title, and he forced his family to carry
themselves with great shows of devotion. That was hard on Teresa’s mother who
was a secret reader of romances. That mother died when Teresa was fifteen, and
her father, suspecting Teresa of having been in to something with his departed
wife, put her into a Carmelite convent. It was tough on Teresa, but she found
it more congenial than life with her father.
When she slipped into a coma in her late twenties, Teresa
heard the others talking about digging her grave. When she came out of that,
she made a strong effort at learning prayerful contemplation, but she was not
successful at it. Later she wrote, “I tried as hard as I could to keep Jesus
Christ present within me, but my imagination was dull, with no talent for
coming up with the right thoughts”
When she turned forty she met up with a priest who scolded
her for the poor approach she was making to prayer. That had her binding
herself to spending an hour at a time kneeling in silent prayer. She later
wrote about how she would shake her hourglass to get the grains of sand to move
through faster. But she stuck to it, and she came to a secure knowledge that
she was truly in the Lord’s presence.
Silent prayer became the most important thing to her. She
began wanting a convent life where the others were not just passing there time
amusing themselves. She was in her early fifties when she met the young
Carmelite priest, Father John of the Cross. Together they petitioned the head
of the Carmelite Order to let them found monasteries and convents where souls
could pursue mental prayer free from conversations and other distractions.
While they went about making contemplative foundations, each of them penned
invaluable writings on the secrets of reaching union with God in prayer,
If you have never achieved an exalted form of prayer, you
can at least enjoy the fact that others have, and that you still might. There
used to be a popular song named, “There Are Such Things.” It went like this, “Have
a little faith and trust in what tomorrow brings. You’ll reach the stars,
because there are such things.”
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