October XV

St. Teresa, Virgin

foundress of the reformation of the barefooted carmelites.

The life of St. Teresa, written by herself, holds the first place in the church among books of this kind after the Confessions of St. Austin, says Baillet. The French translation of this work published by Abbe Chanut, in 1691, is far preferable to that which was the last production of D’Andilly in his old age, in 1670, and to that of F. Cyprian in 1657. The saint finished this work in 1562, twenty years before her death; she afterwards added to it a relation of the foundation of her convent at Avila. In this book we have the history of her life to the reformation of her order, with an account of the visions, &c. she received during the three first years she was favored with such graces; those which she continued frequently to receive from that time to the end of her life were never published by her, except some things through the channel of persons whom she consulted. The history which she wrote of her Foundations furnishes us, however, with a continuation of her life till within two years, or a year and a half, before her death. F. Ribera, a Jesuit, well known by his learned comments On the Twelve Lesser Prophets, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Apocalypse, who had been sometimes confessarius of the saint, wrote her life with great care and fidelity. The same was also written soon after by Didacus Yepez, bishop of Tarragona, confessor to king Philip II., and sometimes to St. Teresa, with whom he frequently conversed and corresponded during the space of fourteen years. See also the Epistles of St. Teresa published by bishop Palafox in four tomes. We have her own life and her other works, except her letters, translated into English by Mr. Abr. Woodhead, in two vols. 4 to. 1669. Also an abstract of her own Life and Foundations by R. C. in 1757. Her life is compiled in French by M de Villefort.

a. d. 1582.

The humble relation which St. Teresa has left us of her own life, in obedience to her confessors, is the delight of devout persons, not on account of the revelations and visions there recorded, but because in it are laid down the most perfect maxims by which a soul is conducted in the paths of obedience, humility, and self-denial, and especially of prayer and an interior life. St. Teresa was born at Avila in Old Castile, on the 28th of March, 1515. Her father, Alphonsus Sanchez of Cepeda, was a gentleman of a good family, and had three children by a first wife, and nine by a second. The name of the latter was Beatrice Ahumada, mother to our saint, another daughter, and seven sons. Don Alphonsus delighted much in reading good books, with which he was well stocked; he was also very charitable to the poor, compassionate to the sick, and tender towards his servants; remarkable for his strict veracity, modesty, and chastity, and very averse from detraction and swearing. Our saint’s mother, likewise, was very virtuous, suffered much from frequent sickness, and died happily at the age of three-and-thirty, when Teresa was twelve years old. By the means of the pious instructions and example of her parents, God inclined the tender heart of Teresa from her infancy to his service. Being only seven years old she took great pleasure in reading the lives of the saints, and other pious books, in which she spent much time with a little brother called Rodrigo, who was near of the same age. They were much amazed at the thought of eternity, and learned already to despise all that passes with time. With feeling sentiments they used to repeat often together: “Forever, forever, forever;” and admiring the victories of the saints, and the everlasting glory which they now possess, they said to one another: “What! forever they shall see God.” The martyrs seemed to them to have bought heaven very cheap by their torments; and after many conferences together on this subject, they resolved to go into the country of the Moors, in hopes of dying for their faith. They set out privately with great fervor, praying as they went that God would inspire them with his holy love, that they might lay down their lives for Christ: but, upon the bridge over the Adaja, near the town, they were met by an uncle, and brought back to their mother, who was in the greatest frights, and had sent to seek them. They were chid by their parents for their unadvised project, and Rodrigo laid all the blame on his sister. Teresa continued the same course, and used often to say to herself; “O Eternity! Eternity! Eternity!” She gave to the poor all the alms she could, though this was very little: and studied to do all the good works in her power. The saint and the same little brother formed a design to become hermits at home, and built themselves little hermitages with piles of stones in the garden, but could never finish them. Teresa sought to be much alone, and said very long prayers with great devotion, especially the Rosary; for her mother inspired her tender soul with a singular devotion to the Blessed Virgin. She had in her room a picture of our Saviour discoursing with the Samaritan woman at the well, with which she was much delighted, and she often addressed those words to our Saviour with great earnestness: “Lord, give me of that water;” meaning that of his grace and holy love. In the twelfth year of her age, upon the death of her mother, in great grief, she threw herself upon her knees before a picture of the Blessed Virgin, and besought her, with many tears, that she would vouchsafe to be her mother. The saint adds, that this action, which she did with great simplicity, she thought afterwards very profitable to her; and found the Blessed Virgin favorable to her in all her requests, and looked upon herself as much indebted to her intercession for the great mercy by which God was pleased to bring her back to a sense of her duty after she had begun to go astray. She aggravates exceedingly her own malice, by which she had been ungrateful to so great and so early favors she had received from God in her tender age; she never ceased to grieve that she should have ever defiled the tabernacle of her heart, in which he was to dwell forever, and to thank his goodness for having called her back into the path of her duty, begging that he would be pleased to conduct her soul to eternal salvation.

The most dangerous snare into which she fell was that of idle books, and vain company. Romances,* or fabulous histories of knight-errantry, were at that time much in fashion in Spain. Teresa got hold of some such books a little before her mother died, and began to read them much more after her death, though always unknown to her father, who would have been highly provoked. About that time, a certain cousin-german, a worldly young woman, addicted to vanity, and fond of reading such books, began to vis her, and by her conversation wrought such a change in Teresa, that, forgetting the greatest part of her former devotions, she spent several hours both of the day and night in reading romances with great pleasure. She began at the same time to curl and trim her hair, to use perfumes, to love fine clothes, and the like, out of a desire of pleasing others, though without any bad intention; for she would not for the world have given to any one an occasion of offending God. She continued some years without imagining there was in this any sin; but she afterwards found it was a great one. None but this kinswoman and some other near relations were allowed by the father to visit his daughter; but even these proved dangerous company to her; and she listened to them with pleasure in their discourse on vanities, toys, and follies, never criminal, yet not good. Thus she gradually fell off from her fervour during three months. Her father perceived her to be much changed, and her devotion cooled. She laments grievously this her dangerous fall, and from her own fatal experience, earnestly conjures all parents to watch over their children, that they may never fall into idle, vain, and dangerous company, or such books; for if she had not dashed against these two rocks, she thinks she should have always increased in fervor, instead of falling back. Ribera, from his strictest examination of the saint, assures us, that she could not be thought to have incurred the danger of any mortal sin; for this reading and company, though very dangerous, did not appear to her any more than an innocent amusement; so that her simplicity extenuated the fault. Bishop Yepez¹ makes this evident from what the saint herself acknowledges,² notwithstanding her inclination to exaggerate this offence: saying, that though she was delighted with agreeable conversation and diversions, she had always an extreme horror of any open evil; but she exposed herself to the danger, and therefore condemns herself so severely attributing her preservation from falling down the precipice to God’s pure mercy and assistance, in preserving in her heart a great sense of the honor of virtue. She indeed says,³ that notwithstanding her confessors judged nothing in these actions could have amounted to the guilt of a mortal sin, she afterwards understood them to have been mortal sins; where she expresses her own apprehensions. For those vanities and books were dangerous occasions of greater evils than she was aware of. When she fell into these faults, she confessed them, for she always confessed during the lukewarm period of her life all known venial sins, as she assures us. After her perfect conversion, her timorous conscience and vehement compunction made her speak of these sins in stronger terms than her confessors approved; and she testifies that she desired to say much more on this subject, to publish to the whole world her ingratitude against God, had they not forbid her. Her father took notice that her devotion was much cooled, and not being able handsomely to forbid this vain relation his house, he placed his daughter, who was then fifteen years of age, in a very regular convent of Austin nuns in Avila, where many young ladies of her quality were educated. Teresa found a separation from her companions grievous; but as her attachments proceeded only from the natural affectionate disposition of her heart, they were soon forgot, and a secret sentiment of honor and of her reputation made her disguise this repugnance. From the precaution which her father had taken, she saw that her fault had been greater than she imagined, and began severely to condemn herself for it. The first eight days in the convent seemed tedious to her; but having by that time forgot her former amusements, and broken the ties she had contracted in the world, she began to be pleased with her new situation. A devout nun, who was mistress of the pensioners, used frequently to instil into her mind serious reflections on virtue, and repeated often to her that dreadful truth: Many are called but few are chosen. By the discourse and counsels of this servant of God, Teresa recovered her fervor, and earnestly recommended herself to the prayers of the nuns that God would place her in that state in which she might be likely to serve him best: though she had not then the courage to desire to be a nun herself; for the thoughts of a perpetual engagement affrighted her.

After a year and half spent in this convent, the saint fell dangerously sick, and her father took her home. When she had recovered her health she went to see her eldest sister in the country, who tenderly loved her; and calling to see an uncle, her father’s brother, was detained by him some time His name was Peter Sanchez of Cepeda: he was a widower, and a very discreet and pious man. He lived retired in the country, where he employed his time in his devotions, and in reading good books. He gave several to Teresa to read, and his discourse was most commonly of God, and of the vanity of the world. When she returned to her father’s house, she began for some time to deliberate with herself about embracing a religious state of life. She at first thought the convent of the Austin nuns where she had lived, too severe, and was inclined to choose a house in which she had a particular great friend; by which circumstance she afterwards feared she had then more regard to the subtle gratification of a secret sensual satisfaction and vanity, than to the greater spiritual advancement of her soul. After a violent fever at home, (for she had often bad health,) she was determined, by reading St. Jerom’s epistles, to become a nun. Her father would by no means give his consent; but said, that after his death she might dispose of herself as she pleased. The saint fearing from former experience she might again relapse, though she felt an excessive severe interior conflict in leaving her dear father, went privately to the convent of the incarnation of the Carmelite nuns without the walls of Avila, where her great friend, sister Jane Suarez, lived, though at that time she says she sought only the good of her soul, making no account at all of rest or ease. Upon her taking the habit, God changed the dryness under which she had labored for some time into an extreme tenderness of devotion, and all her religious observances gave her great delight. While she was sweeping the house, or employed in other such actions, the remembrance that she had formerly spent those hours in dressing herself, or in other vanities, overwhelmed her heart with such an extraordinary joy as amazed her. But during her novitiate she felt many severe interior trials, notwithstanding her constant great contentment in this state. She made her profession with extraordinary fervor in November, 1534, in the twentieth year of her age. A sickness, which seized her before her profession, increased very much on her after it, with frequent fits of fainting and swooning, and a violent pain at her heart, which sometimes deprived her of her senses. Physicians finding no remedy for her extraordinary case, her father got her removed out of her convent, in which the law of enclosure was not then established. Sister Jane Suarez bore her company, and she remained partly at her sister’s in the country, and partly at Bazeda, almost a year, in the hands of certain able physicians. Their medicines served only to increase her distempers, insomuch, that for the space of three months she suffered such excessive torments, with a continual burning fever, that her sinews began to shrink up, and she could take no rest either day or night. She was also oppressed with a profound sadness of mind. Her father, after this, caused her to be brought to his own house, where the physicians gave her over; for her distempers had then terminated in a hectic fever, and her sharp pains never left her, and afflicted her all over from head to foot. God, however, gave her incredible patience; and she was much comforted by reading the book of Job, with St. Gregory’s Morals or Commentary, and had often in her mouth some of the aspirations of holy Job which expressed his resignation to God. She at length, in August, 1537, lay near four days in a trance or lethargic coma, during which time it was expected that every moment would be her last. It being once imagined that she was dead, a grave was dug for her in the convent, and she would have been buried, if nei father had not opposed it, and testified that he still perceived in her body certain symptoms of life. Through excess of pain she had bit her tongue in many places, when out of her senses; and for a considerable time she could not swallow so much as a drop of water, without almost choking Sometimes her whole body seemed as if the bones were disjointed in every part, and her head was in extreme disorder and pain. She could neither stir hand, nor foot, nor head, nor any other part, except, as she thought, one finger of her right hand. She was so sore, that she could not bear any one to touch her in any part, and she had often a great loathing of all food. Her pains being somewhat abated, she so earnestly desired to return to her monastery, that she was carried thither, though her body seemed reduced to skin and bone, and worse than dead, through the pain she endured. She continued thus above eight months, and remained a cripple near three years.

The saint endured these sufferings with great conformity to the holy will of God, and with much alacrity and joy. Under these afflictions she was much helped by the prayer which she had then begun to use. When, in the beginning of this sickness, she was taken out of her convent, and soon after carried into the country, her devout uncle Peter put into her hands a little book of F. Ossuna, called The Third Alphabet, treating on the prayer of recollection and quiet. Taking this book for her master, she applied herself to mental prayer, according to the manner prescribed in it, was favored with the gift of tears, and of the prayer of Quiet, (in which the soul rests in the divine contemplation, so as to forget all earthly things,) and sometimes, though not for a longer space than an Ave Maria at a time, she arrived at the prayer of Union, in which all the powers of the soul are absorbed in God. However, for want of an experienced instructor, she made little progress, was not able to hold any discourses in her understanding, or to meditate without a book, her mind being immediately distracted. Yet she was wonderfully delighted with this holy meditation, and received a heavenly light, in which she saw clearly the nothingness of all earthly things, looked upon the whole world as under her feet, and beneath the regard of a soul, and pitied all persons who vainly pursue its empty bubbles. The paralytic disorder in which her fevers, violent headaches, and convulsions and contractions of her sinews had terminated, began so far to be abated, that she was able to crawl upon her hands and feet. After three years’ suffering, she was perfectly restored to her health; and she afterwards understood that she had received of God this favor and many others, through the intercession of the glorious St. Joseph, which she had humbly and earnestly implored.⁴ She declares, that she trembled exceedingly, and praised and thanked the divine mercy with all the powers of her soul, as often as she remembered that “God might have bereaved her of life, when she was in a dangerous state: and I think,” says she, “I may safely add a thousand times, though I be blamed by him who commanded me to use moderation in the recital of my sins. I have disguised them enough. I beseech him for God’s sake that he will not extenuate my faults; for by them the great goodness of God is more manifested, since he so long beareth an unfaithful soul. Praise be to Him forever. May he rather annihilate me, than I should ever hereafter cease to love himself.”⁵ Her confessor, by whose order she wrote, knew her great propensity to magnify her faults; for which reason he gave her this charge. If, when she was arrived at the most perfect purity of heart and divine love she could discern such faults and dangers in her soul, at a time while she seemed already a saint in the eyes of men, and received the gift of supernatural prayer, and other eminent virtues, how much ought we to fear in our ukewarm state, and excite ourselves to watchfulness and compunction? St. Teresa attributes the good opinion which others then had of her to her own cunning and hypocrisy, though she acknowledges that she was never designedly guilty of any dissimulation, having always abhorred such a baseness. Two great means by which she preserved her soul from many difficulties and snares were her constant and tender charity and goodness towards all persons, by which she always gained the esteem and good-will of all those with whom she lived or conversed; secondly, an extreme dread and abhorrence of the least shadow of detraction, insomuch, that no one durst in the least reflect on any other person in her presence, and from her infancy she had had this rule always before her eyes, in discoursing of others to speak of them in the same manner she would desire others should speak of her.

Who ought not always to tremble for himself, and excite himself by humility and holy fear to watch continually, with the utmost attention, over his own heart, to apply himself with his whole strength to all his duties, and with the greatest earnestness to call in Omnipotence to his assistance, since this holy virgin, after receiving so many favors from God, fell again from her fervor and devotion? Her prudence and other amiable qualifications gained her the esteem of all that knew her. An affectionate and grateful disposition inclined her to make an obliging return to the civilities which others showed her. And, finding herself agreeable to company, she began to take delight in it, by which she lost that love of retirement which is the soul of a religious or interior life, and in which she had been accustomed to spend almost her whole time in prayer and pious reading. By an irregular custom of her convent she seemed authorized to indulge this dangerous inclination, and spent much time in conversing with seculars at the grate or door of the monastery, and she contracted an intimacy with one whose company was particularly dangerous to her. Such conversation, besides a great loss of time, dissipated her mind, and infused earthly affections and inclinations, which do infinite mischief to a soul whose affections are or ought to be spiritual, and expose her to the utmost dangers. Teresa therefore began to neglect mental prayer, and even persuaded herself that this was a part of humility, as her dissipated life rendered her unworthy to converse so much, or so familiarly with God, by mental prayer. So subtle is the devil in his snares, knowing that no virtuous person can be deceived but under the appearance or cover of good. Teresa also said to herself there could be no danger of sin in what so many others did, more virtuous than she was, who received frequent visits of secular persons in the parlor. The remonstrances which a senior nun made to her on the impossibility of reconciling so much dissipation of mind and worldly conversation with the spirit and obligations of a religious life, were not sufficient to open her eyes.

One day, while she was conversing at the grate with a new acquaintance she seemed to see our Lord, who represented himself to the eyes of her soul with much rigor in his countenance, testifying that her conduct displeased him. She took this for the effect of imagination, and being much importuned to it, still persuaded herself, by the example of others, that there could be no harm in so much exterior conversation, and that no damage resulted from it to her soul. She grievously accuses herself of this fault, and of her blindness in shutting her eyes to many warnings and inspirations, by which she ought to have been made sensible of so great an evil, which she conjures all religious persons to beware of. Her father had been induced by her, when she first learned the use of mental prayer, to apply himself earnestly to it, as to the great means of acquiring all perfect interior virtues and within five or six years he was much improved by that holy exercise He often called to see her, and to converse with her on spiritual things He thought she assiduously conversed with God, as she had formerly done when she had lived a year or more in that state of dissipation, having left off mental prayer, contenting herself with only vocal, of which she says: “This was the greatest and worst temptation that ever I had; for by this means I ran headlong upon my own ruin.”⁶ At length finding her father’s mistake, she disabused him, telling him she no longer used mental prayer for which she alleged the frequent infirmities to which she was subject But she adds: “This reason of bodily weakness was not a sufficient cause to make me give over so good a thing, which requires not corporeal strength, but only love and custom. In the midst of sickness the best of prayer may be made; and it is a mistake to think that it can only be made in solitude.” Her father, out of the good opinion he had of her, looked upon her excuse as just, and pitied her, because she had enough to do to be able to attend the choir. In 1539, she suffered a great affliction in the loss of her good father, whom she always loved with the most dutiful and tender affection. Though ill herself, she went out of her monastery to assist him in his last sickness, and strained very hard to do him all the service, and procure him all the comfort she was able. Giving great praise to the divine mercy for him, she has left us an edifying account of his preparation for his last passage; and mentions the desire which he had to leave this world, and the good advice he gave, to his children, and all that were about him, whom he charged earnestly to recommend his soul to God, faithfully to serve him themselves, and to have constantly before their eyes that all this world must come to an end. He added with many tears how much he was grieved at the heart for not having served God with greater fervor. His sickness began with a very grievous pain in the shoulders. St. Teresa old him, that since he had been much devoted to the mystery of our Saviour carrying his cross, he would do well to conceive that Christ, in his great mercy, had been pleased to give him a feeling of some part of that suffering. With this consideration he was so much comforted, that he mentioned his pain no more, nor did he ever let fall the least word of complaint. He expired while he was saying the creed. His confessor, F. Vincent Barron, or Varron, a learned and pious Dominican friar, whom Teresa at that time also made use of, took pains to make her understand that her soul was in a dangerous way, and that she must not fail to make use of mental prayer. She therefore began to use it again, in the twenty-fourth year of her age, and from that time never left it. Yet for a long time she continued still to pursue her amusements of worldly dissipation, and receiving visits at the grate, as if she had a mind to reconcile two contraries which are so much at enmity with one another; a spiritual life and sensual pastimes, or the spirit of God and that of the world. The use she made of prayer made her see these faults; yet she had not courage to follow God perfectly, or entirely to renounce secular company. Describing the situation of her divided soul at that time, she says that she neither enjoyed the sweetness of God, nor the satisfactions of the world; for amidst her amusements, the remembrance of what she owed to God gave her pain, and while she was conversing with God in prayer, worldly inclinations and attachments disturbed her. Yet God was pleased often to visit her in her devotions with sweet consolation; and to bestow upon her great favors, even in that very time of her life when she offended him most, namely, by her frequent amusing conversations with seculars, contrary to the recollection and spirit which her state required.

This goodness of God towards her, notwithstanding her sloth and rebellions, was to her a subject of continual astonishment, and a motive of the strongest love and most feeling gratitude. “Hence,” says she, “proceeded my tears, together with a grievous indignation which I conceived agains myself, when I considered what a wretched creature I was; for I saw that I was still upon the point of falling again, though my purposes and desires of amendment (as long as those favors lasted) seemed to be firm and strong I should be glad that all such persons as may read this account of my proceedings should abhor me, seeing my soul so obstinate and ungrateful towards him who had vouchsafed me so great favors. And I wish I could get leave to declare the multitude of times that I failed in my obligation to God in this number of years, because I was not supported by the strong pillar of mental prayer. I passed through this tempestuous sea almost twenty years, between these fallings and risings, though I rose very imperfectly, since I so soon relapsed.” These relapses are meant of those venial sins and imperfections which stopped her progress in the divine service. She adds, that as she was obliged to write this account with exact and entire truth, she must acknowledge, that within this term there were many months, and perhaps a whole year, that she gave, herself much to prayer, without relapsing into vain amusements; but, because she remembered little of these good days, she believed they were few; though few days passed in which she had not given a considerable time to mental prayer; and the worse she was in health, the more her soul was united to God, and she procured that those who were with her might be so too, and they spoke often of God. Thus, out of twenty-eight years which had passed when she wrote this, since she began to employ herself diligently in mental prayer, except that one year in which she laid it aside, she spent more than eighteen in this strife. Bishop Yepez assures us, from his own knowledge of the saint’s interior, and demonstrates from her own words,⁷ that she passed these eighteen years in frequent trials of spiritual dryness, intermin gled with intervals of heavenly consolation in prayer; and that these faults and dangers, which she continually deplores and extremely exaggerates, consisted chiefly in serious entertainments with affectionate visitants, to which the sweetness of her temper, and the goodness of her heart, inclined her, and which her confessors at that time approved and recommended though she discovered them to be obstacles to her spiritual perfection and prayer. She conjures every one, for the love of God, to be assiduous in endeavoring to obtain and cherish the spirit of prayer, and adds the most pathetic exhortations that no one deprive himself of so great a good, in which nothing is to be feared, but much to be desired. By mental prayer we learn truly to understand the way to heaven; and this is the gate through which God conveys himself, and his graces and favors, into our souls. Nobody ever made choice of God for a friend, whom his Divine Majesty did not well requite for his pains. For mental prayer is a treaty of friendship with God, and a frequent and private communication with him, by whom we know we are beloved.” And they who love him not yet must force themselves to be much in his company by prayer, and pass on through this gate till they arrive at his love. “I do not see how God can come to us,” says the saint, “or enrich us with his graces, if we shut the door against him. Though he is infinitely desirous to communicate himself to us with all his gifts, he will have our hearts to be found disengaged, alone, and burning with a desire to receive him. O Joy of the angels, my Lord, and my God, I cannot think of conversing with you without desiring to melt like wax in the fire of your divine love, and to consume all that is earthly in me by loving you. How infinite is your goodness to bear with, and even caress those who are imperfect and bad: recompense the short time they spend with you, and, upon their repentance, blot out their faults. This I experienced in myself. I do not see why all men do not approach you, to share in your friendship. Even the wicked, whose affections have no conformity to your spirit, ought to approach you, that they may become good, even though they at first abide with you sometimes with a thousand distractions, as I did, &c. Since our Lord suffered so wicked a creature as myself so long a time, and all my miseries were redressed by this means of prayer, what person, how wicked soever, can find any thing to fear in this exercise? For how wicked soever any person may have been, he will never have been so bad as I was, after having received such great favors from our Lord,” &c.⁸ The saint says, that during the time of her most slothful dispositions, she was never tired with hearing sermons, though ever so bad; but that she was a long time before she perfectly understood that all endeavors are good for nothing, unless first we strip ourselves entirely of all confidence in ourselves, and place it wholly in God alone. This foundation of a spirit of prayer is seldom sufficiently laid; so apt is pride imperceptibly to persuade us that there is something in us of strength, or by which we deserve the divine compassion.

After twenty years thus spent in the imperfect exercise of prayer, and with many defects, the saint found a happy change in her soul. One day, going into the oratory, seeing a picture of our Saviour covered with wounds in his passion, she was exceedingly moved, so that she thought her very heart was ready to burst. Casting herself down near the picture, and pouring forth a flood of tears, she earnestly besought our Lord to strengther her, that she might never more offend him. She had long been accustomed every night, before she composed herself to rest, to think on our Lord’s prayer in the garden, and bloody sweat, and was particularly affected with that mystery. From this time she made the sufferings of Christ the ordinary object of her interior conversation with him during the day and night. Being particularly devoted to St. Mary Magdalen, she was delighted to place herself in spirit with her at the feet of Jesus, earnestly beseeching her Redeemer not to despise her tears. She always found particular comfort in those saints who, after having been sinners, were converted to our Lord, hoping that by their means he would forgive her, as he had done them. Only this reflection discouraged her—that he called them once, and they returned no more to sin; whereas, she had so often relapsed, which afflicted her to the very heart; but the consideration of the love our Lord bore her, made her always confide entirely in his mercy. St. Austin who was an admirable penitent, and the patron of the first nunnery in which she had lived, was one of those saints towards whom she was most tenderly affected. In reading his confessions, in the twentieth year of her age, she applied to herself that voice by which his conversion ‘was wrought, in so lively a manner as to remain for a considerable time even dissolved, as it were, in tears, with very great affliction and anguish; and she prayed with the greatest earnestness that our Lord would hear her cries, have regard to so many tears, and have compassion on her miseries. From that time she withdrew herself more than ever from all occasions of vain amusements and dissipations, and gave her time more entirely to the exercises of compunction and divine love. The saint had scarce formed her resolution of serving God perfectly, when he vouchsafed to visit her soul with new and extraordinary consolations and favors, regaling her with heavenly sweetness in great abundance: for she tells us he did not require, as in others, that she should have disposed herself for such favors, but only that she was content to receive them. “I never presumed,” says she, “to desire that he should give me so much as the least tenderness of devotion; I begged only for grace never to offend him, and for pardon of my past sins; and I never durst deliberately desire any spiritual delights. It was an infinite mercy that he would suffer me to appear in his presence. Only once in my whole life, being in great spiritual dryness, I desired him to afford me some little spiritual support; out as soon as I had reflected what I had done, I was filled with confusion, and the grief I felt for my want of humility obtained for me that which I had presumed to beg.” The saint, before she gives an account of the supernatural favors she had received, conjures her confessor, Garzia de Toledo, (by whose order, and to whom she wrote this relation,) entirely to conceal all she says on that head, and publish only her sins, imperfections, and the indifferent actions of her life.⁹

Describing the state of her soul, with regard to her manner of prayer, she says she began to consider Christ as present in her soul, in the same manner as she had been accustomed to do after communion; thus she entertained herself with him in her ordinary actions, and in mental prayer. From the twentieth year after she had first applied herself to this exercise, she made little use of interior discoursing or reasoning to inflame her affections; the intuitive consideration of any motive or object immediately raising in her heart the most ardent acts of divine love, thanksgiving, compunction, or earnest applications.* The tenderness of her love, and her feeling sense of her own wants, formed her a prayer without studied or chosen words, of long reasoning and reflection in meditation. St. Teresa says she had been before accustomed to feel often a tender heavenly sweetness in her devotions; but at this time her soul began to be frequently raised by God to the sublimer degrees of supernatural passive prayer. For she observes that the servants of divine love, in which they chiefly advance by prayer, arrive not on a sudden at the highest degree of prayer. True love is a precious gift, and the soul must be more and more prepared and disposed as she advances. The gift of prayer and an interior life have difficulties to be overcome, which cost much to flesh and blood, especially in the beginning of first steps by which a soul is prepared to receive it.

St. Teresa distinguishes four degrees in mental prayer. In the first, the soul applies herself to holy meditation, for which a calm state of mind and a retired place are necessary, and the life of Christ one of the first and most important subjects. No state of dryness or difficulties from distractions must make a person lay it aside: he is not to seek his own satisfaction, and ought to be content with humbling himself before God, and knowing that his divine majesty regards the desire of our hearts to love him, and knows and compassionates our miseries and weakness more than we ourselves can do. We must be willing to bear our cross, to pay as well as to receive: and the saint says¹⁰ she afterwards experienced that one hour of consolations abundantly paid, even in this life, for all the crosses she had sustained. Our desire ought to be ever to acquiesce in the will of God, to rejoice in carrying our cross with our Lord, and sincerely to acknowledge ourselves infinitely unworthy to be admitted into the divine presence, much more to receive the least drop of the dew of his consolations, which only the pure excess of his infinite goodness could ever bestow on the most unworthy of his creatures, out of mere condescension to their weakness, which engages him by these sensible caresses to overcome their obstinacy, and draw them to his love. St. Teresa assigns the second degree of prayer to be that of Quiet, in which the powers of the soul are recollected, but not absorbed in God; the will or affections being strongly captivated in God, and employed in acts of love, and the understanding and memory aiding some little the will to enjoy this its sovereign good and quiet, though the will is so taken up in God as not to regard or be distracted by the concurrence of these powers. This state is accompanied with an exceeding great interior comfort or delight, the powers of the soul are applied without labor or pains, (so that this prayer never wearies how long soever it continues,) and often tears flow with joy, of their own accord, or without being procured.¹¹ The intellect here may suggest certain humble silent reflections of thanksgiving, love, or the like, which increase the flame of the will; but, if the intellect raises too great a tumult, or the will strives to silence or recollect it, or the memory or imagination, this quiet is lost and vanishes. This recollection or quiet, in the exercise of divine love inspired and produced by the Spirit of God, differs infinitely from a pretended quiet of the will which human industry may strive to produce in it; but which is without any effect or sublime operation; it quickly expires, and is succeeded by great dryness in the affections. The devil, sometimes, by working upon the imagination, endeavors to imitate the visits of the Divine Spirit; but an experienced soul easily discovers his illusions, as St. Teresa remarks; for he leaves the mind disturbed, not calm, as the Holy Ghost always does: neither does he leave any impression of profound infused humility, (but generally an inclination to pride;) nor any strong dispositions to virtue; nor great spiritual light in the understanding nor steady resolution or constancy in virtue, which are the effects of heavenly visitations, as the saint remarks.¹² The third degree of prayer she calls the Repose of the soul: it is the prayer of Union; in which the soul overflows with incomparably greater joy, ardor and delight in the divine love, than in the former; she consumes herself in the most sublime affections of love and praise, as Saint Teresa explains at large; and is not inactive, as the false mystics or Quietists pretended, though she knows not at all how she acts.¹³ The fourth degree of prayer distinguished by her is a more perfect union of all the powers of the soul suspended and absorbed in God, as she explains at large.¹⁴ This is accompanied with so great interior joy and delight, that the saint assures us a single moment would be, even in this life, a sufficient recompense for all the pains we can have undergone.¹⁵ St. Teresa distinguishes the prayer of Union, in which her soul was able to resist the divine operation, from a rapture or ecstasy in which it could not resist, and in which her body los all the use of its voluntary functions, and every part remained in the same posture, without feeling, hearing, or seeing, at least so as to perceive it; though she says, on such occasions the soul knows she is in a rapture, while she is by the most ardent love ravished in God. These raptures continue sometimes for hours, though not all that time in the same degree. In them the soul sees in a wonderful and clear manner the emptiness of earthly things, the greatness and goodness of God, and the like. Though before she saw nothing in herself but desires of serving God, in a rapture she beholds herself covered with spots, defects, and faults, for the smallest are clearly visible in a bright beam of divine light, darting in upon her: she sees that she is all misery and imperfection, and cries out: Who shall be justified before thee? As the vessel, which seemed before clear in a crystal glass, appears full of atoms if it be placed in the beams of the sun; so this divine sun, by darting its bright beams upon the soul, sets before her eyes all her imperfections and sins as so many hideous spots. At this sight she is confounded and humbled on one side beyond __EXPRESSION__, and on the other astonished at the greatness and goodness of God, and transported in an ecstasy of love and adoration. St. Teresa mentions that, having suffered two raptures in the church which could not escape the observation of others, she prayed that this might no more happen to her in public, and from that time it had not when she wrote; but this was not long after. She says she was sometimes raised from the ground in prayer, though she endeavored to resist it.¹⁶

St. Teresa, after having exercised herself twenty years in mental prayer, began to withdraw herself from the conversation of secular persons, and other occasions of dissipation and little faults which she exceedingly exaggerates, and was favored by God very frequently with the prayer of Quiet, and also with that of Union, which latter sometimes continued a long time with great improvement of her soul, and with excessive heavenly joy and love. The examples of certain women, who had been miserably the dupes of a deluded imagination and of the devil, much terrified her; and though she was persuaded her favors were from God, she was so much perplexed with these fears that she resolved to take advice; and she consulted so many persons, though obliging them to secrecy, that the affair was divulged abroad, to her great mortification and confusion. The first person to whom she opened herself was a gentleman of the town, named Francis of Salsedo, a married man, who for thirty-eight years had practised mental prayer with great assiduity, and with his virtuous lady, who concurred with him in his great charities, fasts, and other exercises of piety, was an example of virtue to the whole country. This gentleman introduced to her Dr. Daza, a learned and virtuous priest; and after an examination from what she declared of herself, both judged her to be deluded by the devil, saying, such divine favors were not consistent with a life so full of imperfections as she exposed hers to be. Her alarms being increased by this decision, the gentleman advised her to speak with one of those first fathers of the Society of Jesus, who were lately come into Spain, and were eminent for their manner of prayer, and their experience in virtue and an interior life. This gentleman (to whom the saint says she owed her salvation and her comfort) bade her not be discouraged because she was not delivered from all her imperfections in one day, for God would do it by little and little; and said that he himself had remained whole years in reforming some very light things. By the means of certain friends, one of these fathers of the society visited her, to whom she made a very careful general confession, in which, with the confession of her sins, she gave him an account of all the particulars through the course of her whole life, relating to her manner of prayer and her late extraordinary favors. The father assured her these were divine graces; but told her she had neglected to lay the true foundation of an interior life, by the practice of a universal self-denial and mortification, by which a person learns to govern his senses, subdue entirely his passions, and cut off all inordinate attachments in the heart. That spiritual builder attempts to raise an edifice of devotion upon a quicksand, who does not begin by laying the foundation by humility, and that spirit of compunction and practice of general self-denial, which, being joined with a life of prayer, will be a crucifixion of the old man and a reformation of the affections of the new. By the advice of this confessor, St. Teresa made every day a meditation on some part of our Lord’s passion, and set herself heartily to practise some kinds of penance which were very inconsistent with her weak health; form on pretence of her great infirmities, she had thought little of any other mortifications than such as were general. By the prudent order of the same servant of God, though he judged her extraordinary gusts in prayer to be from God, she endeavored for two months to resist and reject them. But her resistance was in vain; and when she labored the most to turn herself from heavenly communications, our Lord overwhelmed her most abundantly with them. Saint Francis Borgia, at that time commissary-general of the Jesuits in Spain, coming to Avila, was desired to speak to the saint, and having heard her account of her prayer and state, he assured her, without hesitation, that the spirit of God was the author of her prayer; commended her resistance for a trial during the two months past, but advised her not to resist any elevations if our Lord was pleased to visit her so in prayer, provided she had no hand in endeavoring to procure them; and he prescribed her greater mortifications that she had hitherto undertaken.

Her confessor being called away, she chose another of the Society of Jesus. This was F. Balthasar Alvarez du Paz, a very spiritual man, who, through severe interior trials during the space of twenty years, arrived at the perfection of holy contemplation and an interior life.* This excellent director took notice of certain immortifications in the conduct of St. Teresa, contrary to her perfect sanctification, especially in her remaining still sensible to the satisfaction of ingenious, witty, and learned conversation, of which he put her in mind. Her answer was, that she had hoped her motive in it had been always for the best, and that it seemed a kind of ingratitude in her entirely to deny herself to certain friends. He told her she would do well to beg of God that he would direct her to do what was most pleasing to him, and for that purpose to recite every day the hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus. She did so for a considerable time, and one day while she was reciting that hymn she was favored with a rapture, in which she heard these words, which were spoken to her in the most interior part of her soul: “I will not have thee hold conversation with men, but with an gels.” She was exceedingly amazed at this voice, which was the first she heard in that manner: from that time she renounced all company but what business or the direct service of God obliged her to converse with¹⁷. The saint had afterwards frequent experience of such interior speeches after raptures, and explains how they are even more distinct and clear than those which men hear with their corporeal ears, and how they are also operative producing in the soul the strongest impressions and sentiments of virtue, and filling her with an assurance of their truth, and with joy and peace; whereas all the like illusions of the devil leave her much disquieted and disturbed, and produce no good effects, as she experienced two or three times.¹⁸ The saint earned these great heavenly comforts by severe sufferings: or rather God purified and improved her soul in his love and all virtues, both by his sweetest consolations, and the sharpest trials. She says of herself, under the name of a third person, what follows: “I know one who for these forty years (since God hath vouchsafed to honor her with special favors) hath not passed one day without anguish and various kinds of sufferings, besides sicknesses and great fatigues.”¹⁹ While F. Balthasar Alvarez was her di rector, she suffered grievous persecutions for three years, and, during two of them, extreme interior desolation of soul, intermixed with gleams of spiritual comfort and favors.²⁰ It was her earnest desire that all her heavenly communications should be kept secret; but they were become the common subject of discourse in every conversation, and even in the public schools, and she was everywhere censured and ridiculed as an enthusiast or hypocrite: her confessor was persecuted on her account. Six religious men of note who had been her friends, after a conference on this subject, decided that she seemed deluded by the devil, and prevailed on F. Balthasar to go with them to her, and to order her not to communicate so frequently, (which was her greatest support and comfort,) not to live so strictly retired, and not to prolong her meditations beyond the time prescribed by the rule of her house. Her very friends reviled and shunned her as one who had a communication with the devil, and some stuck not to call her a devil. F. Balthasar, indeed, bade her be of good courage; for if she was deluded by the devil, he could not hurt her, provided she labored only to advance in charity, patience, humility, and all virtues. One day the saint, after having suffered a long and grievous desolation and affliction of spirit, suddenly fell into a rapture, and heard a voice interiorly saying to her: “Fear not, daughter; for it is I, and I will not forsake thee: do not fear.”²¹ Her mind was instantly quieted and composed, and filled with light; her soul was drowned in heavenly sweetness and joy, and being endued with strength and courage, she challenged the devils, making no more reckoning of them than of so many flies, and saying to herself, that God, whose servant she desired to be, is all-powerful, and under his protection nothing could hurt her; and as she pretended and desired no other thing than to please him, she joyfully met all sufferings and renounced all ease and contentment if she could only be so happy as to accomplish in all things his holy will.

A confessor whom the saint made use of once during the absence of F. Balthasar, told her that her prayer was an illusion, and commanded her when she saw any vision, to make the sign of the cross, and to insult the vision, as of a fiend. The saint assures us, that these visions and raptures carried with them their own evidence and demonstration, so that while they continued, it was impossible for her to harbor the least doubt but they were from God. Nevertheless, she knew them to be subordinate to the ordinary means which God has established to conduct our souls to him; and as all pretended visions must be false and condemned which should contradict the scripture or the authority of the church, so no such visions can exempt us from any duty towards the church or others: for God never derogates by private revelations from his general laws and established rules. Therefore, in simplicity, she obeyed this order of her confessor; and the saint assures us that Christ himself in several visions approved her conduct in so doing.²² She adds, that in these visions to use some exterior action of scorn was a terrible thing to her, as she could not possibly believe but that it was God. “And I besought our Lord,” says she, “with much instance to free me from being deceived; and this I did continually, and with abundance of tears. I begged it also by the prayers of SS. Peter and Paul; because, as I had my first vision on their festival, our Lord told me they would take such care of me, that I should not be deceived. Accordingly, I have often seen very clearly these two glorious saints, my very good patrons, upon my left hand. But this making signs of scorn when I saw the vision of our Lord, gave me excessive pain and trouble. For when I saw him present before my eyes, it was impossible for me to believe it was the devil. That I might not be perpetually crossing myself, I took a cross into my hands, and this I did almost always. I used not the signs of scorn often; for this afflicted me too much, and I remembered the affronts which the Jews put upon our Lord; and I humbly besought him to pardon me, since I did this in obedience to those whom he had appointed in his own place. He bid me not be troubled at it, for I did well in obeying them; but he said he would bring them to understand the truth;” which they afterwards did. “When they forbade me the use of mental prayer, our Lord appeared angry at it, and bade me tell them this was tyranny. He also gave me reasons to know that this was not the devil. Once when I held in my hand the cross which was at the end of my beads, he took it into his hand; and when he gave it me again it appeared to be of four great stones, incomparably more precious than diamonds. A diamond is but a counterfeit in comparison of these. They had the five wounds of our Lord engraved upon them after a most curious manner. He told me I should always see this cross so from that time forward, and so I did; for I no longer saw the matter of which the cross was made, but only those precious stones: though no other saw them but myself. When I was commanded to use this resistance to those favors, they increased much more, and I was never out of prayer. Even while I slept, I was uttering amorous complaints to our Lord, and his love was still increased in me. Nor was it in my power to give over thinking on him, and least of all when I endeavored at it. Yet I obeyed as well as I could, though I was able to do little or nothing in that respect. Our Lord never freed me from obeying them: yet he gave me all assurance that it was he, and instructed me what I should say to them. There grew in me so impetuous a love of God, that I found myself even dying through a desire to see him, (my true life,) nor did I know how or where to find this life, but by death,” &c.²³

Bishop Yepez informs us,²⁴ that this cross fell afterwards into the hands of the saint’s sister, Jane of Ahumada, who died at Alva; and he relates some miracles wrought by it. Pope Gregory XV., in the bull of the canonization of St. Teresa, commends this example of her obedience as the test of her spirit and of her visions, &c. “By the command of her confessors she humbly showed marks of contempt under the visions of our Lord, not without a great recompense of her obedience. She was wont to say, that she might be deceived in discerning visions and revelations; but could not in obeying superiors,” says this pope.

Though after two years spent in frequent interior desolation, the visits of the Holy Ghost restored her interior peace with great sweetness and spiritual light, which dispelled her former darkness, she continued to suffer a whole year longer a persecution from her friends, which seemed genera. F. Balthasar Alvarez, who was a spiritual man, but exceeding timorous durst not oppose the torrent, or decide with confidence that the Holy Ghos was the author of the wonderful operations in her prayer, though he continued to hear her confessions, which scarce any other person in the country would have done; and he comforted her, saying, that so long as she improved herself in virtue, the devil could do her no prejudice. She had learned to be so perfectly dead to herself, that, with regard to herself, she was not the least concerned what the whole world said or did concerning her; but the judgment of others, as to her state, gave her still frequent great alarms and fears, which contributed both to purify her soul, and to prove more clearly her spirit of prayer. In 1559, St. Peter of Alcantara, commissary-general, and visiter of the Franciscans, coming to Avila, conversed several days with St. Teresa. Few saints seem to have been more experienced in an interior life, or better versed in the supernatural gifts of prayer than this holy man. He discovered in Teresa the most certain marks of the wonderful graces of the Holy Ghost, expressed great compassion for her sufferings from the contradictions and slanders even of good men and learned doctors, and publicly declared, that except the truths of holy faith, nothing appeared to him more evident than that her soul was conducted by the Spirit of God; but he foretold her that she was not come to an end of her persecutions and sufferings. The authority of this glorious saint, the reputation of whose judgment and sanctity gave his confident decision the greatest weight, turned the stream exceedingly in favor of the holy virgin. It is no to be expressed what comfort and advantage she received from the conversation of this holy man, who strongly recommended her defence and direction to F. Balthasar, at that time her ordinary confessor, though he was shortly after removed to another place. After the trials already made, and the judgment passed by St. Peter of Alcantara, not only F. Balthasar, but many other persons of the greatest piety, learning, and authority, declared confidently that the marks and reasons were most clear and convincing, that in her ecstasies and prayer, she was conducted in a supernatural manner by the Divine Spirit. In her life, written by herself, we have a general account of the wonderful things she experienced. She sometimes suffered interior trials of darkness in the mind, and great anguish of soul, joined with extreme pain of bodily sickness, so that the powers of her soul seemed, on some occasions, suspended through excessive sorrow, almost as they were usually in raptures through excess of joy. For these afflictions God made her very ample amends; for they were always followed with a great abundance of favors, and her soul seemed to come out of them like gold more refined and pure out of the crucible, to see our Lord within herself. Then those troubles appeared little, which before seemed insupportable, and she was willing to return again to suffer still greater tribulations and persecutions; for all in the end bring more profit, though the saint says she never bore hers as she ought. Besides interior troubles and temptations, she sometimes met with exterior afflictions, and frequently saw devils in hideous figures; but she drove them away by the cross or holy water; and when the place was sprinkled with holy water they never returned.²⁵ One day, while she was in prayer, she had a vision of hell, in which she seemed in spirit to be lodged in a place which she had deserved, that is, into which the vanities and dangerous amusements of her youth would have led her, had she not been reclaimed by the divine mercy. Nothing can be added to the energy with which she describes the pain she felt from an interior fire and unspeakable despair; the thick darkness, without the least glimpse of light, in which she knew not how, she says, one sees all that can afflict the sight: from torturing discontent and anguish, the dismal thought of eternity, and the agony of the soul by which she is her own executioner, and tears herself, as it were, to pieces, of which it is too little to say that it seems a butchering and a rending of herself. The saint says, that in comparison of these pains all torments of this world are no more than pictures, and burning here a trifle in respect of that fire. This was but a representation of those, torments; yet she says that after this vision all things seemed easy to her in this life, in comparison of one moment of those sufferings. She continued ever after most heartily to thank God for having mercifully delivered her, to weep for sinners, and to compassionate the blindness of so many who swallow down, as if they were nothing, even most grievous sins, which though she had been most wicked, she had by the divine mercy always shunned, as murmuring, detraction, covetousness, envy, and the like.²⁶

If the various proofs by which it pleased God to try Teresa served only to purify her virtue, the heavenly communications with which she was favored gave her a new lustre. In her ecstasies, revelations were imparted to her, with visions, and other great favors, all which served continually to humble and fortify her soul, to give her a strong disrelish of the things of this life, and to inflame her with the most ardent desires of possessing God. In raptures she was sometimes elevated in the air, of which she gives the following description.²⁷ Having said that the soul has a power of resisting in the prayer of Union, but not in raptures in which her soul was absolutely carried away, so that she could not stop it, she adds: “Sometimes my whole body was carried with it, so as to be raised up from the ground, though this was seldom. When I had a mind to resist these raptures, there seemed to me somewhat of so mighty force under my feet, which raised me up, that I know not what to compare it to. All my resistance availed little; for when our Lord hath a mind to do a thing, no power is able to stand against it. The effects of this rapture are great. First, the mighty power of the Lord is hereby made manifest; for when he is pleased, we are no more able to detain our bodies than our souls: we are not masters of them, but must, even against our will, acknowledge that we have a superior, that these favors come from him, and that of ourselves we are able to do nothing at all; and a great impression of humility is made on the soul. Further, I confess it also produced in me a great fear (which at first was extreme) to see that a massy body should be thus raised up from the earth. For though it be the spirit which draws it after it, and though it be done with great sweetness and delight, (if it be not resisted,) yet our senses are not thereby lost; at least I was so perfectly in my senses, that I understood I was then raised up There also appears hereby so great a majesty in him who can do this, that it makes even the hair of the head to stand on end; and there remains in the soul a mighty fear to offend so great a God. Yet this fear is wrapped up in an excessive love, which the soul conceives afresh towards him, whom she finds to bear so great a love to such wretched worms as we are. For he seems not content with drawing the soul to himself, but he will needs draw up the very body too, even while it is mortal, and compounded of so filthy an earth, as we have made it by our sins. This favor also leaves in the soul a wonderful disengagement from all the things of this world. In raptures of the spirit alone there seems a total loosening of the soul from all things, as it concerns the spirit. But here it seems that also the body partakes of thi