Life of St Teresa of Jesus, Teresa of Avila [top ten books to read TXT] 📗

for work of the

imagination it could not possibly be. [22]

27. The day after the presentation of the Brief, [23] as I was in

the most eager expectation, which utterly disturbed me, so that I

could not even pray,—for I had been told that our father was in

great straits because they would not let him come away, and that

there was a great tumult,—I heard these words: “O woman of

little faith, be quiet; everything is going on perfectly well.”

It was the Feast of the Presentation of our Lady, in the year

1575. I resolved within myself, if our Lady obtained from her

Son that we might see ourselves and our father free of these

friars, to ask him to order the solemn celebration of that feast

every year in our monasteries of the Barefooted Carmelites.

When I made this resolution, I did not remember what I had heard

in a former vision, that he would establish this solemnity.

Now, in reading again this little paper, I think this must be the

feast referred to. [24]

1. F. Yepes, then prior of St. Jerome’s, Toledo (De la Fuente).

2. Don Alonzo Velasquez, canon of Toledo, to whom Relation xi. is

addressed. The Saint speaks of this in a letter to Fra Gratian

in 1576. The letter is numbered 82 in the edition of Don

Vicente, and 23 in the fourth volume of the edition of Doblado.

3. Fra Jerome Gratian (De la Fuente).

4. 1 St. Peter iv. 13: “Communicantes Christi

passionibus, gaudete.”

5. This took place in 1575, when she was going to found her

monastery in Seville (Ribera, l. iv. c. v. n. 110).

6. See § 4, above.

7. This was in 1575, when the Saint was founding the monastery of

Seville; and the brother was Don Lorenzo, returned from the

Indies, and who now placed himself under the direction of his

sister (De la Fuente).

8. In the Chapter “De la Clausura,” § 16: “De tratar con deudos

se desvien lo mas que pudieren.”

9. The monastery of Paterna, of the unreformed Carmelites.

This was in 1576 (De la Fuente).

10. St. Matt. xvi. 16: “Tu es Christus, Filius Dei vivi.”

11. Gen. i. 26: “Ad imaginem et similitudinem Nostram.”

12. Fra Jerome Gratian. This took place during the persecution

that fell on the reformed Carmelites at the end of the year 1575,

and during the following year. See the last paragraph of this

Relation (De la Fuente; see, also, Relation vi. § 1).

13. Galat. ii. 20: “Vivo autem, jam non ego: vivit vero in

me Christus.”

14. A.D. 1577 (De la Fuente).

15. Jerome Gratian (id.).

16. 1 Cor. x. 13: “Fidelis autem Deus est qui non patietur vos

tentari supra id quod potestis.”

17. Don Vicente says, that here is a proof—if any were

wanting—that the Saint wrote this after her sojourn in Seville;

because in Avila and in Castile and Aragon the expression is,

“our Lady of Dolors;” while in Andalucia it is our Lady of

Anguish—“Nuestra Señora de las Angustias.”

18. Fra Jerome Gratian.

19. Cant. v. 1.

20. This was the name given to Fra Jerome Gratian, when the Saint

was driven, by the persecution raised against her, to distinguish

her friends by other designations than those by which they were

usually known: this fragment cannot have been written before the

year 1578 (De la Fuente).

21. See the last section.

22. Don Vicente published §§ 25 and 26 as fragments separately

(vol. i. pp. 524-526); but, as they seem to form a part of the

series of events spoken of in this Relation, they have been

placed here.

23. Fra Jerome Gratian exhibited the brief which made him

Visitor-Apostolic to the unreformed Carmelites, who were very

angry thereat, and rude in their vexation.

24. See § 26.

Relation X.

Of a Revelation to the Saint at Avila, 1579, and of Certain

Directions Concerning the Government of the Order.

In St. Joseph of Avila, on Pentecost eve, in the hermitage of

Nazareth, thinking of one of the greatest graces our Lord had

given me on that day some twenty years before, [1] more or less,

my spirit was vehemently stirred and grew hot within me, [2] and

I fell into a trance. In that profound recollection I heard our

Lord say what I am now going to tell: I was to say to the

Barefooted Fathers, as from Him, that they must strive to observe

four things; and that so long as they observed them, the Order

would increase more and more; and if they neglected them, they

should know that they were falling away from their first estate.

The first is, the superiors of the monasteries are to be of

one mind.

The second, even if they have many monasteries, to have but few

friars in each.

The third, to converse little with people in the world, and that

only for the good of their souls.

The fourth, to teach more by works than by words.

This happened in the year 1579; and because it is a great truth,

I have put my name to it.

Teresa de Jesús.

1. See Life, ch. xxxviii. § 11.

2. Psalm xxxviii. 3: “Concaluit cor meum intra me.”

Relation XI.

Written from Palencia in May 1581, and Addressed to Don Alonzo

Velasquez, Bishop of Osma, Who Had Been, When Canon of Toledo,

One of the Saint’s Confessors. [1]

Jesus.

1. Oh, that I could clearly explain to your Lordship the peace

and quiet my soul has found! for it has so great a certainty of

the fruition of God, that it seems to be as if already in

possession, [2] though the joy is withheld. I am as one to whom

another has granted by deed a large revenue, into the enjoyment

and use of which he is to come at a certain time, but until then

has nothing but the right already given him to the revenue.

In gratitude for this, my soul would abstain from the joy of it,

because it has not deserved it; it wishes only to serve Him, even

if in great suffering, and at times it thinks it would be very

little if, till the end of the world, it had to serve Him who has

given it this right; for, in truth, it is in some measure no

longer subject, as before, to the miseries of this world; though

it suffers more, it seems as if only the habit were struck, for

my soul is, as it were, in a fortress with authority, and

accordingly does not lose its peace. Still, this confidence does

not remove from it its great fear of offending God, nor make it

less careful to put away every hindrance to His service, yea,

rather, it is more careful than before. But it is so forgetful

of its own interests as to seem, in some measure, to have lost

itself, so forgetful of self is it in this. Everything is

directed to the honour of God, to the doing of His will more and

more, and the advancement of His glory.

2. Though this be so, yet, in all that relates to health and the

care of the body, it seems to me that I am more careful than I

was, that I mortify myself less in my food, and do fewer

penances: it is not so with the desires I had; they seem to be

greater. All this is done that I may be the better able to serve

God in other things, for I offer to Him very often, as a great

sacrifice, the care I take of my body, and that wearies me much,

and I try it sometimes in acts of mortification; but, after all,

this cannot be done without losing health, and I must not neglect

what my superiors command. Herein, and in the wish for health,

much self-love also must insinuate itself; but, as it seems to

me, I feel that it would give me more pleasure, and it gave me

more pleasure when I was strong, to do penance, for, at least, I

seemed to be doing something, and was giving a good example, and

I was free from the vexation which arises out of the fact that I

am not serving God at all. Your Lordship will see what it will

be best to do in the matter.

3. The imaginary visions have ceased, but the intellectual vision

of the Three Persons and of the Sacred Humanity seems ever

present, and that, I believe, is a vision of a much higher kind;

and I understand now, so I think, that the visions I had came

from God, because they prepared my soul for its present state;

they were given only because I was so wretched and so weak: God

led me by the way which He saw was necessary; but they are, in my

opinion, of great worth when they come from God.

4. The interior locutions have not left me, for, whenever it is

necessary, our Lord gives me certain directions; and now, in

Palencia, were it not for these, there would have been committed

a great blunder, though not a sin. [3]

5. The acts and desires do not seem to be so vigorous as they

used to be, for, though they are great, I have one much greater

to see the will of God accomplished and His glory increased; for

as the soul is well aware that His Majesty knoweth what is

expedient herein, and is so far removed from all self-seeking,

these acts and desires quickly end, and, as it seems to me, have

no strength. Hence the fear I have at times though without

disquietude and pain as formerly, that my soul is dulled, and

that I am doing nothing, because I can do no penance; acts of

desire for suffering, for martyrdom, and of the vision of God,

have no strength in them, and, most frequently, I cannot make

them. I seem to live only for eating and drinking, and avoiding

pain in everything; and yet this gives me none, except that

sometimes, as I said before, I am afraid that this is a delusion;

but I cannot believe it, because so far as I can see, I am not

under the sway of any strong attachment to any created thing, not

even to all the bliss of heaven, but only to the love of God; and

this does not grow less,—on the contrary, I believe it is

growing, together with the longing that all men may serve Him.

6. But, for all this, one thing amazes me: I have not the

feelings I had formerly, so strong and so interior, which

tormented me when I saw souls go to their ruin, and when I used

to think I had offended God. I cannot have these feelings now,

though I believe my desire that God be not sinned against is not

less than it was.

7. Your Lordship must consider that in all this, in my present as

well as in my previous state, I can do no more, and that it is

not in my power to serve Him better: I might do so, if I were not

so wicked. I may say, also, that if I were now to make great

efforts to wish to die, I could not, nor can I make the acts I

used to make, nor feel the pains I felt for having offended God,

nor the great fears I had for so many years when I thought I was

under a delusion: and accordingly, I have no need of learned men,

or of speaking to anybody at all, only to satisfy myself that I

am going the right road now, and whether I can do anything.

I have consulted certain persons on this point, with