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

prayer in its desire for it. And if the soul is humble,

indifferent to, and detached from, all joy, however spiritual,

and if it loves the cross, it will make no account of the

sweetness which Satan sends. But it cannot so deal with that

which comes from the Spirit of God; of that it will make much.

Now, when Satan sends it, as he is nothing but a lie, and when he

sees that the soul humbles itself through that joy and

sweetness—and here, in all things relating to prayer and

sweetness, we must be very careful to endeavour to make ourselves

humble,—Satan will not often repeat his work, when he sees that

he loses by it.

17. For this and for many other reasons, when I was speaking of

the first degree of prayer, and of the first method of drawing

the water, [14] I insisted upon it that the great affair of souls

is, when they begin to pray, to begin also to detach themselves

from every kind of joy, and to enter on it resolved only on

helping to carry the cross of Christ like good soldiers, willing

to serve their King without present pay, because they are sure of

it at last, having their eyes directed to the true and

everlasting kingdom at the conquest of which we are aiming.

18. It is a very great matter to have this always before our

eyes, especially in the beginning; afterwards, it becomes so

clear, that it is rather a matter of necessity to forget it, in

order to live on. Now, labouring to keep in mind that all things

here below are of short duration, that they are all nothing, that

the rest we have here is to be accounted as none,—all this, I

say, seems to be exceedingly low; and so, indeed, it is,—because

those who have gone on to greater perfection would look upon it

as a reproach, and be ashamed of themselves, if they thought that

they were giving up the goods of this world because they are

perishable, or that they would not be glad to give them up for

God—even if they were to last for ever. The greater the

perfection of these persons, the greater their joy, and the

greater also would that joy be if the duration of these worldly

goods were greater.

19. In these persons, thus far advanced, love is already grown,

and love is that which does this work. But as to beginners, to

them it is of the utmost importance, and they must not regard

this consideration as unbecoming, for the blessings to be gained

are great,—and that is why I recommend it so much to them; for

they will have need of it—even those who have attained to great

heights of prayer—at certain times, when God will try them, and

when His Majesty seems to have forsaken them.

20. I have said as much already, and I would not have it

forgotten, [15] in this our life on earth, the growth of the soul

is not like that of the body. We, however, so speak of it—and,

in truth, it does grow. A youth that is grown up, whose body is

formed, and who is become a man, does not ungrow, nor does his

body lessen in size; but as to the soul, it so is by our Lord’s

will, so far as I have seen it in my own experience,—but I know

nothing of it in any other way. It must be in order to humble us

for our greater good, and to keep us from being careless during

our exile; seeing that he who has ascended the higher has the

more reason to be afraid, and to be less confident in himself.

A time may come when they whose will is so wrapt up in the will

of God—and who, rather than fall into a single imperfection,

would undergo torture and suffer a thousand deaths—will find it

necessary, if they would be delivered from offending God, and

from the commission of sin, to make use of the first armour of

prayer, to call to mind how everything is coming to an end, that

there is a heaven and a hell, and to make use of other

reflections of that nature, when they find themselves assailed by

temptations and persecutions.

21. Let us go back to what I was saying. The great source of our

deliverance from the cunning devices and the sweetness which

Satan sends is to begin with a resolution to walk in the way of

the Cross from the very first, and not to desire any sweetness at

all, seeing that our Lord Himself has pointed out to us the way

of perfection, saying, “Take up thy cross and follow Me.” [16]

He is our example; and whosoever follows His counsels only to

please Him has nothing to fear. In the improvement which they

detect in themselves, they who do so will see that this is no

work of Satan and if they fall, they have a sign of the presence

of our Lord in their rising again at once. They have other

signs, also, of which I am going to speak.

22. When it is the work of the Spirit of God, there is no

necessity for going about searching for reasons, on the strength

of which we may elicit acts of humility and of shame, because our

Lord Himself supplies them in a way very different from that by

which we could acquire them by our own poor reflections, which

are as nothing in comparison with that real humility arising out

of the light which our Lord here gives us, and which begets a

confusion of face that undoes us. The knowledge with which God

supplies us, in order that we may know that of ourselves we have

no good in us, is perfectly apprehended—and the more perfectly,

the greater the graces. It fills us with a great desire of

advancing in prayer, and of never giving it up, whatever troubles

may arise. The soul offers to suffer everything. A certain

security, joined with humility and fear concerning our salvation,

casts out servile fear at once from the soul, and in its place

plants a loyal fear [17] of more perfect growth. [18] There is a

visible beginning of a love of God, utterly divested of all

self-interest, together with a longing after seasons of solitude,

in order to obtain a greater fruition of this good.

23. In short, not to weary myself, it is the beginning of all

good; the flowers have so thriven, that they are on the point of

budding. And this the soul sees most clearly, and it is

impossible to persuade it now that God was not with it, till it

turns back upon itself, and beholds its own failings and

imperfections. Then it fears for everything; and it is well it

should do so—though there are souls whom the certain conviction

that God is with them benefits more than all the fear they may

ever have. If a soul love greatly, and is thankful naturally,

the remembrance of the mercies of God makes it turn to Him more

effectually than all the chastisements of hell it can ever

picture to itself—at least, it was so with me, though I am

so wicked.

24. As I shall speak at greater length of the signs of a good

spirit [19]—it has cost me much labour to be clear about them—I

do not treat of them here. I believe, too, that, with the help

of God, I shall be able to speak somewhat to the point,

because—setting aside the experience I have had, and by which I

learned much—I have had the help of some most learned men and

persons of great holiness, whom we may reasonably believe in the

matter. Souls, therefore, are not to weary themselves so much as

I did, when, by the goodness of our Lord, they may have come to

this state.

1. See Way of Perfection, ch. liii., but ch. xxxii of the

old edition.

2. St. Matt. xvii. 4: “Bonum est nos hic esse.”

3. See ch. xvii. § 6.

4. Ch. x. § 1.

5. Ch. xiv. §§ 3, 4.

6. Ch. x. § 9.

7. Ch. xviii. § 4, and ch. xxi. § 9.

8. § 3.

9. § 5.

10. Ch. x. § 1.

11. St. Luke xviii. 13: “Nolebat nec oculos ad coelum levare.”

12. Ch. xii. § 5.

13. “Firmeza en la verdad.” Francisco de St. Thoma, in his

Medulla Mystica, p. 204, quoting this passage, has, “firmeza en

la voluntad.” Philip a SS. Trinitate, Theolog. Mystic. p. 354,

and his Abbreviator, Anton. a Sp. Sancto, Direct. Mystic. tr. iv.

disp. i. § 11, n. 94, seem also to have preferred “voluntad” to

“verdad;” for the words they use are, “nec intellectui lux nec

voluntati firmitas;” and, “defectus lucis in intellectu, et

firmitatis in voluntate.”

14. Ch. xi. § 16.

15. Ch. xiii. § 23.

16. St. Matt. xvi. 24: “Tollat crucem suam et sequatur Me.”

17. “Fiel temor.” In the previous editions it was filial.

18. Ch. xi. § 1.

19. See ch. xxv.

Chapter XVI.

The Third State of Prayer. Deep Matters. What the Soul Can Do

That Has Reached It. Effects of the Great Graces of Our Lord.

1. Let us now speak of the third water wherewith this garden is

watered,—water running from a river or from a brook,—whereby

the garden is watered with very much less trouble, although there

is some in directing the water. [1] In this state our Lord will

help the gardener, and in such a way as to be, as it were, the

Gardener Himself, doing all the work. It is a sleep of the

powers of the soul, which are not wholly lost, nor yet

understanding how they are at work. The pleasure, sweetness, and

delight are incomparably greater than in the former state of

prayer; and the reason is, that the waters of grace have risen up

to the neck of the soul, so that it can neither advance nor

retreat—nor does it know how to do so; it seeks only the

fruition of exceeding bliss. It is like a dying man with the

candle in his hand, on the point of dying the death desired.

It is rejoicing in this agony with unutterable joy; to me it

seems to be nothing else but a death, as it were, to all the

things of this world, and a fruition of God. I know of no other

words whereby to describe it or to explain it; neither does the

soul then know what to do,—for it knows not whether to speak or

be silent, whether it should laugh or weep. It is a glorious

folly, a heavenly madness, wherein true wisdom is acquired; and

to the soul a kind of fruition most full of delight. [2]

2. It is now some five or six years, I believe, since our Lord

raised me to this state of prayer, in its fulness, and that more

than once,—and I never understood it, and never could explain

it; and so I was resolved, when I should come thus far in my

story, to say very little or nothing at all. I knew well enough

that it was not altogether the union of all the faculties, and

yet most certainly it was higher than the previous state of

prayer; but I confess that I could not determine and understand

the difference.

3. The humility of your reverence, willing to be helped by a

simplicity so great as mine, has been the cause, I believe, why

our Lord, to-day, after Communion, admitted me to