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

most dwelt on—that I could think of nothing when

I was in prayer. I marked that passage, and gave him the book,

that he, and the ecclesiastic mentioned before, [11] saint and

servant of God, might consider it, and tell me what I should do.

If they thought it right, I would give up that method of prayer

altogether; for why should I expose myself to danger, when, at

the end of nearly twenty years, during which I had used it, I had

gained nothing, but had fallen into a delusion of the devil?

It was better for me to give it up. And yet this seemed to me

hard; for I had already discovered what my soul would become

without prayer. Everything seemed full of trouble. I was like a

person in the middle of a river, who, in whatever direction he

may turn, fears a still greater danger, and is well-nigh drowned.

This is a very great trial, and I have gone through many like it,

as I shall show hereafter; [12] and though it does not seem to be

of any importance, it will perhaps be advantageous to understand

how the spirit is to be tried.

14. And certainly the affliction to be borne is great, and

caution is necessary, particularly in the case of women,—for our

weakness is great,—and much evil may be the result of telling

them very distinctly that the devil is busy with them; yea,

rather, the matter should be very carefully considered, and they

should be removed out of reach of the dangers that may arise.

They should be advised to keep things secret; and it is

necessary, also, that their secret should be kept. I am speaking

of this as one to whom it has been a sore trouble; for some of

those with whom I spoke of my prayer did not keep my secret, but,

making inquiries one of another, for a good purpose, did me much

harm; for they made things known which might well have remained

secret, because not intended for every one and it seemed as if I

had made them public myself. [13]

15. I believe that our Lord permitted [14] this to be done

without sin on their part, in order that I might suffer. I do

not say that they revealed anything I discussed with them in

confession; still, as they were persons to whom, in my fears, I

gave a full account of myself, in order that they might give me

light, I thought they ought to have been silent. Nevertheless, I

never dared to conceal anything from such persons. My meaning,

then, is, that women should be directed with much discretion;

their directors should encourage them, and bide the time when our

Lord will help them, as He has helped me. If He had not, the

greatest harm would have befallen me, for I was in great fear and

dread; and as I suffered from disease of the heart, [15] I am

astonished that all this did not do me a great deal of harm.

16. Then, when I had given him the book, and told the story of my

life and of my sins, the best way I could in general,—for I was

not in confession, because he was a layman; yet I gave him

clearly to understand how wicked I was,—those two servants of

God, with great charity and affection, considered what was best

for me. When they had made up their minds what to say,—I was

waiting for it in great dread, having begged many persons to pray

to God for me, and I too had prayed much during those days,—the

nobleman came to me in great distress, and said that, in the

opinion of both, I was deluded by an evil spirit; that the best

thing for me to do was to apply to a certain father of the

Society of Jesus, who would come to me if I sent for him, saying

I had need of him; that I ought, in a general confession, to give

him an account of my whole life, and of the state I was in,—and

all with great clearness: God would, in virtue of the Sacrament

of Confession, give him more light concerning me; for those

fathers were very experienced men in matters of spirituality.

Further, I was not to swerve in a single point from the counsels

of that father; for I was in great danger, if I had no one to

direct me.

17. This answer so alarmed and distressed me, that I knew not

what to do—I did nothing but cry. Being in an oratory in great

affliction, not knowing what would become of me, I read in a

book—it seemed as if our Lord had put it into my hands—that

St. Paul said, God is faithful; [16] that He will never permit

Satan to deceive those who love Him. This gave me great

consolation. I began to prepare for my general confession, and to

write out all the evil and all the good: a history of my life, as

clearly as I understood it, and knew how to make it, omitting

nothing whatever. I remember, when I saw I had written so much

evil, and scarcely anything that was good, that I was exceedingly

distressed and sorrowful. It pained me, also, that the nuns of

the community should see me converse with such holy persons as

those of the Society of Jesus; for I was afraid of my own

wickedness, and I thought I should be obliged to cease from it,

and give up my amusements; and that if I did not do so, I should

grow worse: so I persuaded the sacristan and the portress to tell

no one of it. This was of little use, after all; for when I was

called down there was one at the door, as it happened, who told

it to the whole convent. But what difficulties and what terrors

Satan troubles them with who would draw near unto God!

18. I communicated the whole state of my soul to that servant of

God [17] and he was a great servant of His, and very prudent.

He understood all I told him, explained it to me, and encouraged

me greatly. He said that all was very evidently the work of the

Spirit of God; only it was necessary for me to go back again to

my prayer, because I was not well grounded, and had not begun to

understand what mortification meant,—that was true, for I do not

think I knew it even by name,—that I was by no means to give up

prayer; on the contrary, I was to do violence to myself in order

to practise it, because God had bestowed on me such special

graces as made it impossible to say whether it was, or was not,

the will of our Lord to do good to many through me. He went

further, for he seems to have prophesied of that which our Lord

afterwards did with me, and said that I should be very much to

blame if I did not correspond with the graces which God bestowed

upon me. It seems to me that the Holy Ghost was speaking by his

mouth in order to heal my soul, so deep was the impression he

made. He made me very much ashamed of myself, and directed me by

a way which seemed to change me altogether. What a grand thing

it is to understand a soul! He told me to make my prayer every

day on some mystery of the Passion, and that I should profit by

it, and to fix my thoughts on the Sacred Humanity only, resisting

to the utmost of my power those recollections and delights, to

which I was not to yield in any way till he gave me further

directions in the matter.

19. He left me consoled and fortified: our Lord came to my

succour and to his, so that he might understand the state I was

in, and how he was to direct me. I made a firm resolution not to

swerve from anything he might command me, and to this day I have

kept it. Our Lord be praised, who has given me grace to be

obedient to my confessors, [18] however imperfectly!—and they

have almost always been those blessed men of the Society of

Jesus; though, as I said, I have but imperfectly obeyed them.

My soul began to improve visibly, as I am now going to say.

1. At the end of ch. ix. The thirteen chapters interposed

between that and this—the twenty-third—are a treatise on

mystical theology.

2. She refers to Magdalene of the Cross (Reforma de los

Descalços, vol. i. lib. i. c. xix. § 2).

3. The college of the Society at Avila was founded in 1555; but

some of the Fathers had come thither in 1553 (De la Fuente).

4. Ch. vii. § 37.

5. Ch. xix. §§ 7, 8.

6. Gaspar Daza had formed a society of priests in Avila, and was

a very laborious and holy man. It was he who said the first Mass

in the monastery of St. Joseph, founded by 5t. Teresa, whom he

survived, dying Nov. 24, 1592. He committed the direction of his

priests to F. Baltasar Alvarez (Bouix). Juan of Avila acted much

in the same way when the Jesuits settled in Avila (De la Fuente).

7. Don Francisco de Salcedo. After the death of his wife, he

became a priest, and was chaplain and confessor of the Carmelite

nuns of St. Joseph. For twenty years of his married life he

attended regularly the theological lectures of the Dominicans, in

the house of St. Thomas. His death took place Sept. 12, 1580,

when he had been a priest for ten years (St. Teresa’s Letters,

vol. iv. letter 43, note 13: letter 368, ed. of De la Fuente).

8. Doña Mencia del Aguila (De la Fuente, in a note on letter 10,

vol. ii. p. 9, where he corrects himself,—having previously

called her Mencia de Avila).

9. § 4.

10. Subida del Monte Sion, by a Franciscan friar, Bernardino de

Laredo (Reforma, vol. i. lib. i. c. xix. § 7).

11. § 6.

12. See ch. xxv. § 18.

13. See ch. xxviii. § 18.

14. See Relation, vii. § 17.

15. See ch. iv. § 6.

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

tentari supra id quod potestis.”

17. F. Juan de Padranos, whom St. Francis de Borja had sent in

1555, with F. Fernando Alvarez del Aguila, to found the house of

the Society in Avila (De la Fuente). Ribera, i. 5, says he heard

that F. Juan de Padranos gave in part the Exercises of

St. Ignatius to the Saint.

18. See Relation, i. § 9.

Chapter XXIV.

Progress Under Obedience. Her Inability to Resist the Graces

of God. God Multiplies His Graces.

1. After this my confession, my soul was so docile that, as it

seems to me, there was nothing in the world I was not prepared to

undertake. I began at once to make a change in many things,

though my confessor never pressed me—on the contrary, he seemed

to make light of it all. I was the more influenced by this,

because he led me on by the way of the love of God; he left me

free, and did not press me, unless I did so myself, out of love.

I continued thus nearly two months, doing all I could to resist

the sweetness and graces that God sent. As to my outward life,

the change was visible; for our Lord gave me courage to go

through with certain things, of which those who knew