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

of the

monastery, which His Majesty willed should be laid.

9. I remained quiet after this for five or six months, neither

thinking nor speaking of the matter; nor did our Lord once speak

to me about it. I know not why, but I could never rid myself of

the thought that the monastery would be founded. At the end of

that time, the then Rector [3] of the Society of Jesus having

gone away, His Majesty brought into his place another, [4] of

great spirituality, high courage, strong understanding, and

profound learning, at the very time when I was in great straits.

As he who then heard my confession had a superior over him—the

fathers of the Society are extremely strict about the virtue of

obedience and never stir but in conformity with the will of their

superiors,—so he would not dare, though he perfectly understood

my spirit, and desired the accomplishment of my purpose, to come

to any resolution; and he had many reasons to justify his

conduct. I was at the same time subject to such great

impetuosities of spirit, that I felt my chains extremely heavy;

nevertheless, I never swerved from the commandment he gave me.

10. One day, when in great distress, because I thought my

confessor did not trust me, our Lord said to me, Be not troubled;

this suffering will soon be over. I was very much delighted,

thinking I should die shortly; and I was very happy whenever I

recalled those words to remembrance. Afterwards I saw clearly

that they referred to the coming of the rector of whom I am

speaking, for never again had I any reason to be distressed.

The rector that came never interfered with the father-minister

who was my confessor. On the contrary, he told him to console

me,—that there was nothing to be afraid of,—and not to direct

me along a road so narrow, but to leave the operations of the

Spirit of God alone; for now and then it seemed as if these great

impetuosities of the spirit took away the very breath of

the soul.

11. The rector came to see me, and my confessor bade me speak to

him in all freedom and openness. I used to feel the very

greatest repugnance to speak of this matter; but so it was, when

I went into the confessional, I felt in my soul something, I know

not what. I do not remember to have felt so either before or

after towards any one. I cannot tell what it was, nor do I know

of anything with which I could compare it. It was a spiritual

joy, and a conviction in my soul that his soul must understand

mine, that it was in unison with it, and yet, as I have said, I

knew not how. If I had ever spoken to him, or had heard great

things of him, it would have been nothing out of the way that I

should rejoice in the conviction that he would understand me; but

he had never spoken to me before, nor I to him, and, indeed, he

was a person of whom I had no previous knowledge whatever.

12. Afterwards, I saw clearly that my spirit was not deceived;

for my relations with him were in every way of the utmost service

to me and my soul, because his method of direction is proper for

those persons whom our Lord seems to have led far on the way,

seeing that He makes them run, and not to crawl step by step.

His plan is to render them thoroughly detached and mortified, and

our Lord has endowed him with the highest gifts herein as well as

in many other things beside. As soon as I began to have to do

with him, I knew his method at once, and saw that he had a pure

and holy soul, with a special grace of our Lord for the

discernment of spirits. He gave me great consolation.

Shortly after I had begun to speak to him, our Lord began to

constrain me to return to the affair of the monastery, and to lay

before my confessor and the father-rector many reasons and

considerations why they should not stand in my way. Some of

these reasons made them afraid, for the father-rector never had a

doubt of its being the work of the Spirit of God, because he

regarded the fruits of it with great care and attention. At

last, after much consideration, they did not dare to

hinder me. [5]

13. My confessor gave me leave to prosecute the work with all my

might. I saw well enough the trouble I exposed myself to, for I

was utterly alone, and able to do so very little. We agreed that

it should be carried on with the utmost secrecy; and so I

contrived that one of my sisters, [6] who lived out of the town,

should buy a house, and prepare it as if for herself, with money

which our Lord provided for us. [7] I made it a great point to

do nothing against obedience; but I knew that if I spoke of it to

my superiors all was lost, as on the former occasion, and worse

even might happen. In holding the money, in finding the house,

in treating for it, in putting it in order, I had so much to

suffer; and, for the most part, I had to suffer alone, though my

friend did what she could: she could do but little, and that was

almost nothing. Beyond giving her name and her countenance, the

whole of the trouble was mine; and that fell upon me in so many

ways, that I am astonished now how I could have borne it. [8]

Sometimes, in my affliction, I used to say: O my Lord, how is it

that Thou commandest me to do that which seems impossible?—for,

though I am a woman, yet, if I were free, it might be done; but

when I am tied in so many ways, without money, or the means of

procuring it, either for the purpose of the Brief or for any

other,—what, O Lord, can I do?

14. Once when I was in one of my difficulties, not knowing what

to do, unable to pay the workmen, St. Joseph, my true father and

lord, appeared to me, and gave me to understand that money would

not be wanting, and I must hire the workmen. So I did, though I

was penniless; and our Lord, in a way that filled those who heard

of it with wonder, provided for me. The house offered me was too

small,—so much so, that it seemed as if it could never be made

into a monastery,—and I wished to buy another, but had not the

means, and there was neither way nor means to do so. I knew not

what to do. There was another little house close to the one we

had, which might have formed a small church. One day, after

Communion, our Lord said to me, I have already bidden thee to go

in anyhow. And then, as if exclaiming, said: Oh, covetousness of

the human race, thinking that even the whole earth is too little

for it! how often have I slept in the open air, because I had no

place to shelter Me! [9] I was alarmed, and saw that He had good

reasons to complain. I went to the little house, arranged the

divisions of it, and found that it would make a sufficient,

though small, monastery. I did not care now to add to the site

by purchase, and so I did nothing but contrive to have it

prepared in such a way that it could be lived in. Everything was

coarse, and nothing more was done to it than to render it not

hurtful to health—and that must be done everywhere.

15. As I was going to Communion on her feast, St. Clare appeared

to me in great beauty, and bade me take courage, and go on with

what I had begun; she would help me. I began to have a great

devotion to St. Clare; and she has so truly kept her word, that a

monastery of nuns of her Order in our neighbourhood helped us to

live; and, what is of more importance, by little and little she

so perfectly fulfilled my desire, that the poverty which the

blessed Saint observes in her own house is observed in this, and

we are living on alms. It cost me no small labour to have this

matter settled by the plenary sanction and authority of the Holy

Father, [10] so that it shall never be otherwise, and we possess

no revenues. Our Lord is doing more for us—perhaps we owe it to

the prayers of this blessed Saint; for, without our asking

anybody, His Majesty supplies most abundantly all our wants.

May He be blessed for ever! Amen.

16. On one of these days—it was the Feast of the Assumption of

our Lady—I was in the church of the monastery of the Order of

the glorious St. Dominic, thinking of the events of my wretched

life, and of the many sins which in times past I had confessed in

that house. I fell into so profound a trance, that I was as it

were beside myself. I sat down, and it seemed as if I could

neither see the Elevation nor hear Mass. This afterwards became

a scruple to me. I thought then, when I was in that state, that

I saw myself clothed with a garment of excessive whiteness and

splendour. At first I did not see who was putting it on me.

Afterwards I saw our Lady on my right hand, and my father

St. Joseph on my left, clothing me with that garment. I was

given to understand that I was then cleansed from my sins.

When I had been thus clad—I was filled with the utmost delight

and joy—our Lady seemed at once to take me by both hands.

She said that I pleased her very much by being devout to the

glorious St. Joseph; that I might rely on it my desires about the

monastery were accomplished, and that our Lord and they too would

be greatly honoured in it; that I was to be afraid of no failure

whatever, though the obedience under which it would be placed

might not be according to my mind, because they would watch over

us, and because her Son had promised to be with us [11]—and, as

a proof of this, she would give me that jewel. She then seemed

to throw around my neck a most splendid necklace of gold, from

which hung a cross of great value. The stones and gold were so

different from any in this world, that there is nothing wherewith

to compare them. The beauty of them is such as can be conceived

by no imagination,—and no understanding can find out the

materials of the robe, nor picture to itself the splendours which

our Lord revealed, in comparison with which all the splendours of

earth, so to say, are a daubing of soot. This beauty, which I

saw in our Lady, was exceedingly grand, though I did not trace it

in any particular feature, but rather in the whole form of her

face. She was clothed in white and her garments shone with

excessive lustre that was not dazzling, but soft. I did not see

St. Joseph so distinctly, though I saw clearly that he was there,

as in the visions of which I spoke before, [12] in which nothing

is seen. Our Lady