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

Jesus Christ, either as in Heaven

or in the Sacrament, or, if it be a vision of the Saints, then to

lift up the heart to the Holy One in Heaven, and not to that

which is presented to the imagination: let it suffice that the

imagination may be made use of for the purpose of raising me up

to that which it makes me see.

“11. I say, too, that the things mentioned in this book befall

other persons even in this our day, and that there is great

certainty that they come from God, Whose arm is not shortened

that He cannot do now what He did in times past, and that in weak

vessels, for His own glory.

“12. Go on your road, but always suspecting robbers, and asking

for the right way; give thanks to our Lord, Who has given you His

love, the knowledge of yourself, and a love of penance and the

cross, making no account of these other things. However, do not

despise them either, for there are signs that most of them come

from our Lord, and those that do not come from Him will not hurt

you if you ask for direction.

“13. I cannot believe that I have written this in my own

strength, for I have none, but it is the effect of your prayers.

I beg of you, for the love of Jesus Christ our Lord, to burden

yourself with a prayer for me; He knows that I am asking this in

great need, and I think that is enough to make you grant my

request. I ask your permission to stop now, for I am bound to

write another letter. May Jesus be glorified in all and

by all! Amen.

“Your servant, for Christ’s sake.

“Juan de Avila

“Montilla, 12th Sept., 1568.”

Her confessors, having seen the book, “commanded her to make

copies of it,” [15] one of which has been traced into the

possession of the Duke and Duchess of Alva.

The Princess of Eboli, in 1569, obtained a copy from the Saint

herself, after much importunity; but it was more out of vanity or

curiosity, it is to be feared, than from any real desire to learn

the story of the Saint’s spiritual life, that the Princess

desired the boon. She and her husband promised to keep it from

the knowledge of others, but the promise given was not kept.

The Saint heard within a few days later that the book was in the

hands of the servants of the Princess, who was angry with the

Saint because she had refused to admit, at the request of the

Princess, an Augustinian nun into the Order of Carmel in the new

foundation of Pastrana. The contents of the book were bruited

abroad, and the visions and revelations of the Saint were said to

be of a like nature with those of Magdalene of the Cross, a

deluded and deluding nun. The gossip in the house of the

Princess was carried to Madrid, and the result was that the

Inquisition began to make a search for the book. [16] It is not

quite clear, however, that it was seized at this time.

The Princess became a widow in July, 1573, and insisted on

becoming a Carmelite nun in the house she and her husband, Ruy

Gomez, had founded in Pastrana. When the news of her resolve

reached the monastery, the mother-prioress, Isabel of St.

Dominic, exclaimed, “The Princess a nun! I look on the house as

ruined.” The Princess came, and insisted on her right as

foundress; she had compelled a friar to give her the habit before

her husband was buried, and when she came to Pastrana she began

her religious life by the most complete disobedience and

disregard of common propriety. Don Vicente’s description of her

is almost literally correct, though intended only for a general

summary of her most childish conduct:

“On the death of the Prince of Eboli, the Princess would become a

nun in her monastery of Pastrana. The first day she had a fit of

violent fervour; on the next she relaxed the rule; on the third

she broke it, and conversed with secular people within the

cloisters. She was also so humble that she required the nuns to

speak to her on their knees, and insisted upon their receiving

into the house as religious whomsoever she pleased.

Hereupon complaints were made to St. Teresa, who remonstrated

with the Princess, and showed her how much she was in the wrong,

whereupon she replied that the monastery was hers; but the Saint

proved to her that the nuns were not, and had them removed

to Segovia.” [17]

The nuns were withdrawn from Pastrana in April, 1574, and then

the anger of the Princess prevailed; she sent the Life of the

Saint, which she had still in her possession, to the Inquisition,

and denounced it as a book containing visions, revelations, and

dangerous doctrines, which the Inquisitors should look into and

examine: The book was forthwith given to theologians for

examination, and two Dominican friars, of whom Bañes was one,

were delegated censors of it by the Inquisition. [18]

Fra Bañes did not know the Saint when he undertook her defence in

Avila against the authorities of the city, eager to destroy the

monastery of St. Joseph; [19] but from that time forth he was one

of her most faithful friends, strict and even severe, as became a

wise director who had a great Saint for his penitent.

He testifies in the process of her beatification that he was firm

and sharp with her; while she herself was the more desirous of

his counsel, the more he humbled her, and the less he appeared to

esteem her. [20] When he found that copies of her life were in

the hands of secular people,—he had probably also heard of the

misconduct of the Princess of Eboli,—he showed his displeasure

to the Saint, and told her he would burn the book, it being

unseemly that the writings of women should be made public.

The Saint left it in his hands, but Fra Bañes, struck with her

humility, had not the courage to burn it; he sent it to the Holy

Office in Madrid. [21] Thus the book was in a sense denounced

twice,—once by an enemy, the second time by a friend, to save

it. Both the Saint and her confessor, Fra Bañes, state that the

copy given up by the latter was sent to the Inquisition in

Madrid, and Fra Bañes says so twice in his deposition.

The Inquisitor Soto returned the copy to Fra Bañes, desiring him

to read it, and give his opinion thereon. Fra Bañes did so, and

wrote his “censure” of the book on the blank leaves at the end.

That censure still remains, and is one of the most important,

because given during the lifetime of the Saint, and while many

persons were crying out against her. Bañes wished it had been

published when the Saint’s Life was given to the world by Fra

Luis de Leon; but notwithstanding its value, and its being

preserved in the book which is in the handwriting of the Saint,

no one before Don Vicente made it known. It was easy enough to

praise the writings of St. Teresa, and to admit her sanctity,

after her death. Fra Bañes had no external help in the applause

of the many, and he had to judge the book as a theologian, and

the Saint as one of his ordinary penitents. When he wrote, he

wrote like a man whose whole life was spent, as he tells us

himself, “in lecturing and disputing.” [22]

That censure is as follows:

“1. This book, wherein Teresa of Jesus, Carmelite nun, and

foundress of the Barefooted Carmelites, gives a plain account of

the state of her soul, in order to be taught and directed by her

confessors, has been examined by me, and with much attention, and

I have not found anywhere in it anything which, in my opinion, is

erroneous in doctrine. On the contrary, there are many things in

it highly edifying and instructive for those who give themselves

to prayer. The great experience of this religious, her

discretion also and her humility, which made her always seek for

light and learning in her confessors, enabled her to speak with

an accuracy on the subject of prayer that the most learned men,

through their want of experience, have not always attained to.

One thing only there is about the book that may reasonably cause

any hesitation till it shall be very carefully examined;

it contains many visions and revelations, matters always to be

afraid of, especially in women, who are very ready to believe of

them that they come from God, and to look on them as proofs of

sanctity, though sanctity does not lie in them. On the contrary,

they should be regarded as dangerous trials for those who are

aiming at perfection, because Satan is wont to transform himself

into an angel of light, [23] and to deceive souls which are

curious and of scant humility, as we have seen in our day:

nevertheless, we must not therefore lay down a general rule that

all revelations and visions come from the devil. If it were so,

St. Paul could not have said that Satan transforms himself into

an angel of light, if the angel of light did not sometimes

enlighten us.

“2. Saints, both men and women, have had revelations, not only in

ancient, but also in modern times; such were St. Dominic,

St. Francis, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Catherine of Siena,

St. Gertrude, and many others that might be named; and as the

Church of God is, and is to be, always holy to the end, not only

because her profession is holiness, but because there are in her

just persons and perfect in holiness, it is unreasonable to

despise visions and revelations, and condemn them in one sweep,

seeing they are ordinarily accompanied with much goodness and a

Christian life. On the contrary, we should follow the saying of

the Apostle in 1 Thess. v. 19-22: ‘Spiritum nolite extinguere.

Prophetias nolite spernere. Omnia [autem] probate: quod bonum

est tenete. Ab omni specie mala abstinete vos.’ He who will

read St. Thomas on that passage will see how carefully they are

to be examined who, in the Church of God, manifest any particular

gift that may be profitable or hurtful to our neighbour, and how

watchful the examiners ought to be lest the fire of the Spirit of

God should be quenched in the good, and others cowed in the

practices of the perfect Christian life.

“3. Judging by the revelations made to her, this woman, even

though she may be deceived in something, is at least not herself

a deceiver, because she tells all the good and the bad so simply,

and with so great a wish to be correct, that no doubt can be made

as to her good intention; and the greater the reason for trying

spirits of this kind, because there are persons in our day who

are deceivers with the appearance of piety, the more necessary it

is to defend those who, with the appearance, have also the

reality, of piety. For it is a strange thing to see how lax and

worldly people delight in seeing those discredited who have an

appearance of goodness. God complained of old, by the Prophet

Ezekiel, ch. xiii., of those false prophets who made the just to

mourn and who flattered sinners, saying: ‘Maerere fecisti cor

justi mendaciter, quem Ego non contristavi: et comfortastis manus

impii.’ In a certain sense this may be said of those who

frighten souls who are