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

without knowing whence these virtues

came to me; I did not know myself, and saw that all was a gift,

and not the fruit of my labours. I understand in all

truthfulness and sincerity, and see that I am not deluded, that

it has been not only the means of drawing me to God in His

service, but of saving me also from hell. This my confessors

know, who have heard my general confession.

28. Also, when I see any one who knows anything about me, I wish

to let him know my whole life, [14] because my honour seems to me

to consist in the honour of our Lord, and I care for nothing

else. This He knows well, or I am very blind; for neither

honour, nor life, nor praise, nor good either of body or of soul,

can interest me, nor do I seek or desire any advantage, only His

glory. I cannot believe that Satan has sought so many means of

making my soul advance, in order to lose it after all. I do not

hold him to be so foolish. Nor can I believe it of God, though I

have deserved to fall into delusions because of my sins, that He

has left unheeded so many prayers of so many good people for two

years, and I do nothing else but ask everybody to pray to our

Lord that He would show me if this be for His glory, or lead me

by another way. [15] I do not believe that these things would

have been permitted by His Majesty to be always going on if they

were not His work. These considerations, and the reasons of so

many saintly men, give me courage when I am under the pressure of

fear that they are not from God, I being so wicked myself.

But when I am in prayer, and during those days when I am in

repose, and my thoughts fixed on God, if all the learned and holy

men in the world came together and put me to, all conceivable

tortures, and I, too, desirous of agreeing with them, they could

not make me believe that this is the work of Satan, for I cannot.

And when they would have had me believe it, I was afraid, seeing

who it was that said so; and I thought that they must be saying

what was true, and that I, being what I was, must have been

deluded. But all they had said to me was destroyed by the first

word, or recollection, or vision that came, and I was able to

resist no longer, and believed it was from God. [16]

29. However, I can think that Satan now and then may intermeddle

here, and so it is, as I have seen and said; but he produces

different results, nor can he, as it seems to me, deceive any one

possessed of any experience. Nevertheless, I say that, though I

do certainly believe this to be from God, I would never do

anything, for any consideration whatever, that is not judged by

him who has the charge of my soul to be for the better service of

our Lord, and I never had any intention but to obey without

concealing anything, for that is my duty. I am very often

rebuked for my faults, and that in such a way as to pierce me to

the very quick; and I am warned when there is, or when there may

be, any danger in what I am doing. These rebukes and warnings

have done me much good, in often reminding me of my former sins,

which make me exceedingly sorry.

30. I have been very long, but this is the truth,—that, when I

rise from my prayer, I see that I have received blessings which

seem too briefly described. Afterwards I fall into many

imperfections, and am unprofitable and very wicked. And perhaps

I have no perception of what is good, but am deluded; still, the

difference in my life is notorious, and compels me to think over

all I have said—I mean, that which I verily believe I have felt.

These are the perfections which I feel our Lord has wrought in

me, who am so wicked and so imperfect. I refer it all to your

judgment, my father, for you know the whole state of my soul.

1. Fra Anton. a Sancto Joseph, in his notes on this Relation,

usually published among the letters of the Saint, ed. Doblado,

vol. ii. letter 11, says it was written for St. Peter of

Alcantara when he came to Avila in 1560, at the time when the

Saint was so severely tried by her confessors and the others who

examined her spirit, and were convinced that her prayer was a

delusion of Satan: see the Life, ch. xxv. § 18. The following

notes were discovered among the papers of the Saint in the

monastery of the Incarnation, and are supposed to refer to this

Relation. The Chronicler of the Order, Fra Francis a Sancta

Maria, is inclined to the belief that they were written by

St. Peter of Alcantara, to whom the Relation is addressed, and

the more so because Ribera does not claim them for any member of

the Society, notwithstanding the reference to them in §§ 22, 28.

“1. The end God has in view is the drawing a soul to himself;

that of the devil is the withdrawing it from God. Our Lord never

does anything whereby anyone may be separated from Him, and the

devil does nothing whereby any one may be made to draw near unto

God. All the visions and the other operations in the soul of

this person draw her nearer unto God, and make her more humble

and obedient.

“2. It is the teaching of St. Thomas that an angel of light may

be recognised by the peace and quietness he leaves in the soul.

She is never visited in this way, but she afterwards abides in

peace and joy; so much so, that all the pleasures of earth

together are not comparable to one of these visitations.

“3. She never commits a fault, nor falls into an imperfection,

without being instantly rebuked by Him who speaks interiorly

to her.

“4. She has never prayed for nor wished for them: all she wishes

for is to do the will of God our Lord in all things.

“5. Everything herein is consistent with the Scriptures and the

teaching of the Church, and most true, according to the most

rigorous principles of scholastic theology.

“6. This soul is most pure and sincere, with the most fervent

desires of being pleasing unto God, and of trampling on every

earthly thing.

“7. She has been told that whatever she shall ask of God, being

good, she shall have. She has asked much, and things not

convenient to put on paper lest it should be wearisome; all of

which our Lord has granted.

“8. When these operations are from God, they are always directed

to the good of the recipient, to that of the community, or of

some other. That she has profited by them she knows by

experience, and she knows it, too, of other persons also.

“9. No one converses with her, if he be not in evil dispositions,

who is not moved thereby to devotion, even though she says

nothing about it.

“10. She is growing daily in the perfection of virtues, and

learns by these things the way of a higher perfection. And thus,

during the whole time in which she had visions, she was making

progress, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas.

“11. The spirit that speaks to her soul never tells her anything

in the way of news, or what is unbecoming, but only that which

tends to edification.

“12. She has been told of some persons that they were full of

devils: but this was for the purpose of enabling her to

understand the state of a soul which has sinned mortally against

our Lord.

“13. The devil’s method is, when he attempts to deceive a soul,

to advise that soul never to speak of what he says to it; but the

spirit that speaks to this soul warns her to be open with learned

men, servants of our Lord, and that the devil may deceive her if

she should conceal anything through shame.

“14. So great is the progress of her soul in this way, and the

edification she ministers in the good example given, that more

than forty nuns in her monastery practise great recollection.

“15. These supernatural things occur after long praying, when she

is absorbed in God, on fire with His love, or at Communion.

“16. They kindle in her a most earnest desire to be on the right

road, and to escape the delusions of Satan.

“17. They are in her the cause of the deepest humility; she

understands that what she receives comes to her from the hand of

our Lord, and how little worth she is herself.

“18. When they are withheld, anything that occurs is wont to pain

and distress her; but when she is in this state, she remembers

nothing; all she is conscious of is a great longing for

suffering, and so great is it that she is amazed at it.

“19. They are to her sources of joy and consolation in her

troubles, when people speak ill of her, and in her

infirmities—and she has fearful pains about the heart,

sicknesses, and many other afflictions, all of which leave her

when she has these visions.

“20. With all this, she undergoes great penances, fasting, the

discipline, and mortifications.

“21. All that on earth may give her any pleasure, and her trials,

which are many, she bears with equal tranquillity of mind,

without losing the peace and quiet of her soul.

“22. Her resolution never to offend our Lord is so earnest that

she has made a vow never to leave undone what she knows herself,

or is told by those who understand the matter better, to be the

more perfect. And though she holds the members of the Society to

be saints, and believes that our Lord made use of them to bestow

on her graces so great, she told me that, if she knew it would be

more perfect to have nothing more to do with them, she would

never speak to them again, nor see them, notwithstanding the fact

that it was through them that her mind had been quieted and

directed in these things.

“23. The sweetnesses she commonly receives, her sense of God, her

languishing with love, are certainly marvellous, and through

these she is wont to be enraptured the whole day long.

“24. She frequently falls into a trance when she hears God spoken

of with devotion and earnestness, and cannot resist the rapture,

do what she can; and in that state her appearance is such that

she excites very great devotion.

“25. She cannot bear to be directed by any one who will not tell

her of her faults, and rebuke her; all that she accepts with

great humility.

“26. Moreover, she cannot endure people who are in a state of

perfection, if they do not labour to become perfect, according to

the spirit of their rule.

“27. She is most detached from her kindred, has no desire to

converse with people, and loves solitude. She has a great

devotion to the saints, and on their feasts, and on the days on

which the Church celebrates the mysteries of the faith, is filled

with most fervent affections for our Lord.

“28. If all the members of the Society, and all the servants of

God upon earth, tell her that her state is an effect of the

operations of Satan, or were to say so, she is in fear and

trembling before the visions occur; but as soon as she is in

prayer,