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

>raised up above all the things of earth, with nothing remaining

in it that would swerve from the will of God, being a spirit and

a will resigned to His will, and in detachment from all things,

occupied in God in such a way as to leave no trace of any love of

self, or of any created thing whatever. [3] Thereupon, I

considered that, if this be union, it comes to this, that, as my

soul is always abiding in this resolution, we can say of it that

it is always in this prayer of union: and yet it is true that the

union lasts but a very short time. It was suggested to me that,

as to living in justice, meriting and making progress, it will be

so; but it cannot be said that the soul is in union as it is when

in contemplation; and I thought I understood, yet not by words

heard, that the dust of our wretchedness, faults, and

imperfections, wherein we bury ourselves, is so great, that it is

not possible to live in such pureness as the spirit is in when in

union with God, raised up and out of our wretched misery. And I

think, if it be union to have our will and spirit in union with

the will and Spirit of God, that it is not possible for any one

not in a state of grace to attain thereto; and I have been told

so. Accordingly, I believe it is very difficult to know when the

soul is in union; to have that knowledge is a special grace of

God, because nobody can tell whether he is in a state of grace

or not. [4]

4. You will show me in writing, my father, what you think of

this, and how I am in the wrong, and send me this paper back.

5. I had read in a book that it was an imperfection to possess

pictures well painted,—and I would not, therefore, retain in my

cell one that I had; and also, before I had read this, I thought

that it was poverty to possess none, except those made of

paper,—and, as I read this afterwards, I would not have any of

any other material. I learnt from our Lord, when I was not

thinking at all about this, what I am going to say: “that this

mortification was not right. Which is better, poverty or

charity? But as love was the better, whatever kindled love in

me, that I must not give up, nor take away from my nuns; for the

book spoke of much adorning and curious devices—not of

pictures. [5] What Satan was doing among the Lutherans was the

taking away from them all those means by which their love might

be the more quickened; and thus they were going to perdition.

Those who are loyal to Me, My daughter, must now, more than ever,

do the very reverse of what they do.” I understood that I was

under great obligations to serve our Lady and St. Joseph,

because, when I was utterly lost, God, through their prayers,

came and saved me.

6. One day, after the feast of St. Matthew, [6] I was as is usual

with me, after seeing in a vision the most Holy Trinity, and how

It is present in a soul in a state of grace. [7] I understood

the mystery most clearly, in such a way that, after a certain

fashion and comparisons, I saw It in an imaginary vision.

And though at other times I have seen the most Holy Trinity in an

intellectual vision, for some days after the truth of it did not

rest with me,—as it does now,—I mean, so that I could dwell

upon it. I see now that it is just as learned men told me; and I

did not understand it as I do now, though I believed them without

the least hesitation; for I never had any temptations against

the faith.

7. It seems to us ignorant women that the Persons of the most

Holy Trinity are all Three, as we see Them painted, in one

Person, after the manner of those pictures, which represent a

body with three faces; and thus it causes such astonishment in us

that we look on it as impossible, and so there is nobody who

dares to think of it; for the understanding is perplexed, is

afraid it may come to doubt the truth, and that robs us of a

great blessing.

8. What I have seen is this: Three distinct Persons each one by

Himself visible, and by Himself speaking. [8] And afterwards I

have been thinking that the Son alone took human flesh, whereby

this truth is known. The Persons love, communicate, and know

Themselves. Then, if each one is by Himself, how can we say that

the Three are one Essence, and so believe? That is a most deep

truth, and I would die for it a thousand times. In the Three

Persons there is but one will and one power and one might;

neither can One be without Another: so that of all created things

there is but one sole Creator. Could the Son create an ant

without the Father? No; because the power is all one. The same

is to be said of the Holy Ghost. Thus, there is one God

Almighty, and the Three Persons are one Majesty. Is it possible

to love the Father without loving the Son and the Holy Ghost?

No; for he who shall please One of the Three pleases the Three

Persons; and he who shall offend One offends All. Can the Father

be without the Son and without the Holy Ghost? No; for They are

one substance, and where One is there are the Three; for they

cannot be divided. How, then, is it that we see the Three

Persons distinct? and how is it that the Son, not the Father, nor

the Holy Ghost, took human flesh? This is what I have never

understood; theologians know it. I know well that the Three were

there when that marvellous work was done, and I do not busy

myself with much thinking thereon. All my thinking thereon comes

at once to this: that I see God is almighty, that He has done

what He would, and so can do what He will. The less I understand

it, the more I believe it, and the greater the devotion it

excites in me. May He be blessed for ever! Amen.

9. If our Lord had not been so gracious with me as He has been, I

do not think I should have had the courage to do what has been

done, nor strength to undergo the labours endured, with the

contradictions and the opinions of men. And accordingly, since

the beginning of the foundations, I have lost the fears I

formerly had, thinking that I was under delusions,—and I had a

conviction that it was the work of God: having this, I ventured

upon difficult things, though always with advice and under

obedience. I see in this that when our Lord willed to make a

beginning of the Order, and of His mercy made use of me, His

Majesty had to supply all that I was deficient in, which was

everything, in order that the work might be effected, and that

His greatness might be the more clearly revealed in one

so wicked.

10. Antiochus was unendurable to himself, and to those who were

about him, because of the stench of his many sins. [9]

11. Confession is for faults and sins, and not for virtues, nor

for anything of the kind relating to prayer. These things are to

be treated of out of confession with one who understands the

matter,—and let the prioress see to this; and the nun must

explain the straits she is in, in order that the proper helps may

be found for her; for Cassian says that he who does not know the

fact, as well as he who has never seen or learnt, that men can

swim, will think, when he sees people throw themselves into the

river, that they will all be drowned. [10]

12. Our Lord would have Joseph tell the vision to his brethren,

and have it known, though it was to cost Joseph so much.

13. How the soul has a sense of fear when God is about to bestow

any great grace upon it; that sense is the worship of the spirit,

as that of the four [11] elders spoken of in Scripture.

14. How, when the faculties are suspended, it is to be understood

that certain matters are suggested to the soul, to be by it

recommended to God; that an angel suggests them, of whom it is

said in the Scriptures that he was burning incense and offering

up the prayers of the saints. [12]

15. How there are no sins where there is no knowledge; and thus

our Lord did not permit the king to sin with the wife of

Abraham, for he thought that she was his sister, not his wife.

1. 2 Cor. i. 12: “Gloria nostra hæc est, testimonium

conscientiæ nostræ.”

2. See St. John of the Cross, Mount Carmel, bk. ii. ch. v.

3. See Foundations, ch. v. § 10.

4. Eccl. ix. 1: “Nescit homo utrum amore an odio dignus sit.”

5. See St. John of the Cross, Mount Carmel, bk. iii. ch. xxxiv.

6. The §§ 6, 7, and 8 are the thirteenth letter of the second

volume, ed. Doblado.

7. See Relation iii. § 13.

8. Anton. a Sancto Joseph, in his notes on this passage, is

anxious to save the Thomist doctrine that one of the Divine

Persons cannot be seen without the other, and so he says that the

Saint speaks of the Three Persons as she saw Them—not as They

are in Themselves.

9. 2 Maccab. ix. 10, 12: “Eum nemo poterat propter intolerantiam

foetoris portare, . . . . nec ipse jam foetorem suum

ferre posset.”

10. Cassian, Collat. vii. cap. iv. p. 311: “Nec enim si quis

ignarus natandi, sciens pondus corporis sui ferre aquarum

liquorem non posse, experimento suæ voluerit imperitiæ definire,

neminem penitus posse liquidis elementis solida carne

circumdatum sustineri.”

11. Anton. a Sancto Joseph says that the Saint meant to write

four-and-twenty, in allusion to Apoc. iv. 4.

12. Apoc. viii. 4.

Relation VI.

The Vow of Obedience to Father Gratian Which the Saint Made

in 1575.

1. In the year 1575, in the month of April, when I was founding

the monastery of Veas, Fra Jerome of the Mother of God Gratian

happened to come thither. [1] I began to go to confession to him

from time to time, though not looking upon him as filling the

place of the other confessors I had, so as to be wholly directed

by him. One day, when I was taking food, but without any

interior recollection whatever, my soul began to be recollected

in such a way that I thought I must fall into a trance; and I had

a vision, that passed away with the usual swiftness, like a

meteor. I seemed to see close beside me Jesus Christ our Lord,

in the form wherein His Majesty is wont to reveal Himself, with

F. Gratian on His right. Our Lord took his right hand and mine,

and, joining them together, said to me that He would have me

accept him in His place for my whole life, and that we were both

to have one mind in all things, for so it was fitting. I was

profoundly convinced that this was the work of God, though I

remembered with regret two of my confessors whom I frequented