teresa of ávila

There's an article here about her.


I've got one of her books "Interior Castle" and I'm just starting to go through it. But I doubt if I'm contemplative enough to gain any real benefit from reading it. It's slow going.

I'm also starting to wade through a library book "The Dark Night of the Soul" which is the same name as the original book written by St. John of the Cross, but this one is written by a psychiatrist Gerald G. May. No doubt he'll put a different spin on the topic, but I mention this as St. John of the Cross and Teresa were compatriots - they worked together. She was 27 years older than he was.

He was also very short, less than five feet tall (even I'm taller than that!). She was already receiving assistance from another Friar Fray Antonio, and when John joined her, she joked about his size saying "I've now got a friar and a half".

She could be very direct. I'm not sure exactly what prompted the following exchange, but one time she was very annoyed with God. I think she may have fallen off a horse into a muddy puddle and ruined a good cape. She complained to God and she seemed to be told "I treat all my friends like this!" She snapped back "Then no wonder you've got so few of them!"

While no doubt there are good books about Teresa of Avila, to get any real understanding of her thought you'd also need to read a couple of her books. But if you're a typical Westerner like me, you may find that you're not contemplative enough to gain a lot from doing so.

She was seen to levitate on a number of occasions, and she described the effect as follows -

These effects are very striking. One of them is the manifestation of the Lord’s mighty power: as we are unable to resist His Majesty’s will, either in soul or in body, and are not our own masters, we realize that, however irksome this truth may be, there is One stronger than ourselves, and that these favours are bestowed by Him, and that we, of ourselves, can do absolutely nothing. This imprints in us great humility. Indeed, I confess that in me it produced great fear — at first a terrible fear. One sees one’s body being lifted up from the ground; and although the spirit draws it after itself, and if no resistance is offered does so very gently, one does not lose consciousness — at least, I myself have had sufficient to enable me to realize that I was being lifted up. The majesty of Him Who can do this is manifested in such a way that the hair stands on end, and there is produced a great fear of offending so great a God, but a fear overpowered by the deepest love, newly enkindled, for One Who, as we see, has so deep a love for so loathsome a worm that He seems not to be satisfied by literally drawing the soul to Himself, but will also have the body, mortal though it is, and befouled as is its clay by all the offenses it has committed.

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friendl said:

Can anyone recommend a good book and / or web site on teresa of ávila?

I want to read about her famous writings.

Regards,
L.

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She never wrote: "Christ has no body now but yours", though the words are often attributed to her.