TERESA of JESUS, Saint. - Reformer of the Carmelite Order, mystical writer, born Teresa de Ahumada, at Avila (Spain) on 29 March 1515, died at Alba de Tormes on 4 October 1582.
I. ACTIVITY
Her childhood was fervent; in her youth, however, she experienced a period of dissipation, from which she recovered when, at the age of sixteen, after the death of her mother Beatrice, she entered as a boarder with the Augustinian nuns. Returning to her father’s house at the end of 1533, she managed it until, secretly, on account of her father Alfonso Sanchez de Cepeda’s opposition, she left to enter the Carmelite monastery of the Incarnation at Avila; she received the habit on 2 November 1536.
Even in the convent, an initial period of great fervour was followed by lesser fidelity, and this time for a long period. The year of her religious profession (1537) she fell gravely ill and underwent a kind of treatment that, after endangering her life, left her in a pitiable state, curled up like a ball (Life, ch. 6). At that time, however, she devoted herself fervently to prayer and was favoured with some infused contemplative graces. But these disappeared when T., having recovered from her illness through the intercession of St Joseph, whom she had fervently invoked, began to associate too frequently with people of the world and became so distracted that she even abandoned mental prayer. Her father’s death (1543) spurred her to resume the practice assiduously, and from then on she never abandoned it again; yet in her the struggle between the demands of God and those of the worldly spirit lasted fully eighteen years, as she herself recalls. Her definitive conversion to a life of fervour occurred around her fortieth year, brought about by providential encounters that called her to a more serious way of life. With fervour there returned also the mystical graces, and infused contemplation, which in two years (in 1557) reached ecstasy, and interior locutions began, to which in 1559 were added visions; the famous one of the “transverberation” became renowned and was renewed several times. These graces were for T. a source of many tribulations, because at first those whom she consulted on the matter believed her deceived by Satan, but she was later reassured by holy persons, among whom were St Francis Borgia and St Peter of Alcantara. In 1560 she made the “vow of the more perfect” and laboured unceasingly in founding her monasteries, which from 1567 began to multiply. She reached the summit of the mystical life (the seventh mansions) around 1570; it seems that the grace of spiritual marriage should be dated to 18 November. Her last extended spiritual account, of 1581, the year before her death, presents her in a state of profound peace: “The imaginary visions have ceased. Yet it seems to me that I always have before me the intellectual vision of the Three Divine Persons and of the Humanity of Our Lord... The interior locutions continue still... However strong the desires [to act], I desire more the fulfilment of God’s will and the possibility of contributing to His greater glory... I love only God: and this love, it seems to me, far from diminishing, is ever increasing, in proportion to the desire that the Lord be served by all” (to the Bishop of Osma). She died after an ecstasy lasting fourteen hours, at the age of sixty-seven. Her body remained incorrupt and flexible for a long time.
The work of T. as reformer fits into the general movement of Catholic religious reform which drew its inspiration from the Council of Trent (1545-63): an air of renewed fervour was blowing throughout Europe that remained Catholic. The Carmelite Order, of which T. was a member, in Castile was far from flourishing, and even her own monastery lacked the obligation of strict enclosure. Feeling the need for greater solitude in order to devote herself to the life of prayer to which she felt drawn by the contemplative graces she enjoyed, she joyfully welcomed the idea, which arose in a conversation among friends, of founding a reformed monastery of strict enclosure, and later received confirmation of this in her interior locutions. On 24 August 1562 she succeeded in founding it, despite the enormous opposition she encountered in Avila, but she had to leave the monastery on the very day of its foundation, being urgently recalled to her original monastery; only after a year was she able to rejoin her first companions.
The four years that followed were those of the spiritual organization of the new foundation: T. gave it an eminently apostolic spirit; her daughters would become intimate friends of the Lord through a life of total self-giving, and would use their power of intercession to draw down divine graces upon the Church and in particular upon its priesthood. The “penitential” life of the Discalced Carmelites found its special motive in the intention of responding to the needs of the Church. In these same years T. made the first draft of her Constitutions, which rendered more concrete the return to the “primitive” Rule of Carmel, which in 1432 had been mitigated precisely in its central precept, which is the great withdrawal from the world. With specific provisions for enclosure, solitude and silence, T. created in her monasteries an environment so characteristic of retreat that she could write: “we intend to live not merely as nuns, but as hermits” (The Way of Perfection, 13, 6), and proclaim that the entire ideal of her daughters consists in wishing to live “alone with Him alone” (Autobiography, 36, 29), intent solely on pleasing Him and praying for the needs of the Church, accompanying prayer with self-immolation.
The General of the Order, Fr Giovan Battista de’ Rossi, who in 1567 visited T. in her monastery and approved her institute and Constitutions, ordered her to spread her reform: in that same year T. set to work founding the monastery of Medina del Campo and did not cease from founding others until her death, reaching a total of eighteen monasteries. Only during the years 1576-79, when within the Order itself a storm raged against the reform, was she forced to interrupt these typical journeys through Spain with which she founded her “dovecotes of the Virgin.” In order that her daughters might be suitably guided in their spiritual life, she had found it necessary to have fathers of the same Order who lived a similar life, and she had obtained from the Father General permission to found convents of “contemplative” fathers. Thus, with the collaboration of St John (q.v.) of the Cross, was born the reform of the Discalced Carmelite friars (1568). After some time, however, painful jurisdictional conflicts arose between the new branch and the ancient trunk, and even the Father General was so displeased that he ordered T. to remain enclosed in a monastery. But then the storm subsided, and a year before her death, in 1581, T. had the joy of seeing her Constitutions excellently ordered and approved at the Chapter of Alcalá. She thus left her Institute perfectly oriented and organized.
II. MYSTICAL DOCTRINE
Without having devoted herself specifically to studies, T. greatly loved reading and in fact immersed herself in numerous spiritual books that sharpened her keen intellect and enriched her conception of the interior life, which she later expounded in her mystical works. Her gifts as a writer were not, moreover, confined to this field; in her vast correspondence she touched upon the most varied subjects with lively narratives and suggestive descriptions of her foundations. Her mystical writings, however, deserve singular attention, for they offer a most noteworthy and leading contribution to the progress of spiritual science. More than properly doctrinal and theological, T.’s mysticism is descriptive, referring to the experience of contemplative souls and, especially—often concealed by anonymity—to her own personal experience, upon which her exposition is indeed grounded. Yet T. knew how to frame contemplative and mystical graces so well within the whole of the spiritual life and to indicate so clearly their relation to the other elements of the interior life that the entirety of her teaching constitutes a true doctrine of the contemplative life and serves as an excellent guide for souls of the spiritual life. Its essential points may be summarized in five points. — 1. Concept of perfection. T. does not confuse Christian perfection with contemplative graces: her thought on this is clear and consistent: “It is clear that the highest perfection does not consist in interior sweetnesses nor in great raptures nor visions, nor in a spirit of prophecy; but in our will being so conformed to that of God that there is no thing which we understand He desires that we do not will with our whole will, and that we accept with equal joy both sweet and bitter, once we know that His Majesty wills it” (Foundations, 5, 10). — 2. Contemplative graces. Nevertheless, T. esteemed contemplative graces highly and believed that to this “fountain of living water” God in a certain way invites all, though not all are to drink from the fountain with the same abundance. She held that God readily grants these graces to souls that prepare themselves through a life of continual prayer and generous self-giving, and that they constitute a shortcut to arrive more quickly at holiness. They are therefore truly desirable; but since they are divine gifts that God grants “to whom He wills, when He wills,” we can have no claim upon them. Moreover, we must distinguish from contemplation the extraordinary graces of visions and supernatural locutions, which are far more subject to deception and cannot be desired, for to do so would be like opening the door to various illusions. — 3. Contemplative asceticism. There thus exists a form of asceticism that prepares the soul to receive from God the graces of contemplation, an asceticism practiced in the monasteries of the Discalced Carmelite nuns founded by T., and the Most Holy One, who in fact the vast majority of her daughters attained such graces. This asceticism, described in The Way of Perfection, consists fundamentally in the heroic practice of various virtues that effect in the soul complete detachment from creatures, and in the active exercise of intense mental prayer, the progressive development of which T. expounds. — 4. Infused contemplation. In her Interior Castle, from the “fourth mansions” onward, T. describes the various forms of infused contemplation, characterized by the greater or lesser passivity of the soul that receives the gift of God: sometimes in a way that does not suppress all personal cooperation (semi-passive prayer, such as prayer of quiet), sometimes so as to absorb the soul entirely in a way that leaves no room for personal activity; yet the soul still operates, for it knows and loves (prayer of union, entirely passive). Each of these two types of prayer has various nuances. The most important are those of the prayer of union, which may be simple union (fifth mansions) or become ecstasy through the vehemence of God’s action and the profound manifestation of the divine object (sixth mansions), or take a more or less permanent form, though the experiential union with God does not always present the same intensity (seventh mansions). In T.’s schema of mystical graces, “true” visions appear only in the sixth mansions (when the soul in contemplation arrives at ecstasy), and imaginative visions tend to disappear in the seventh mansions. — 5. Christological mysticism. T. had a profound sense of the mediatory function of Christ even throughout the mystical life. Not only did she never admit that it is expedient to distance the memory of Christ’s humanity for the development of contemplation, but she positively recommended to the soul practicing prayer to cultivate contact with Him who, even in the realm of mystical graces, is the way that leads to the Father. She was, and ever remains, T. of Jesus.T.’s works were published at a very short interval after her death. The major ones are: the Autobiography, The Way of Perfection, The Foundations, The Interior Castle or Mansions; the minor ones: the Spiritual Relations, Thoughts on the Love of God, Exclamations, Counsels, Poems, and two writings of an organizational and administrative nature: The Constitutions and The Way to Visit the Monasteries of the Discalced Carmelites. Most are still preserved in her own handwritten manuscripts. In the edition by Luis de León (1588), the Foundations is missing among the major works. They were progressively translated into all the principal European languages and continue to spread throughout the world in renewed versions and numerous editions to this day. In Italy there are two recent editions of the Works: the first by the Discalced Carmelite Fathers Egidio di Gesù and Federico del Santissimo Sacramento, collected in a single volume (Milan 1932; 2nd ed., Rome 1950); the second by M. N. Morando (4 vols., Rome, Edizioni San Paolo, 1945–50). These works are certainly among the most widely read spiritual works. In this way they nourish a broad spiritual current within the Church. With regard specifically to mysticism, it must be acknowledged that T.’s descriptions, so precise, of one endowed with an extraordinary gift of introspection and a special talent for expression, have provided scholars with such abundant and important material that it has in a certain way renewed the study of mysticism by giving it a more extensive documentary basis. Yet the especially precious influence of the great Saint in the Church consists in the marvelous spread of her Institute: there are now 700 monasteries of Discalced Carmelite nuns throughout the world, about fifty of them in the mission lands.
ART. — The authentic features of St. T. of Avila, during her lifetime, were portrayed by the Carmelite friar Juan de la Miseria. Portraits and engravings of the 17th century derive from his work.
S. TERESA is usually depicted at the moment of ecstasy, when an angel pierces her heart with a golden dart. The most notable representation of this mystical scene is by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, in the Church of S. Maria della Vittoria in Rome (v. reproduction vol. II, pl. xcii). Of the same genre is the Vision of S. TERESA, painted contemporaneously by Guercino and now preserved in the Brera in Milan. The statue by Pierre Legros in the Cathedral of Turin, half a century later, depicts the Saint also in ecstasy, but beside her there is no angel.
In a painting now in the Museum of Antwerp, Peter Paul Rubens depicted Christ appearing to S. TERESA as helper of the souls in Purgatory. In the vault of the Scalzi in Venice, Giambattista Tiepolo painted the Glory of S. TERESA. Vedi pl. CXL.