Mysticism

Review: The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila

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Cover image of "The Life of St. Teresa of Avila" by Carlos Eire

The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila (Lives of Great Religious Books), Carlos Eire. Princeton University Press (ISBN: 9780691164939) 2019

Summary: An account both of St. Teresa’s life and of her autobiography recounting her encounters with the divine.

The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila, or as it is often known, the Vida, is one of the great works onf the spiritual life, tracing the religious progress of Saint Teresa of Avila and her encounters, some quite ecstatic, with God. It was so controversial at the time that it was not published for two decades. In this volume of the Lives of Great Religious Books. Carlos Eire not only offers an account of her life and the composition of the book. He also traces its after-history of reception and interpretation, down to the present.

Eire begins with her life story. He emphasizes the place of good books in her life. She entered the convent at age twenty and nearly died of an illness. However, it would be another twelve years of convent routines before Teresa’s transformation. This came when venerating a new image of Christ brought to the convent. From here, she rapidly evolved into a mystic, experiencing instances of union with God that included visions, raptures and even levitations. Eire also notes the influences of other mystics, including Francis Borgia and Pedro de Alcantara. This awakening resulted not only in mystical experiences of union with God, but a series of writings beginning with the Vida, and her leadership of efforts to reform the Carmelite order, resulting in establishing the Discalced Carmelites.

The origin of the Vida was less her desire to get her story out than a directive of her spiritual advisors, a kind of confession to answer questions about her experiences. This was the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Her unusual experiences raised eyebrows. It was fascinating to see how the work developed under her advisors oversight, which she heeded, which probably saved her from outright condemnation as a heretic. She had both defenders and opponents. She both remained free while the Inquisition succeeded in suppressing her work.

Eire then walks us through the content of the Vida. He sets the book in the context of her reading. He also discusses major themes, including mental prayer, the Four Waters, the prayers of quiet and union, and mystical phenomenon.

Then he turns to the afterlife of the Vida. Teresa died in 1582. He discusses both the lingering opposition to the work and its spread, including numerous translations. He also traces the representation of the Vida in art, which underscored the rapturous character of some of her experiences. The final chapters explore her treatment in modernity and in post-modern criticism. This includes those skeptical of her accounts, those who psychoanalyzed her experiences, and even Spanish fascists who sought to appropriate her for their cause. The book concludes with her elevation as a Doctor of the Church by Paul VI. Eire notes how her treatment as doctor orationis (Doctor of Prayer) remains in conflict with modern and post-modern readings of her life.

I’ve read Teresa’s Interior Castle but not the Vida. Eire’s account made me want to do so. And his commentary makes this an ideal companion that I’ll want to have on hand should I do so.

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Thanks for visiting Bob on Books.  I appreciate that you spent time here. Feel to “look around” – see the tabs at the top of the website, and the right hand column. And use the buttons below to share this post. Blessings! [Adapted from Enough Light, a blog I follow.]

Review: Becoming an Ordinary Mystic

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Becoming an Ordinary Mystic

Becoming an Ordinary Mystic, Albert Haase, OFM. Downers Grove: IVP/Formatio, 2019.

Summary: Explores what it means to be a friend of God, to walk in an awareness of God’s grace, in the ordinary of life.

From the time the author’s mother defined a mystic as “a friend of God,” Albert Haase wanted to be one of those friends. Years later he found himself frustrated, feeling he was walking in circles, wondering:

  • I should be further along on the spiritual journey.
  • Why don’t I see any progress?
  • What am I doing wrong?

His spiritual director observed that many of the great mystics felt like this, and that the fact that he felt like this signaled that he was a mystic as well, an ordinary mystic. Instead of striving, he began to learn what it means to be open to God’s grace. In this book, he shares some of the practices by which he learned that awareness of God and God’s grace through his days.

It begins with a mindfulness of the present of stopping to recollect, looking to attend, listening to reflect, and then going in response. In the first of the exercises that conclude each chapter, he urges this practice several times a day. He then moves on to the examination of conscience, a ruthless review of our sins and the ego obsessions that underlie them, opening us even more to the grace of God. He explores how meditation on the Sermon on the Mount can re-wire our thinking and ego obsessions. He invites us into the cardiac spirituality of love that is at the heart of the law. He teaches us to be transparent through the Welcoming Prayer, a prayer in which we welcome the unseemly emotions.

He moves into our experiences of the absence of God, the times of doubt and darkness, where all we can do is to surrender to we know not what. There is the struggle of forgiveness–of God, of ourselves, and others. He commends the practice of CPR: Confession, Pressing the “stop” button on our memories when they arise, and Relaxation that acknowledges what frail creatures we are and trusts God’s transformative work on his timetable. He draws us into exploring our inadequate images of God and the images of God we see in the life of Jesus.

He tackles the challenges we have with prayer and suggests we begin with the “Come as you are” prayer. He helps us to recognize prayer both as words and the silences between them, much like the notes and rests in music. He proposes that our life experiences are God’s megaphone and the question is not whether God’s speaking, or even whether can we hear him, but what is he saying so loudly in our experiences?

Perhaps some of the best counsel in the book are the principles he outlines regarding various spiritual practices:

  1. They are our response to God’s ardent longing for us, inviting us to go deeper with him.
  2. Whatever the discipline, it should foster a heightened awareness of God’s grace.
  3. This, in turn ought lead to our surrender to the will of God.
  4. One size does not fit all. Traditional practices are not helpful for every person.
  5. Any practice that makes us mindful of God’s ardent longing is acceptable.

He concludes with describing the practice of spiritual direction and how such a person can be a help in becoming aware of God and gives practical recommendations for finding direction.

I found much to commend in this encouraging little book. I found myself identifying again and again with Haase–the glimpses of grace, the profound awareness of sin’s depths in my life, the moments of perplexity, the times where God seems distant, and dealing with and welcoming into God’s presence my unseemly emotions. This is a book that may be taken on retreat, or read and used as a group. And it just may be that we will discuss that God ardently desires us, that we may also be “friends of God,” ordinary mystics.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Dark Night of the Soul

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JohnCross

St. John of the Cross

1. One dark night,
fired with love’s urgent longings
— ah, the sheer grace! —
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

2. In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
— ah, the sheer grace! —
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.

3. On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

4. This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
— him I knew so well —
there in a place where no one appeared.

5. O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

6. Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him there
in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

7. When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.

8. I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.
–St John of the Cross

I am in a choral group that is singing a version of this poem by the Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross. [You can watch and listen to the piece on this exquisite YouTube recording]. It has made me wonder what this poem is all about.

It is actually part of a treatise The Dark Night of the Soul. The treatise expounds the poem, which is sometimes called “The Stanzas of the Soul” and describes a”ladder-like” ascent from the darkness of purifying the senses and the spirit to be united in love with Christ.

This is a poem that intrigues me. The experience is different from what we usually think of as a dark night, which often is a time of despair or a sense of God’s absence. This is more the darkness of turning from exterior sense experience to the stillness of a heart contemplating the One she or he loves, and in that contemplation finding oneself with one’s Lover, enjoying the Beloved’s presence.

Some circles are leery of the mystics. Yet real love is rooted both in truth and intimacy and it is this latter the poem brings out. How many of us know God with the kind of intimacy we reserve for the language of lovers? How many have stilled the “noise” of our lives to have these kinds of loving encounters?

These are some of the things I’ll be thinking about as I sing this poem this weekend.