As
we start to follow St Teresa when embarking on a more fervent
Spiritual Life, replete with Graces, we ask ourselves this question:
all this is well and good, but is this action of God in Teresa
palpable? Is it recognisable?
In order to find an answer it is
advantageous to consider St. Teresa's language, in particular the way
she addresses spiritual questions, namely, her language is practical,
real, existential. She says things as they are felt, lived and
experienced by the person who is at the receiving end, while the
progress itself is gradual.
However,
even if the Grace of God is acting in our depths, and even if we are
living in his Grace “in faith”, this grace will have exterior
signs and manifestations in the soul and in the body. These
manifestations are not mandatory, or better said, they are not the
essence of God's gift to us, but they often show up, because of our
initial weakness. The array of what we feel “spiritually” is
quite wide: it goes from tears to visions, passing through
“consolations” or “spiritual delights”. Similarly the array
of visions we can have goes from the lowest, the “corporeal
visions”, to the highest and more stable, the “intellectual”
visions. In a word, the Holy Spirit makes us experience, in many
ways, the Love of God. Here, too, we see that it is the incredible
humility of God who is lowering himself to our insignificant human
level in order to talk to us and communicate with us.
At
the same time there are pitfalls and one needs to be on guard for the
majority of the above-mentioned palpable aspects of the grace of God
- although the highest visions can be excluded - for it is dangerous
to become attached to these crumbs that fall from the substantial
table that God sets out for us within the deepest part of our being.
This is the case, for instance, with tears (very common phenomena in
the first long phase of spiritual growth: 4th - 5th
Mansions).
St Teresa of Avila often invites her reader not to be
attached to them and to continue to practise the Prayer of the Heart
regardless of what is felt or not felt. St Paul uses the image of
“milk” given to the baby, as opposed to solid food, in order to
describe what God gives in the first stage of growth (see 1
Corinthians 3:2; Hebrews 5:11-12; 1 Peter 2:2; John 16:12). This
image is also accepted by St John of the Cross in his teaching on the
shift that God operates from a human mode when talking and acting
with us, to a divine mode when doing so. If we depend on this “milk”
(i.e. these consolations) that God gives us, we start to go astray.
Ironically, we idolise crumbs from the table of God rather than the
very essence of his Grace. Having said that, it should be
acknowledged that God is aware of our initial weakness, and in his
wisdom knows how to strike the right balance between what He gives us
in some more substantial moments of dryness, and those other moments
where He seems to be just holding us in his embrace, giving us a
short respite before we resume our efforts to climb upwards.
Understandably,
to ask for consolations is clearly not advisable. St John of the
Cross even goes on to say that it is a formal sin. It is wiser and
more fruitful, then, to trust in God and in his “management” of
our spiritual life, knowing that He always offers what is best for
us. A timely reminder would not go amiss here: whoever practises the
Prayer of the Heart while expecting consolations and desiring them is
going astray! This would be tantamount to starting to replace, albeit
unconsciously, consolations in place of God... People become
spiritual persons - but nonetheless – the consolations have become
idols. As St John of the Cross so adamantly expresses: our journey is
towards God, and we need to access God through Faith!
When we
practise the Prayer of the Heart, our contemplation of the humanity
of Christ is greatly needed because in Christ we find everything,
because He is the only being who is at one and the same time, fully
God and fully man, and nothing that we need is lacking in Him. Taking
Him as the true companion for the journey is the ideal support for us
to lean on, He is our ideal true “consolation”. This is what St
Teresa offers in her teaching on the Prayer of the Heart (see for
instance chapters 26 and 28 of her book Way of Perfection). In
Him we unerringly find everything! If we are in need of consolation,
we will find it by looking at Him, by fixing our eyes on him
(one of the favourite expressions of St Teresa). If we are sad,
contemplating the sadness He feels in his Passion and sufferings will
lift us up. If we are happy, we can contemplate Him in his triumphant
Resurrection. He is the true visible image of the Father, He has a
body like us, a soul, in sum: a human nature. He is our guide during
the Prayer of the Heart, dwelling as He does at the centre of our
heart.
As
mentioned a few chapters before, discovering that Jesus was dwelling
in the centre of her heart, was for St Teresa a revolution of
Copernican proportions. She felt liberated and lived it as a decisive
turning point in her spiritual life. For her, to know that He is so
close to her, within her heart, as a Companion, Friend, Saviour,
Spouse, was of great help in her prayer. She was then more easily
able to recollect herself and was able to find him more
expeditiously! She just needed to “enter within herself”, and go
towards Him to find him! This is why she often repeats this important
piece of advice: “don't leave Him alone” and by this she means:
He is inside of you, like in a living Tabernacle, but if you are
outside of yourself, immersed in creatures and creature comforts, you
are leaving Him alone, and He feels lonely; therefore, do not leave
Him alone, enter into yourself to find Him and then remain with Him.
When we
receive Communion, an enormous source of help is accessed to
facilitate the practice of the Prayer of the Heart even more! In
fact, as St Teresa underlines in her book the Way of Perfection,
Communion and Prayer of the Heart are in their very nature the same!
One may further add that the Prayer of the Heart may be likened to
the digestive process during Communion with the Lord. This is why St
Teresa recommends to her daughters, the Carmelite nuns, that they
remain still for ten to fifteen minutes after Mass in silence,
without leaving the Chapel! Her reason for this is crucial as,
thereby, they will give more space and time to Christ (Whom they
have just received) to act in them, pouring out his Holy Spirit and
purifying them. All this is without question Prayer of the Heart. The
very moment of Communion and the minutes immediately succeeding it
are the best illustration of what constitutes the Prayer of the
Heart: an in-depth encounter with Jesus, a union with Him, a
heart-to-heart rapport with Him, where He gives himself to us,
pouring his Holy Spirit into us. Similarly the image of Baptism, with
its Greek meaning of immersion,
conveys the fact that the Prayer of the Heart is an immersion
in Christ where He communicates his Holy Spirit to us.
As
above-mentioned, therefore, Eucharistic Communion helps us best to be
aware of the secret coming of Jesus into our heart, and of his
presence at its centre! This awareness that our heart is like another
heaven for Christ where He can find his delight, is a fundamental
awareness. This and also attention to his presence nourishes our
spiritual life, our inner life, and tells us simultaneously how much
an inner world really does exist, and not that it fails exist just
because it is invisible.This inner invisible but real world
supersedes in importance the visible world and in addition nourishes
it.
The daily
practice of the Prayer of the Heart further allows us to put
ourselves into the hands of the Lord and allows He himself to truly
guide us. Subsequently the action of the Holy Spirit in us during the
Prayer of the Heart will generate a true transformation of our being
in His, a real purification that will allow us to get closer to Him
and to be united to Him and by him – in a word - it will generate
real spiritual growth. The Lord himself will make us grow and mature
spiritually. This is why St Teresa of Avila mentions in her books
what the practice of Prayer of the Heart becomes through the
different stages of spiritual growth. In this way she sets out and
describes various milestones that help us discern where we are on our
journey of growth. In addition, at each stage of growth St Teresa
delineates various elements:
1- The
graces that God desires us to possess.
2- Our
role in allowing Him to act, in order to also harmonise in us his
role of interacting with us.
3- The
final stage of the resultant growth encapsulating what God realises
in us.
These
descriptions are indications for us to gauge which stage we have
reached on our journey, thereby aiding discernment. Each stage has
its own manifestations, its physiognomy, and at each stage we receive
nourishment, each time more substantial, and at each stage we are
shown the need to contribute certain things in order to correspond to
God's action.
Taken as
a whole then, in the spiritual life, whoever is not climbing upwards
(progressing) is slipping and indubitably will fall down. It is a
steep journey! A steady effort is necessary, but this varies
according to the stages. This explains the reason for St Teresa
taking her time to describe each stage of growth as the entire book,
The Interior Castle, so
vividly illustrates. In this sense it would be safe to
conclude that spiritual growth is the result of victory over many
battles, of surmounting many different obstacles. We are in fact
co-authors of our own transformation, our own sanctification.
Text from St John of the Cross
The
following text, even if it is by St John of the Cross expresses very
well what St Teresa teaches. In this text, St John of the Cross makes
God the Father reply to the person seeking consolations, visions,
revelations as follows:
“If
I have spoken all things to thee in My Word, Which is My Son, and I
have no other word, what answer can I now make to thee, or what can I
reveal to thee which is greater than this? Set thine eyes on Him
alone, for in Him I have spoken and revealed to thee all things, and
in Him thou shalt find yet more than that which thou askest and
desirest. For thou askest locutions and revelations, which are the
part; but if thou set thine eyes upon Him, thou shalt find the whole;
for He is My complete locution and answer, and He is all My vision
and all My revelation; so that I have spoken to thee, answered thee,
declared to thee and revealed to thee, in giving Him to thee as thy
brother, companion and master, as ransom and prize. For since that
day when I descended upon Him with My Spirit on Mount Tabor, saying:
This is My beloved
Son, in Whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him,
I have left off all these manners of teaching and answering, and I
have entrusted this to Him. Hear Him; for I have no more faith to
reveal, neither have I any more things to declare. For, if I spake
aforetime, it was to promise Christ; and, if they enquired of Me,
their enquiries were directed to petitions for Christ and expectancy
concerning Him, in Whom they should find every good thing (as is now
set forth in all the teaching of the Evangelists and the Apostles);
but now, any who would enquire of Me after that manner, and desire Me
to speak to him or reveal aught to him, would in a sense be asking Me
for Christ again, and asking Me for more faith, and be lacking in
faith, which has already been given in Christ; and therefore he would
be committing a great offence against My beloved Son, for not only
would he be lacking in faith, but he would be obliging Him again
first of all to become incarnate and pass through life and death.
Thou shalt find naught to ask Me, or to desire of Me, whether
revelations or visions; consider this well, for thou shalt find that
all has been done for thee and all has been given to thee - yea, and
much more also - in Him.
If thou desirest Me to answer thee with any word of consolation,
consider My Son, Who is subject to Me, and bound by love of Me, and
afflicted, and thou shalt see how fully He answers thee. If thou
desirest Me to expound to thee secret things, or happenings, set
thine eyes on Him alone, and thou shalt find the most secret
mysteries, and the wisdom and wondrous things of God, which are
hidden in Him, even as My Apostle says: In
this Son of God are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge
of God. These
treasures of wisdom shall be very much more sublime and delectable
and profitable for thee than the things that thou desiredst to know.
Herein the same Apostle gloried, saying: That he had not declared to
them that he knew anything, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.404
And if thou shouldst
still desire other Divine or bodily revelations and visions, look
also at Him made man, and thou shalt find therein more than thou
thinkest, for the Apostle says likewise: In
Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." (Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, Chapter 22,5-6)
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