When
we read and meditate upon St Teresa's books, we cannot fail to make a
comparison between her and Christopher Columbus the explorer and Diego de Ribera the Cartographer (see Map and Bibliography at the bottom). Indeed, she is led
by God to explore and discover new “territories” at deeper levels
within the human being, and, in addition, it has been given to her to
draw the new “map” of these discoveries as clearly delineated in
her book The Interior Castle. During her times, on the one
hand the inhabited world was discovering new territories and on the
other hand, amazingly, St Teresa was receiving the grace to explore
new dimensions in the human being! Let us not forget that St Teresa's
brother, Lorenzo, emigrated to America, settled in what is to-day the
capital of Ecuador and married a daughter of one of the
conquistadores of Peru. He came back to Spain a wealthy man and did a
great deal of good with his money. Another of her brothers, Pedro,
followed suit by sailing to Spanish America. It can be said,
consequently, that she too through her writings seems to draw the
map of a “new world”! In fact, after St Teresa of Avila, the
Gospel is no longer the same! Admittedly she does not add anything
new to it, but only imparts a deeper meaning to it. Significantly,
however, Christians are called to follow a new and different set of
requirements set out by Teresa: she presents. in fact, a journey with
milestones along the way marking the different stages of growth in
Spiritual Life.
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| Icon 'St Teresa the Seraphic', Carmelite Nuns Harissa - Lebanon |
Today,
when we say that everybody is called to become holy, the fact cannot
be denied that God gave St Teresa the capacity to shed a very
important light on the journey to holiness, by showing the various
stages of growth. After her, holiness has a different aspect!
If
we ponder on the life of the Christian, it is true and easily seen
that the dimensions of the journey and the existence of clear and
understandable stages of growth are not something that is obvious. If
on one hand there is a common consensus today in the Catholic Church
that 'everybody is called to holiness' and that 'christian life
presupposes a process of maturing,' on the other hand very few have
noticed and acknowledged the existence of a new “map”, or at the
very least that this mapping is not really well integrated within the
daily life of the Church. No one can deny that the goal of the
“universal call for holiness” is far from having been achieved.
Note:
It would be useful here to make the point that St Teresa is not at
all the first to draw a map of the Stages of the Growth in Spiritual
Life. She most definitely is not the only one. One has just to reopen
the file from day one, from the New Testament time, in order to
discover all the antecedents and see how this doctrine is well
affirmed. It is true that her book The Interior Castle
had a great influence on the Church and the world at large, but this
'doctrine of the journey' of transformation, and of its stages is
clearly represented throughout the fourteen centuries that precede
her. During the decades preceding Teresa it is true to say that Spain
saw the birth of many authors who addressed this question with
different images , for example: stages of human life, ascent of a
ladder, of a mountain,...
Returning
now to the subject in hand, it must be recognised that far from being
merely content to preach the necessity for universal holiness - in
itself a remarkable achievement - one has in addition to help the
faithful, the monks, the nuns, religious, priest, all consecrated,
the members of the new movements in the Church, to commit to the
journey of growth. It is not an option to be satisfied with just
having a spiritual life which has a few well-known consolations in
it! It is most definitely not an option to think that in some
mysterious and magical way the goal of holiness may somehow be
achieved!
Moreover,
how can we understand the goal of Spiritual Life, holiness, union
with Christ, the fullness of charity, if we do not understand even
the stages that lead up to it? This type of attitude is blatantly
absurd! There must be a radical change of hearts and minds in this
respect! Spiritual Theology is the science in charge of these
questions and it seems to struggle today to give an account of the
Spiritual Journey, of its real meaning, of its implications for the
human being! By contrast, in her writings St Teresa talks about the
very real changes that occur in the individual, at each stage! It
seems curious that many don't seem to grasp these practical insights.
For a start the stages of spiritual growth, the different experiences
during the Prayer of the Heart, cannot be separated! Everything is
connected to the action of the Holy Spirit itself at each stage, and
to the goal of its action in general, that is, there is a real
connection between the specific growth necessary to a specific person
at a certain specific stage.
St
Teresa does not merely describe feelings, epiphenomena! She
describes a profound transformation that occurs in the human being,
and describes, in addition, the landmarks with which to recognise it,
and she ends with the advice to implement it in order to progress to
the next stage. To indicate milestones on the journey of growth
towards holiness, as she does, and to become able to recognise what
is happening to a human being at all stages is of fundamental use:
the individual should come to discover the appropriate food for his
stage and as a consequence will grow. Ironically the importance of
this fails to attract the attention of many!
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| Icon by Carmelite Nuns Haifa Holy Land |
As
it progresses through the stages then, our practice of the Prayer of
the Heart, that is, what we have to do, remains roughly the same
throughout our life here on earth. This entails our Prayer of Heart
always having two things in tandem: 1- our personal input (Prayer
of Recollection) and 2- God's
input (His reply: any form of supernatural prayer like Prayer
of Quiet). Subsequent to this
the effects of the Grace of God will permeate us more deeply than
ever leading to our transformation by the Holy Spirit in Christ,
thereby realising spiritual growth. This is why St Teresa mentions in
her writings the many forms of God's supernatural reply to our
constant efforts to be recollected: Supernatural Recollection, Prayer
of Quiet, Prayer of Union, Ecstasy, Rapture,..., Spiritual
Engagement, Spiritual Marriage (Union with Christ). Each of these
types of the supernatural action of God reveals God adapting himself
to our individual needs.
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| Representation of the Interior Castle |
Furthermore,
each one of these types of prayer corresponds to a degree of
transformation. We can see the description of this journey of growth
in her book of the Interior Castle,
where she describes spiritual growth using the image of a Castle
where the centre of the Castle is the Lord's Nuptial Room, symbol of
the Union with Him. Then she reveals the first challenge is to enter
the Castle by its door (the Practice of the Prayer of the
Heart, humility and
consideration), and to penetrate deeper, mansion after mansion, doing
what we are supposed to do at each mansion in order to reach the
centre of the Castle: Union with Christ-God. The Castle is nothing
else than the human being himself, within whose centre Jesus dwells
by the Baptism.
The
Interior Castle is a masterpiece that presents the entire journey
of growth, a masterpiece as we have seen that speaks to the entire
Church, reminding us that when Jesus says 'I am the Way' He really
means that there is a journey and that He is both the goal and the
means to reach it.
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| Castle in Spain |
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| Avila Walls |
Here is how the Interior Castle starts:
"I thought of the soul as
resembling a castle, formed of a single diamond or a very
transparent crystal, and containing many rooms, just as in
heaven there are many mansions. If we reflect, sisters, we shall see
that the soul of the just man is but a paradise, in which, God tells
us, He takes His delight. What, do you imagine, must that dwelling be
in which a King so mighty, so wise, and so pure, containing in
Himself all good, can delight to rest? Nothing can be compared to the
great beauty and capabilities of a soul; however keen our intellects
may be, they are as unable to comprehend them as to comprehend God,
for, as He has told us, He created us in His own image and likeness." [see continuation...]
Bibliography
The Interior Castle
- Alison Peers translation.
- Benedict Zimmerman OCD translation.
- John Dalton translation.
For a similar book written by St John of the Cross, presenting the stages of spiritual life please see: The Spiritual Canticle.
On Cartography
- Diego de Ribera's Map 1529:
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| Diego de Ribera Map 1529 |
First scientific world map (courtesy of Wikipedia):
Ribeiro's most important work is the 1527 Padrón Real. There are 6 copies attributed to Ribeiro, including at the Weimar Grand Ducal Library (1527 Mundus Novus) and at the Vatican Library, in Vatican City (1529 Propaganda Map or Carta Universal). The layout of the map (Mapamundi) is strongly influenced by the information obtained during the Magellan-Elcano trip around the world.
Diogo's map delineates very precisely the coasts of Central and South America. It shows the whole east coast of the Americas but of the west coast only the area from Guatemala to Ecuador. However, neither Australia nor Antarctica appear, and the Indian subcontinent appears too small. The map shows, for the first time, the real extension of the Pacific Ocean. It also shows, for the first time, the North American coast as a continuous one (probably influenced by Estêvão Gomes's exploration in 1524/25). It also shows the demarcation of the Treaty of Tordesillas. The absence of any large continent south of Asia is evidence that there had been no discovery of Australia at that date.
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