134: St Teresa of Avila 13/16: Fraternal Charity

Even if the position of fraternal love is not prominent on the list of theological graces, St Teresa places if first in her book. (see Way of Perfection chapters 4-7 and Interior Castle V,3). It forms, together with the two other virtues she highlights - detachment and humility - the indispensable trio that ensures a solid foundation for a fruitful prayer life. As she does for the two other virtues, St Teresa presents not not only a spiritual way of practising them, but a heroic way to do so. Hence her style of presentation is more radical, aimed at promoting perfection, as the title of the book illustrates: 'Way of Perfection'. By comparison with many other authors, Teresa delves more deeply into our minds and hearts, in order to dispose us to progress spiritually to the best of our ability, with the ultimate aim of reaching union with Jesus.

This process, to say the least, hardly leaves us unscathed! With spiritual finesse, the Saint unmasks what is deep within the soul yet barely discernible to the the average spiritual person! Holiness she reveals is not the for the faint-hearted! Strong courage, a fighter's spirit and powerful determination are some of the characteristics Teresa invites her reader to embody, not to mention aiming for and achieving the highest thoughts and ideals (see Way of Perfection, chapter 23).

- Resolve, sisters, that it is to die for Christ, and not to practise self-indulgence for Christ, that you have come here. (Way of Perfection, chapter 10)

- [...] commit yourselves wholly to God, come what may. What does it matter if we die? (Way of Perfection, chapter 11)

- Now, daughters, you have looked at the great enterprise which we are trying to carry out. What kind of persons shall we have to be if we are not to be considered over-bold in the eyes of God and of the world? It is clear that we need to labour hard and it will be a great help to us if we have sublime thoughts so that we may strive to make our actions sublime also. (Way of Perfection, chapter 4).

In sum Teresa advises that our overriding characteristic should be the courage to face our inner truth and then to be true to it.

Here a closer examination of her approach and an example to reinforce our findings would greatly enhance our understanding of Teresa.

It cannot be more vigorously emphasized that to exercise fraternal love is fundamental in Spiritual Life! God gave us two commandments - the first encompassing an all-embracing love of God (Matthew 22:37-39) - on which everything, the Law and the Prophets, hinges (Matthew 22:40). The second commandment is said to be 'similar' to the first: your shall love your neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22:39). One can assume, then, that it is absolutely normal for the second commandment to be prominent in the journey towards sanctification. As mentioned in a previous chapter, Christ cannot be cut into two parts, where we express interest in the Head of the Body, namely, Jesus of Nazareth, while we neglect his Mystical Body, namely, our brothers and sisters. Christ cannot be loved on the one hand, when, on the other hand, we reject Him and sadden Him by wronging a brother. The love of Christ, received and treasured during the Prayer of the Heart, must imbue our actions afterwards and become progressively refined during daily intercourse with our brothers. Incontrovertibly, love of our neighbour is part of the three indispensable virtues that summarise the Gospel and which elevate and purify us, in order to receive Christ more worthily within our hearts.

St Teresa's way of presenting the three virtues, consequently, becomes more elevated and gains in unusual intensity. Her aim now becomes to uplift us toward a purer practice in prayer embedded in greater spiritual awareness. Why would she do so? The reason becomes evident when we show determination in following Christ, for relatively soon we begin to feel his invitation to love, help and serve our brothers as He reveals himself to us in them. However, at this stage we lack sufficient self-awareness, being as yet at the beginning of the journey, and our way of loving is still very weak, feeble and quite imperfect! One could say with St Paul that the old man (Romans 6:6; Ephesians 2:15; 4:22-24; Colossians 3:9-11) in us is still alive and well and playing his usual tricks misleading us, thereby influencing our way of exercising the new virtue of Love. The capacity of the old man's influence is very limited and limits our way of loving.

The main purpose of Teresa's Way of Perfection is to speak about supernatural 'contemplation'. She issues a clear warning to the reader, namely, that God can be approached in two ways: one is through the means of the old man, and the other is to through the new man's ones. The beginning of our spiritual journey revealingly concerns this inability to love perfectly, and St.Teresa tries her utmost to highlight the impact of the old man on the practice of the virtues! She strongly advises against practising these willy nilly, in the hope of being successful. Rather she urges the reader to exceed their known limits, in order to awaken in the individual a fully functional new man. In this way Teresa stresses and only in this way, can the acts of love be purer and please Jesus-God who wants to give Himself to us.

A brief interjection regarding St. Paul would be useful here. Even if St Teresa does not directly use St Paul's expression 'new man' and 'old man', the real difference between imperfect spiritual love and perfect/pure spiritual love is found in the differing modalities and their effects in the human being of the 'old' and 'new' man. It is to St John of the Cross that we owe the full explanation of this difference. He makes a shrewd analysis of the seven mortal sins transposed onto the equivalent seven spiritual sins, encouraging us to discover that it is not enough to love God, but that, even more so, it is necessary to evaluate how we love Him: hence the expression 'imperfections of the beginner'. (See Dark Night Book 1, Chapters 1-7)

St Teresa invites us to love in an oblative detached manner and to do so likewise with everyone else, for the sake of the Lord. This new and radical way of loving our neighbour seduces God and powerfully increases his action in us during the Prayer of the Heart. It is breathtaking to realise that the more we do what is pleasing to God, the more He loves us, evoking in Him nothing less than an irresistible desire to give himself to us – like a magnetic force, God cannot resist being attracted to us! St John of the Cross confirms in the following extract, that we can almost impel God to love us more when we practise fraternal love:

God does not establish His grace and love in the soul but in proportion to the good will of that soul’s love. He, therefore, that truly loves God must strive that his love fail not; for so, if we may thus speak, will he move God to show him greater love, and to take greater delight in his soul. In order to attain to such a degree of love, he must practice those things of which the Apostle speaks, saying: “Charity is patient, is benign: charity envies not, deals not perversely; is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeks not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinks not evil, rejoices not upon iniquity, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (Spiritual Canticle A 10,11 and B, 13,17)

The Lord himself underlines this strategic element of spiritual life: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him (John 14:23; 21). It is like a new wave of love that originates in God, and ends in us! This might seem astonishing, but this is one of the most important secrets of the Saints. We know that God loves us, that God is Love, but here we see it is something concrete, palpable, it is really received, poured into us! The love of God for us is the starting point of the Prayer of the Heart: a new love that God has toward us!

One can say that the entire book of the Way of Perfection is the illustration of this verse of St John: If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make Our home with him. This Teresa skilfully depicts in in the following manner:

The first part of the book shows our need to learn how to keep Jesus' word by practising in as perfect a way as possible and by the grace of God, the three virtues that please God most. The effect following on from this, initiates the start of the Prayer of the Heart: My Father will love him. Finally, pure contemplation can occur in the Prayer of the Heart when as a result: we will come to him and make Our home with him. Indeed, in its complete form, this verse shows us the link between the practice of the evangelical virtues and the new transformed love given to us during the Prayer of the Heart. To receive a new transformed love from the Father and the Son, and to receive this coming of the Father and the Son into us - does this not embody the Prayer of the Heart? Here it is patently obvious that there is a deep and intimate link between the virtues practised during our daily activities and the Prayer of the Heart.

Let us take an example in order to illustrate the difference between the two loves, the imperfect one and the perfect one. Accordingly, even if love is an act of the will, when we love our emotions are directly involved. Initially, however, they are not yet purified, transformed and totally moved by God. As a consequence, without our being aware of it, we make preferences in our way of loving: we do not love as God loves. God loves because He is Love: He comes out of himself, He gives himself to us without making any distinction between the good and the bad. He gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike”(Matthew 5:45). God does not find the motivation or the reason to love us within us, but within himself. By contrast, we human beings merely at the beginning of our journey, fail to act with such perfection, for to love in this way does not come easily to us. If, for example, in the workplace or in a religious community there are ten colleagues or brothers: we often find that with one or two we, quite spontaneously, have things in common, or whose company we really enjoy and desire to frequent more, all quite spontaneously, with another one or two, we find that we are not inclined to enjoy their presence, and our attitude towards the rest could is average normality. These three different reactions are spontaneous, natural, normal to have and not blameworthy by any means.These inclinations can in no way be considered sinful. But, if we surrender to this natural reaction and if our action is influenced by it, as a consequence the tendency to spend increasing time with the persons with whom we are in accord will result, so that we might neglect or even avoid the ones with whom we have no affinity or even dislike. Can this be to love as God loves? Ironically our way of loving leads to our being caught in the trap of our own superficial making. While it is evident that we all agree that we should love our neighbour, we deceive ourselves and do not necessarily acknowledge that our act of love is stained by a great weakness. It is therefore good to encourage detachment, especially of our instinctive preferences, to concentrate on overcoming our defects by the grace of God and to deliberately choose to love this or that person whom we actively dislike, by finding even more profound reasons to do so: to love because this individual has been created, loved and saved by God, because he or she deserves to be loved as God loves....

The Growth of Love

Of necessity, now, some questions arise: what is the relationship between the love of neighbour and the curve of our spiritual growth? Does love grow? Does love have a limit?

The love that binds us to God and the love that binds us to our neighbour is the same love - it is nothing less than the Holy Spirit! The closer we grow towards God, the more closely are we united to Him, and the more our love toward our neighbour is deepened, purified and enlarged, to embrace, finally, the whole world. Our spiritual life reflects this in an enhanced growth, where an acute awareness of our poverty, our weakness and the miserable state or our soul becomes increasingly manifest, but where, simultaneously, our appreciation of the infinite mercy of God becomes daily more apparent. As a consequence, there is a rising tide of Mercy and Compassion in our heart, this becoming instinctively translated into prayer.

For the human being who has reached, as it is termed, this Union with Christ (Spiritual Marriage, Seventh Mansions of the Interior Castle), St Teresa repeatedly underlines the fact that it is a great act of mercy to remember in our prayers all those who are enslaved in grave or mortal sin, those who are in the First Mansions of the Castle. The action of the Holy Spirit within us now reveals itself in an enlarged capacity to gather our brothers and sisters into our hearts.

As one can see, during the Prayer of the Heart God purifies our love for our neighbour, elevates it, transforms it, and in tandem, our daily life offers us opportunities to love our neighbour as God desires. In consequence our capacity for love is enlarged, attracts God into our heart and draws Him with irresistible force to give himself increasingly to us!

Believe me, sisters, the soldiers of Christ - namely, those who experience contemplation and practise prayer - are always ready for the hour of conflict. They are never very much afraid of their open enemies, for they know who they are and are sure that their strength can never prevail against the strength which they themselves have been given by the Lord: they will always be victorious and gain great riches, so they will never turn their backs on the battle. (Way of Perfection, chapter 38)

A brief comparison with this and a comment made by St. Therese of Lisieux endorses this complementary action of love. This Saint remarked, that from her youth, she was very impressed by a passage of St John of the Cross where he says that exercising love is of utmost importance hastening our journey to the fullness of Love and Transformation in Jesus:

With what longing and what consolation I repeated from the beginning of my religious life these other words of St. John of the Cross: 'It is of the highest importance that the soul practice love very much in order that, being consumed rapidly, she may be scarcely retained here on earth but promptly reach the vision of her God face to face.' (Yellow Notebook, 27.7.5)

In fact a reading of Manuscript C of the Story of the Soul would greatly benefit the aspiring practitioner of the Prayer of the Heart, as it includes different examples and advice offered by Therese on the love of our neighbour.

132: St Teresa of Avila 11/16: Humility

When we read St Teresa, it is impossible to refrain from noticing the importance she gives to humility. For St Teresa humility is the foundation of spiritual life and prayer, without which nothing can grow. Humility 'persuades the Lord to give us all what we want from him'; humility 'conquers everything'; humility is truth; it is only through the growth in humility that we measure our progress in spiritual life. These are but a few of the examples Teresa uses to underline, at various times, the great humility of Our Lady, and to invite us to understand its empire over God and to draw us to imitate the Mother of God. Humility seems to be the outstanding element that triggers the Grace of God. According to her beautiful expression, it allows us to 'checkmate' God!

Here it is expedient to note that Chess was very much in vogue in the Spain of St. Teresa's day, and that she learned it when she was young before entering religious life. In her first version of the Way of Perfection called “Manuscript of Escorial,” in the first four paragraphs of Chapter 16 (see below) she uses the image of chess playing. Out of consideration for her nuns, however, and in order not to leave on record her knowledge of such a worldly game, thereby promoting bad habits amongst them, she tore them out of the manuscript.

The 'checkmate' allegory, it consequently should be recognised, is so expressive, beautiful and theologically very deep that it has rightly become famous, and from the time of Fray Luis de León all the editions have included it, which is an important reason for us to understand. The goal of the game of Chess is for one of the two players, using his pieces, to corner and capture his opponent's King. In this case the King is said to be 'in check', which means 'threatened with capture'. If the King has no way of removing the threat, it is to be considered 'captured' or 'dead', that is, 'Mate', the lucky player winning and the game being over. Checkmating the opponent thus wins the game. Figuratively speaking then, a checkmate is 'a situation in which someone has been defeated'. In St Teresa's own words it means: to 'corner' God, drawing Him to us and conquering Him, making Him ours. As can be seen the image is very powerful: being able to seduce God, and draw us into his grace is reminiscent of a “secret of the saints”. The most powerful piece of the game is called the Queen, which has the greatest flexibility of movement therefore greatly threatening the opponent's King. More will be explained about this important piece later.

It is beneficial for us, in our self-pride, to remind ourselves of this, that God himself is humble (learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart (Matthew 11:29)) - indeed it can be said that He is humility itself! In St. Teresa's writings she also constantly talks about spiritual life and progress in it, to attain, in the fulness of time, Union with God himself! Therefore it is inevitable for her to insist on humility, increasing humility being our goal until we are united to the Humble-God. This, it must be emphasized, entails extreme vigilance. The more we immerse ourselves in the spiritual life, the greater is our need to be attentive to humility. If our self-awareness reveals to us that there is a struggle, this would tend to denote that a deeply spiritual life is distant from us, and an urgent examination of the state of our humility is vital. Accordingly St.Teresa states that humility and knowing oneself go together. How, then, is our humility to be increased? The answer is obvious: by seeking the truth about ourselves. St Teresa even went so far as to coin the phrase: humility is the Truth. It must be recognised, above all, that there is a need for self-discernment regarding all that comes from God and a need to be grateful to Him for it.

Spiritual Life bears in itself an important fact: the necessity to receive an extraordinary number of graces ! Significantly, in order to receive these and, more importantly, in order to keep them, there is a great need for humility! Rain falls, it can even fall abundantly, but who collects the water? The heights of the mountain or the humble valley?

St.Teresa deals with this question by writing the book the Way of Perfection, primarily in reply to a request by her daughters of the first reformed monastery, to write them something on “contemplation”. This is the origin of the book the Way of Perfection. It is already blatantly obvious that “contemplation” is for St Teresa a pure gift from God, the essence of the supernatural given to us. In writing this book she handed on to them a very significant way of perfection to follow in order to receive the Grace of God, the very secret that triggers the Grace of God.

However, it is interesting to note Teresa's letter to them before writing the book. Here she indicated that if they wanted her simply to talk to them about the first steps in prayer, that is, 'meditation', this could be easily achieved, as all that was needed was her guidance on how to proceed, which they could then put into practice with relative ease. But since they requested she talk to them about the Gift of God (John 4:10) and how to receive it, the matter encompassed a totally different level of functioning. The book of the Way of Perfection becomes, subsequently, her full answer to their request. Ironically in almost the first half of it she seems to address something entirely different, for she talks about three virtues, amongst them humility. In fact, the reader can easily be puzzled by the fact that she fails to enter immediately into the core of the subject. In fact this gives a false impression. In order to explain her present choice of subject-matter and therefore the structure of the book, she takes the example of the game of Chess. As noted above above, for one to win in this game one has corner the opponent's King and threaten it. Ingeniously, then, the entire first half of her book is devoted by Teresa to 'set out the pieces of game [correctly]: “you may be sure that anyone who cannot set out the pieces in a game of chess will never be able to play well” (Way of Perfection 16:1-4). Thus in order to do so, she teaches the three fundamental virtues: humility, loving one another and detachment. She stresses that by practising these virtues with determination and in a 'perfect' way (as she describes it), that the human being is properly enabled to give himself sincerely and wholly to the Lord. It is the quality of the gift of ourselves to Him that makes the Lord surrender himself to us: He is conquered or, in other words, He is checkmated.

Working on the three virtues and especially on humility is the direct means by which we offer ourselves to Christ, and by this means, it is possible to attract Him to us. Referring to these virtues the saint says: I hope you do not think I have written too much about this already; for I have only been placing the board, as they say. [...] But you may be sure that anyone who cannot set out the pieces in a game of chess will never be able to play well, and, if he does not know how to give check, he will not be able to bring about a checkmate. (Way of Perfection 16:1-4) It is at this point that she begins to entrust to the reader the secret of the supernatural encounter with God using the allegory of Chess, namely, in order to win, we need to corner the opponent's King in a way that totally prevents movement or escape and then attack him (checkmate him). At this juncture he is 'mate' which means beaten (conquered), or as Teresa writes: “[...] if we play it frequently [exercising ourselves in the virtues], how quickly we shall give checkmate to this Divine King! He will not be able to move out of our check nor will He desire to do so.” (idem.) This secret she entrusts to us is all together searingly beautiful and utterly audacious, but in the language of Love – God's language – this is his modus operandi.

It is at this very moment that the core of the secret of the spiritual life and of the Prayer of the Heart is imparted to us:

It is the Queen which gives the King most trouble in this game and all the other pieces support her. There is no queen who can beat this King as well as humility can; for humility brought Him down from Heaven into the Virgin's womb and with humility we can draw Him into our souls by a single hair. Be sure that He will give most humility to him who has most already and least to him who has least. I cannot understand how humility exists, or can exist, without love, or love without humility, and it is impossible for these two virtues to exist save where there is great detachment from all created things. (Way of Perfection 16:1-2)

Our Lady's humility is the secret of the Spiritual Life. This humility is not only capable of receiving God, but is also capable of holding Him and of safeguarding all the received Graces, because growth is not concerned with receiving graces but of becoming capable of not losing them.

Here may we ask God to grant us Mary's humility, to give us Our Lady herself, to clothe us in Her garments, like those of a bride, and thereby attract Christ to make his home in us!

Prayer

“Graciously O Lord, Give me Our Lady's heart,

so I can have not my humility

but her all-powerful humility,

capable of attracting you to her,

and alluring you to dwell for ever in her.”

The following comprises the text from the Way of Perfection just paraphrased above:

“I hope you do not think I have written too much about this already; for I have only been placing the board, as they say. You have asked me to tell you about the first steps in prayer; although God did not lead me by them, my daughters I know no others, and even now I can hardly have acquired these elementary virtues. But you may be sure that anyone who cannot set out the pieces in a game of chess will never be able to play well, and, if he does not know how to give check, he will not be able to bring about a checkmate.

Now you will reprove me for talking about games, as we do not play them in this house and are forbidden to do so. That will show you what kind of a mother God has given you -- she even knows about vanities like this! However, they say that the game is sometimes legitimate.

How legitimate it will be for us to play it in this way, and, if we play it frequently, how quickly we shall give checkmate to this Divine King! He will not be able to move out of our check nor will He desire to do so.

It is the Queen which gives the king most trouble in this game and all the other pieces support her. There is no queen who can beat this King as well as humility can; for humility brought Him down from Heaven into the Virgin's womb and with humility we can draw Him into our souls by a single hair. Be sure that He will give most humility to him who has most already and least to him who has least. I cannot understand how humility exists, or can exist, without love, or love without humility, and it is impossible for these two virtues to exist save where there is great detachment from all created things.

You will ask, my daughters, why I am talking to you about virtues when you have more than enough books to teach you about them and when you want me to tell you only about contemplation. My reply is that, if you had asked me about meditation, I could have talked to you about it, and advised you all to practise it, even if you do not possess the virtues. For this is the first step to be taken towards the acquisition of the virtues and the very life of all Christians depends upon their beginning it. No one, however lost a soul he may be, should neglect so great a blessing if God inspires him to make use of it. All this I have already written elsewhere, and so have many others who know what they are writing about, which I certainly do not: God knows that.

But contemplation, daughters, is another matter. This is an error which we all make: if a person gets so far as to spend a short time each day in thinking about his sins, as he is bound to do if he is a Christian in anything more than name, people at once call him a great contemplative; and then they expect him to have the rare virtues which a great contemplative is bound to possess; he may even think he has them himself, but he will be quite wrong. In his early stages he did not even know how to set out the chess-board, and thought that, in order to give checkmate, it would be enough to be able to recognize the pieces. But that is impossible, for this King does not allow Himself to be taken except by one who surrenders wholly to Him.” (Way of Perfection 16:1-4)

124: St Teresa of Avila 3/16: Christ the Groom

When we read St Teresa's books we are struck by something very unusual : the way she treats the Lord is reminiscent of the way a Spanish married woman would have interacted with her husband four hundred years ago. The level of intimacy and bold directness she had with Christ is staggering. Of course throughout the past twenty centuries of Christianity the idea that Jesus is the Groom is not a novel one. He identifies himself in the Gospel with that title. It is true as well to say that we often understand this expression more in a symbolic way rather than literally. We never consider it as being something real. Furthermore, St Teresa's way of writing is very lively, oral, direct and wholesome, so that reading her is like being a secret observer of her real life dealings with the Lord. What do we notice then? We see clearly that Jesus is her Spouse and that “the Groom” is not a beautiful exalting symbol but her simple daily reality.

We can very easily measure how today such a reality is uncommon and disturbing. To be frank one has two choices: either to conclude that she must be becoming mentally deranged or there is an unknown dimension in our faith which we need to explore. Since she is a saint, however, and not just any saint - she is a 'Doctor of the Church' (which underlines the huge trust the Church puts in her teaching) - this brings us to the second choice. It must also be added that it is not an easy choice to enter into this new world she is offering us. To her, all that we invest in a human relationship has to be involved in our relationship with Christ, and becomes a daily reality. This part of our heart – this lower and very human part of our heart – is destined as well to be given to Christ and will have its full share of the Infinite Love of Christ. In fact, one gains the impression of having made a mistake for having dedicated this part of our hearts to a human being! She seems to say to us: 'even this heart which wants to love and be loved, just as in the dream of any adolescent's heart, is to be invested in our relationship with Christ, is invited to experience Christ's Love'. This is very difficult to swallow!

With this in mind, even if we can overcome the initial psychological difficulty, the fact remains that this is too good to be true! Let us acknowledge then, that what she offers in every page of her writings is a 'love story with Christ', the possibility of 'falling in love with Christ': she offers us the Love of our Life! Indeed, the journey of growth in Love that she offers us has as a goal to reach 'spiritual marriage' with Jesus! Therefore we are not faced with a marginal element of her teaching: it is the very core!

Another difficulty now arises. Imagine we can convey this message to a woman – it is far easier for a woman to fall in love with Christ than for a heterosexual man to do so – how would we explain this concept to a man, either consecrated or lay?! On the one hand all this is quite overwhelming, not too politically correct, and on the other hand it is like squaring the circle.

This question is profound and exhilarating, but it has also to be acknowledged, very delicate. As long as the human being has a heart and will continue to feel this desire that God put in him to love and be loved, this question will touch him profoundly. However, our heart is made by whom? How is it made? And for which goal? Here we are talking about the whole human heart, all the human emotions and not only this elevated part that we normally give to God. The 'lower' part of this heart is the one that spontaneously we give to another human being. But this side of our heart is an integral part of our entire heart!

Our heart is made by God. It is made 'in his image and likeness'! The erotic part of our heart is also made 'in his image and likeness'. Some would argue that it is made according to a human dimension in the image and likeness of another human being! Definitely this is not so.. this is not true. Not only do the saints claim it, but God's word first states it: 'you shall love your God [in whose image and likeness your heart is made] with all your heart..'. He didn't say: 'you will give half of your heart to God and the other half to a human love'! He said: 'all your heart'! Why? Because he is capable of filling 'all our heart', otherwise, he would not have made it clear. This teaching is at the very core of God's message to the human being.

The fact is that God, in order to love us more 'authentically', in order to dwell in us, to unite himself to us, took on human nature. St Teresa will often speak about Jesus' human nature (see her Autobiography Chapter 22 and Chapter 7 on the Sixth Mansions), Not only did he take on a human nature, but he even got much closer to us: he gave himself to each one of us on the Cross: body, heart, soul, spirit, divinity and continues to give himself to us in the Eucharist. Isn't that the total gift of oneself? - And what is the definition of marriage? - The mutual gift of the spouses. Who is our real Spouse? Isn't it the one who is capable of giving us everything and who already has done so? In this sense the groom par excellence is Jesus. There is no greater and more total a gift than his!

From the first generation of Christians, Christ has been followed by souls avid for this love! Let us remember Mary Magdalen! And after her all the virgins martyrs, Cecilia, Lucy, Agnes,... Some of them, in fact, stated it very clearly that Christ was their real Spouse. Let us contemplate in detail, then, all the people who followed Christ: monks and nuns, starting with St Antony the Great. This exclusive love for Christ is an approach that is in itself simple where the human being understands that his heart is an immense dwelling place, made in the image and likeness of God and that God only, Christ-The Groom, is capable of filling. They understood that a certain way of loving one's neighbour is idolatry because he then takes the unique place reserved for God! They understood well the First Commandment: 'you shall love your God with all your soul, all your strength, all your heart'. For greater clarity one could also add: 'with all your emotions'.

In this light choice is not an option: either one loves God this way, as the Saints loved Him, or one loves a human being [one's neighbour]. Let us notice that God offers us 'love' in a unique equation: on the one hand he invites us in the first commandment to love him with all our heart, and on the other hand he invites us to love our neighbour as ourselves. Following the logic of the First commandment one would think that if he or she gave all his heart to God, there is nothing left to 'love with' for one's neighbour! While the surprise is that he has to love his neighbour and to love him 'as himself'. The two commandments are like squaring the circle! It is God Himself who says that our heart is created in his image! It is God Himself who says that we have to love him 'with all our heart'! It is God Himself who says implicitly that only He can fill all our heart! God Himself spoke. He never mentioned half-measures!

Human marriage, in consequence, Christian Sacramental Marriage, is not a mere concession derived from the first commandment. The spouse can never take in our heart the place (all the place) that in it belongs to God. It is written nowhere that one can reduce the First Commandment! The First Commandment is an absolute that nobody can diminish or get rid of. No doubt, this looks like an insoluble question. It takes us out of our comfort zone because we can't lie to ourselves. But finding ways to interpret it, diluting it, or finding ways to get around it without confronting the challenge is cowardly and treasonable.

It is in this sense that after her 'second conversion', when Christ appeared to St Teresa, He was perceived as the Groom, the Spouse and a jealous one at that (remember when he says to her: I don't want you to speak to human beings anymore!). It is not a matter of a kind 'symbol' to console the celibate! Just the very opposite. But without a conversion, without God's grace it is impossible to discover this dimension in Christ. The only thing we can say is that this dimension exists and that it is not an unhealthy psychological deviation, but rather it is integral to the heart of the life of the human being as he was created by God and saved by him.

St Teresa goes on to tell us that this is a unique experience, where we discover that Christ is expert at showing us and making us feel that 'falling in love with him' is the only way forward, when He makes us discover that He is really above other “loves” - that, in fact, no human love can be compared to His. She seems to invite whoever has not yet undergone this experience to humbly to make this prayer:

“O Lord,

I have heard that you want to give yourself to me

like the real Spouse of my heart and of my life.

I have not experienced it yet,

but if you want to do so with me,

I leave the door of my heart ajar.”

What about men faced with this possible experience?

Within this question of having the experience of 'falling in love with Jesus' there is a subquestion: what about men? In fact, it is humanly speaking easier for a woman to fall in love with Christ than for a man! Here in a similar way the difficulty is huge!

In order to solve it, some will try to find solutions within a nuptial dimension with others: the Community, even Our Lady. But neither the Community nor Our Lady are what God wants to give us. The central question here in St Teresa's message concerns to 'fall in love with God'! Our heart is made in His very image and not in the image of the Community or Our Lady. Christ is the central object of our love according to St Teresa and He is at the same time God and man.

St Teresa only offers in an indirect way the answer to this difficulty. We will try to guess at it by reading between the lines of her writings. It will certainly become clearer when the last chapter of this book will be addressed.

Who, then, is the best disciple of Christ? Our Lady. She embodies in a perfect way both the feminine and the masculine dimension of every human being. So, there is no difficulty for a heterosexual man to contemplate Mary at the Annunciation and ask God to give him a heart like Mary's heart. He will be able to develop within himself that feminine side while perfectly remaining a man. God promises us this change, development and transformation: I will take away your heart of stone and put in its place a heart of flesh (See Ezekiel 36). This heart of flesh is this new heart capable of believing what we receive in Baptism, this heart is this marian feminine dimension of each and every disciple of Jesus, be he man or woman. In this sense, it is unavoidable for all of us who really want to follow Jesus till the end of our lives. Let us contemplate, for one, the manly Peter, a good man, generous, zealous: how does he follow Christ? On various occasions in fact we find the 'heart of stone' seems to be more active in him! During the last supper, for example, the 'heart of stone' is very much alive in him: he insists on wanting to follow Jesus his way, wanting to defend him, protect him, and even die for him. He does not yet really allow Mary's heart to envelop him totally, activating a deeper 'falling in Love' with Jesus. What is about to happen to him? He will hit the wall at full speed!

What, between the lines, St Teresa of Avila invites us to do in order to better understand this 'feminine dimension' is to contemplate Peter right after the Resurrection, when he will have to face Mary. She believed, hoped and waited for the Groom to Rise! She remained faithful to Jesus' Promise ('the Son of Man will Rise on the Third day') until the end. Peter says three times to a woman: woman I don't know Him! And now The Woman, the New Eve, the True Bride, the Wise Virgin, is about to teach Peter how to become a 'wise Virgin' as Jesus recommends (see Matthew 25:1-13). Peter goes through a radical about-face! Christ, by his Cross, broke Peter's heart of stone and gave him a heart that is made in the image of the first heart that comes out of his side: Mary's heart. This new heart is a 'heart of flesh', a heart where the feminine dimension is fully alive and alert.

St Teresa's answer to our question concerning men, consequently, is the following: it is necessary for men to allow Mary to develop within themselves in order to better follow Christ until the end. Isn't Mary's heart the best in the nuptial dimension? Isn't 'to fall in love with Christ' the only possibility given to us in Baptism - to fall madly, deeply in love with the Groom?

We can hear St Teresa saying: it seems to me that this works very well for men as well!

Let us stop here, gaze and ponder over the result, if such a deep change – like Peter's one after the Resurrection – were to spread more widely within the Church! We would love Jesus with greater power, deeper floods of love would flow from our heart, the erotic energy compressed in us finally finding a way to be elevated, purified, and then expressed! Trying to suppress our sexual tendencies and desire to love, is the worst error we can commit and the consequences are really ugly: it will backfire on us more forcibly. It is important to face and embrace the erotic dimension of the human being - men included - and to allow him or her to discover the absolute love of Christ-The-Groom. One would be able to see the powerful energy that would result; after all aren't mystics the most fruitful of people? They loved with all their heart. St Teresa's message, then, is clear to us. Chastity can only be preserved this way: accepting and learning to 'fall in love' with Christ and to count only on his grace and the intimacy with him. This is, furthermore, the great lesson of St Teresa's conversion (see previous chapter). This is why we need a more complete and clear teaching on the Prayer of the Heart in order to enter into intimacy with Christ and persevere in it.

91: Lectio divina in daily life 1: Lectio and the Two Commandments of Love

"If Yahweh does not build the house,

in vain have its builders
laboured at it." (Ps 127:1)

Lectio is God’s great profession of faith in man and in his intellect. God needs our eyes and our hands in order to see, to love and to act in the world. Through lectio we become, just like St. Paul, “collaborators” in God’s work. Lectio is therefore vital. It is a yardstick for life and a scale by which the quality of our life is measured. Lectio brings us into relationship with God and leads us to intelligent communion with Him.

If we listen closely to the message that God himself sends us each day, if we offer Him the time and the attention that are necessary, He will transform our lives. Let us now look at the implications for daily life.

I - Lectio and the Two Commandments of Love

1. The two commandments sum up the whole of Scripture, the Law and the Prophets

These two commandments are the ultimate aim of all things, and in them we find everything. Now, lectio helps us to grow in the accomplishment of these two commandments. And indeed through lectio Christ unifies these commandments, making them into a single one, his own precept: we are to love our neighbour as he, Christ, loved us. Lectio introduces us into the depths of the mystery of these two commandments, the mystery of the love of God and of our brethren. Through it we come to know God and contemplate His love for us day after day.

a) “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart”

Lectio’s aim is very simple; and this aim is the highest pinnacle of Scripture[1]: the possession of God himself. It is absolutely normal, after years of practicing lectio, for a word or an expression to be sufficient. We will then be able to savour it more deeply. We may notice that the messages the Lord addresses to us each day are centred and condensed in a few elements or in one essential notion. In fact, the role of Scripture is to lead us to full union with God, not to resolve our material problems. We can make use of our intelligence and we can listen to the counsel of competent people in order to find answers in harmony with the spirit of the Gospel.

A man once came up to the Lord and asked him: “Judge between my brother and me, to see how we should divide our heritage between us” (cf. Lk 12:13-14). The Lord’s reaction was clear and decisive: “who set me a judge or a divider over you?” We even hear him say: “My kingdom is not of this world” (Jn 18:36). “The reign of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17). This means that if we expect lectio to give us concrete answers, we would be trying, in a certain way, to appropriate the Word for ourselves; but by doing so, we would also completely miss the purpose of Scripture! This does not mean that God is not interested in our daily lives: Jesus said that each hair on our head is counted! But the essential aim is our sanctification: “this is the will of God -- your sanctification” (1 Th 4:3). This would be an aberration of the meaning and Spirit of the Word of God.

Through lectio the Lord talks to us about Himself each day. He opens his heart to us and shows us his meekness and humility. In response, our hearts sing: “Come and see how good the Lord is!” Or, He may set our hearts ablaze with a single word, by revealing a new depth of meaning to us and leading us, in this way, further into his divine heart. We thus come to better understand the fire he came to throw on the earth and his great desire to eat the Passover with us (Lk 22:15).

b) “You shall love your neighbour”

Through lectio the Lord leads us into the depth of his love for us and reveals all he has accomplished for us. With his Word, he takes us by the hand and, day after day, illumines our intellect and stimulates our will so that we may love not just according to our limitations, but with the power of the Holy Spirit, which he gives to us. Thus we discover the depth, the width and the height of his love for us and enter into the mystery of what he undertook for us at the Last Supper, in Gethsemane and on the Cross.

This makes our capacity to love grow. Thanks to this living relationship with Christ, which is sustained through lectio, we penetrate the mystery of his love for all people and, from him, we learn to love them with His own love.

In the letters St. Paul wrote while in prison, he manifests a new and deeper understanding of the mystery of the Body of Christ, or of the “Christus totus” as St. Augustine put it. This is the sign that a new horizon for charity has opened up. At the end of her short life on earth, St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus said that the Lord had revealed the mystery of charity to her in a new way. And St. John, in his Gospel, indirectly suggests that we are called to do everything the Son of man does. This allows us to read the Gospel on another level: as a call for us to renew our being in Christ’s mystery for our brothers. St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, filled with blessed audaciousness, took Christ’s words in St. John Chapter 17 literally and applied them to herself.

Lectio, this powerful means of staying in touch with the Lord on a daily basis, introduces us into the mystery of love for one another and the mystery of the New Commandment. And this unfathomable mystery is truly overwhelming.

[1] This expression comes from Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, Mystical Theology I, 1, but we find the same idea in the writings of Origen.