163: Lectio Divina in Daily Life 11: The Call and Lectio

Continuation of "Lectio and Vocation".

a) Lectio permits us to walk this road

In lectio Christ comes first and I second. He speaks and I listen. The danger exists that Lectio, instead of being a time for listening, becomes a moment of decision making for me, where I appropriate the Word for myself. When I do this, I take the place of Christ, and I am no longer listening. For this reason the Holy Spirit helps me to listen, to adjust my relationship with Christ by ceding to him.

There is also a risk of calling oneself, of deciding by oneself the meaning of the Word of the day. But the movement of listening is just the opposite: He begins to speak. The invocation of the Holy Spirit puts us in our right place.

By daily listening to Christ, who calls us to follow him, we find the steps we need to take. And so we walk in Christ’s footsteps.

b) Practicing lectio implies a commitment

Lectio also supposes that one is committed to Christ. The exercise of Lectio is particularly demanding, and it is difficult to listen as long as one is not fully devoted in one’s heart to searching for the truth and to meeting Christ.

St Matthew's Call, Caravaggio, Rome

Lectio and accompanying vocations

Evidently, in order to make a good discernment of a vocation it is necessary to listen to the Lord every day. It is not possible to say that one has a vocation if one does not practise Lectio. That would be tempting the Lord (1). Each person who is called or who wishes to discern, according to his or her possibilities, should practice Lectio. Nevertheless, it is evident that if the Lord calls, or seems to call, (and he calls everyone to follow him), it is not normal to allow only a few possibilities for him to speak to us. Tempting the Lord manifests a lack of wisdom. If one continues to be engrossed in a thousand different things and states: ‘The Lord is calling me; if he does this, he knows what he is doing and he will be able to direct me in another way if he wishes’. But no, the Lord expects us to choose with our will and our intellect. Without us he cannot and will not act. If he does so as an exception he does so in mercy; but normally we come to see that we are inverting the values, and that as a consequence we need to change the rhythm of our lives, even if it comes at a price. Of course, it is good to talk with a priest or an experienced guide. But sooner or later our life needs to progress toward the recognition that lectio needs to be done on a daily basis.

Many people are called and many end up by loosing their call. This does not mean that the Lord has stopped calling them (the Lord does not take back his gifts), but we have regressed to the point of losing what we had gained. A call is like a small seed that must become a big tree. If the seed is not watered, nourished and taken care of, it cannot reach maturity. When the first storm or temptation comes, or another voice, it gives way. People trample on it and the call seems to be definitively lost. Now, Lectio allows the seed to grow, protecting it like a guard tower against everything and everyone. The humble person, who practices Lectio everyday, has incredible strength; he or she is able to confront all the contradictions through the grace coming from the daily encounter with Christ who speaks, consoles and securely guides him or her.

Sometimes people think that a retreat for discernment is sufficient. But before or after the retreat they neglect to be faithful to daily Lectio. If we have discerned that the Lord is calling us and suppose that we have been “put on the right track”, that “all will go well”, we are fooling ourselves, because we have to live faithfully every day!

When mediation blurs

Sometimes certain people do not really discover their vocation: they are oriented; they receive counselling and are directed; but, although they “advance”, they are still distant from Christ. Mediations, instead of being transparent to Christ, they become opaque. The vivifying encounter with Christ does not occur “freely”, and this happens because people do not listen to the Call directly. Now, Lectio puts us into direct contact with Christ. He is the vocation of each baptised Christian; he gives strength and energy; he seduces and draws; he convinces and commits. All mediation serves this relationship, and ought to promote it. But when the mediation is self-interested - often unconsciously - when spiritual direction becomes a projection onto the person being accompanied, a screen is erected which breaks the relationship instead of furthering it. In this case, lectio itself may be compromised.

(1): When the devil tempted the Lord in the desert “he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the Temple, and said to him, `If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down from here, for it has been written: ‘To His messengers He will give charge concerning you, to watch over you,’ and: ‘On hands they shall bear you up, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone.’” But Jesus replied: “‘It has been said, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”(Lk 4:9-12). Progressing in one’s vocation without the support of lectio is like throwing oneself down from the pinnacle of the Temple and saying: “The angels of the Lord will save me, since I am God’s child!” It is impossible to advance in one’s vocation without the substantial help of lectio; this would simply be “tempting God”.

Note 1: This is an extract from the book: "Lectio divina in daily life" (please click here)

Note 2: To know more about Lectio Divina see: A keynote on Lectio Divina

Note 3: Please remember to subscribe to this Blog so you can receive the posts directly to your email.

128: St Teresa of Avila 7/16: Finding the Correct Path in the Spiritual Life

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: 4^th - 5^th 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)

123: St Teresa of Avila 2/16: St. Teresa's Conversion: The meaning of her life

St Teresa's 'second conversion' remains central in her life and teaching to the point that in the her autobiography she draws a golden divide : time before her second conversion and time after it. Before her conversion it's her life alone and afterwards it's Jesus' life in her.

This momentous event in her life is so important that it gives meaning to all that will follow: her powerful spiritual growth, the foundation of the first reformed monastery, not to mention the foundation of many other monasteries. Throughout her life and writings she will then repeat the key lesson she learned from her conversion.

We often hear her talking about her sins and God's mercy towards her. This is not a figure of speech or a pious attitude, or random words: it is the simple truth. Her conversion is, in fact, what we call a 'second conversion', bearing in mind that she is, of course, already a christian and a nun. This conversion concerns going from a normal 'traditional' christian life to entering into a day to day personal relationship with the Risen Lord.

This conversion happens to her when she is thirty-nine years old, having first entered the Monastery of the Incarnation in Avila (Spain) when she was only twenty years of age. It should be borne in mind, here, that the two reasons for which she entered would not be sufficient nowadays for a girl's acceptance in a monastery: first, she had a very dear friend of hers already inside this particular monastery and secondly she feared committing mortal sin. Why mortal sin? She knew very well that she was attractive and entertaining; in fact many cousins were attracted to her. She also was aware that she was weak and feared falling into mortal sin. Of course there are plenty of other implicit reasons: one of them is her great devotion to Our Lady whom she adopted as a mother after the death of her own mother. In fact the Carmelite order is known to be the Order 'of Our Lady'.

Incarnation Monastery (Avila)

On the surface, however, her religious life seemed good. She was a spiritual person, observant, faithful to religious life. But seen from the perspective of the heart or the emotions, she was failing to belong totally to Christ-The-Groom. She was not, curiously, totally aware of this lack. This could seem strange considering her way of life where she used to meet people in the parlour and talk to them about prayer, mental prayer at that. She was capable of entertaining people concerning the spiritual life for hours.

Revealingly her emotions were not totally in the hands of Christ, liking as she did to talk, entertain, thereby clinging to these relationships. Indubitably no sin is being committed here, especially according to today's criteria. But Christ does not look at the external part of our behaviour, rather he sees into our heart, and it's our heart that He is waiting for!

One has to say that the Lord has been patient with her – almost twenty years – then He took pity on her, wanting to change her. Blessed be Him Eternally for His Mercy!

The modern reader, consequently, would not see a problem with what she was doing since, when looked at superficially, she is not committing any sin. We know as well that she would never have sinned knowingly on purpose. It must be remembered that it is for this reason that she entered the monastery: to avoid mortal sin. So if there is no apparent sin, where is the problem? Which 'conversion' does she need? After all, she leads a good monastic life and through it she glorifies God! The fact remains, however, that she was blind until the Lord, with His merciful Grace, showed her from within, in her heart and emotions, what was lacking, what she was not giving to Him. Her heart in fact was divided, even worse, it was scattered about,veering outwards rather than being focused inwards on God. The relationships she was having, talking about God, were certainly straightforward, but at the emotional level, her heart was geared outwards, her emotions being involved with them. Seen from Christ-The-Groom point of view, she was not totally His, certainly not in all her emotions.

Being in the monastery does not mean that one finds oneself automatically praising only God. One needs to be with Christ in order to receive all the Graces He wants to give us and grow until we reach Union with Him and the fullness of Charity. Monastic life does not mean only to refrain from sinning and fulfilling somehow or other the duties of our state of life. It goes infinitely deeper than that. Seen from this perspective, then, her vision of Christian life, Monastic life and of her duties was impoverished. Her understanding of Christ was limited, especially what He was seeking, what He was waiting for from her, what he awaits from each one of us: all of our heart given to him - our emotional heart included. Today one would use the word 'eros', recognised also as the second lower half of our heart that we often keep for the love of human beings.

St. Teresa often takes the time to explain in different places in her writings this turning point in her life. In fact we can only understand her life and achievements through it, for it will trigger a powerful spiritual life, an abundance of graces.

The Lord was patiently waiting for that change to happen, and it was not happening. She just was not seeing it! This is why, afterward, she will feel the constant urge to mention it and to sing the Mercies of the Lord who not only waited for her patiently, but who gently showed her what He wanted from her: all of her, all her emotions, every fibre of her being, all for Him and Him only! It is only after doing so that the torrent of his graces was triggered! And then, a new life started, another Teresa started to emerge, the Teresa 'of Jesus'! From that moment on, as she states in the book of her Life, it is the story of the life of Jesus in her.

On the one hand I am sure that for the modern reader the difference is minute between the way she was leading her life and what Christ wanted from her. On the other hand, one has to sincerely admit that for us human beings (including consecrated people) if we apply her criterium (giving everything including our emotional heart), very few would be 'saved'! Or, in other words: if we follow her reading and understanding of the light that Jesus showed her applying it to everybody, many things in the Church would have to change!

St Teresa gives a huge importance to this point and it is to be feared that it might be easily overlooked. According to the criteria of christian moral life, we all agree that she was not committing any sin, not even a fault against her state of life! Indeed, filtered through the eyes of moral theology, there is no formal sin. But what we are learning from her is that all christian life does not lie in moral theology. God sees the heart of the human being, but unfortunately the human being does not understand himself! As Saint Augustine said: we search for God in the external world! God searches for our heart, internally. Teresa was unconsciously searching for God outside of herself, in the relationships she was having. No formal sin was committed but she was ignorant, especially of God's ways and how to reach Him, or better said: how to be reached by God, how to really open the door to the heart in order to receive the abundance of his graces and then grow until we reach Union with Him. "The Saint, who in that period felt deeply in tune with the St Augustine of the Confessions, thus describes the decisive day of her mystical experience: “and... a feeling of the presence of God would come over me unexpectedly, so that I could in no wise doubt either that he was within me, or that I was wholly absorbed in him” (Vida, 10, 1)." (Pope Benedict XVI Catechesis, on St Teresa)

Note: What is the light that St Teresa's conversion sheds on today's state of Theology? God asks us at least two questions when, through her conversion, He challenges our way of viewing Theology today.
- Does today's teaching in moral theology speak in a practical way about 'Union with God'? No, it does not.
- Does Christian Moral life still seem to consist only in the fact of avoiding sin i.e. being in a state of Grace? Indeed it does.

These are very important questions and the common answers to them do not give evidence of the salt of the Gospel. Therefore if we continue to reduce Christian life this way, St Teresa's life will become incomprehensible to us, as, will be ,categorically, our understanding of Christian life in toto. We need fewer superficial criteria and more thorough filters, or rather a more refined filter: Spiritual Theology, or the teaching of the Church on Spiritual life. The reason here is fundamental: it reaches the core of our christian life. It shows the real goal of christian life, that is, union with God; it shows the decisive step to take to reach it hardly mentioned today, that is, giving Jesus the lower part of our heart (see also next chapter) and finally, as we will see later, it shows, in practice, the means to reach the Goal through practising virtues and the Prayer of the Heart.

It is not clear, as yet, whether we have or have not given our heart, our emotions to the Lord!

The Lord Himself is a prime exemplar of using various circumstances and means to shed his light in St. Teresa and show her what He wanted from her, what she was denying him! As mentioned above, she was reading (during Lent of 1554) the Confessions of St Augustine and was struck by the beautiful passage where he mentions his misery and error in choosing the wrong direction while searching for God: exteriorly instead of interiorly.

“Too late did I love You, O Fairness, so ancient, and yet so new! Too late did I love You! For behold, You were within, and I without, and there did I seek You; I, unlovely, rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty You made. You were with me, but I was not with You. Those things kept me far from You, which, unless they were in You, were not. You called, and cried aloud, and forced open my deafness. You gleamed and shine, and chase away my blindness. You exhaled odours, and I drew in my breath and do pant after You. I tasted, and do hunger and thirst. You touched me, and I burned for Your peace. When I shall cleave unto You with all my being, then shall I in nothing have pain and labour; and my life shall be a real life, being wholly full of You.” (Saint Augustine, Confessions, X, 27, 38)

Reading this passage for St Teresa was a decisive moment posing many questions as it did: where is God ? Is he without or within his creatures ? Can he be found through an intellectual quest ? Is he in one's relationships with others (one can easily call this 'love of neighbour', to legitimise it) ! Where is one's heart ? The Gospel says : your heart will be where your treasure is (Matthew 6:21)! And who is our Treasure?

We do not see God, He is unknown to us, but our real Treasure, this immensely deep Well, those abundant Living Waters is Christ! And Christ is the Groom, the Beloved of our heart! Where is Christ? Is He outside? This is what St Teresa thought! And during this Lenten time of 1554 Teresa is to be found touched by Christ during this reading of St Augustine. The result is a dramatic change touching the very core of her being: he is not to be found outside, but there he is, inside of her, in the depths of her heart. She searches for him yes, but now searches for him in her heart of hearts. Henceforth she will learn to never leave him alone in her heart!

It is through this reading that she receives one of the few electric jolts the grace of God will use to return her to Himself. This one will make her become altogether aware of the greatness of the human being and of her former error! Yes the human being is great, immense; she will later get to discover the inner beauty that the soul will recover by growing in Christ! The baptised person is like a living and ambulatory Tabernacle! Now, not as before when all her energy and emotions were outward bound, the grace of God used this passage of St. Augustine's to turn Teresa powerfully toward God dwelling within her.

Large scale representation of Christ at the Pillar

The other jolt given by the Grace of God is when her eyes meet the eyes of Jesus! This is worth all the treasures of the world. Having our eyes make contact with Jesus' eyes! In His mercy, Christ used a very small polychrome statue of Christ at the Pillar to pour forth his Grace to touch her and talk to her – with all the pain that He suffered because of her and for her. But mainly it is his gaze that touched her. Christ, at the pillar with his hands tied to it, covered in wounds, turning his head toward her, looking at her, into her eyes! When the two gazes meet – by the grace of God – the beauty of Christ, his love for her, moved her soul, her heart, deeply, moved everything within her. Everything seemed to vanish, all the external attachments she had sought, all that she had undertaken, all the beauties of creation disappeared in an instant in the face of the power of his Love, of his Gaze, of his Beauty! This beauty is capable of dramatically changing the entire world, directing it toward herself! This Beauty acts – by the Mercy of God – as a very powerful magnet! And this only is enough!

Christ appearing and talking to Teresa

Christ himself, now, will accomplish and finish the inner conversion. This will be the final jolt. One day, He will speak to St Teresa, summoning her not to be busy with the outer world but to direct her “busyness” only to him. He seems to say to her the words: 'Stop speaking to human beings !' He wanted her totally for himself ! Christ is absolute in his dealings with us ! He wants it all ! There are no half-measures ! He has an immense thirst, a divine thirst to give himself to us, but in order to do so, He needs us to be entirely - absolutely entirely - his. Not even a drop of our being cannot be his ! Christ's love is radical, but He fills us in a royal way ! His way of giving himself to us, the abundance of his graces, the beauty of the gift of Himself are beyond our wildest imagination ! Only by putting Teresa's belief here to the test will the unbeliever see the truth of it - he will never repent doing so.

The indisputable reason can now be understood why St Teresa repeatedly underlines in her writings the divine equation of spiritual life: if you want to receive Him totally, in all the royal abundance of the Gift of Himself, you need to give him everything, to entrust everything into his hands!

This decision can be taken right now, by the Grace of God:

"Lord I am weak,

Lord my heart is spread outward busy with many things

but I would like to belong to you totally,

I offer you all that is dear to me

like Abraham offered you his only child,

I put it in your hands,

and then I offer myself to you, entirely to you.

Make of me whatever you want."

Sadly, it must be recognised, that three minutes after we offer ourselves, we take back our freedom. This is why this act of offering oneself will be repeated various times afterwards in Teresa's life. In like manner one should now repeat it often, because God created us capable of free will and therefore capable of offering ourselves to him. Amazingly every minute of free will is an equal opportunity to love Him again and again and to be loved by Him.

One cannot fathom how much this gift of ourselves to Him has 'power over' him. It is like a huge magnet that attracts and seduces Christ. He is encouraged to abandon himself to unheard of things: He pours out his Grace in abundance!

All this I, however, remains a matter of experience. It has to be checked out first hand!

120: The Transfiguration of the Lord in Spiritual Life

The following is a video on the Transfiguration of the Lord in our Spiritual Life. It is taken from the First Level Summer Course of 2013, at St Mary University, Twickenham.

In this Video the Transfiguration according to the Greek Fathers is presented. It's revolutionary approach is addressed.

One of the most beautiful fruits of the new understanding of the Transfiguration is a deepening of the two parts of the Mass.

In this Blog, there are 4 other important posts on the Transfiguration:
1- Transfiguration according to the Greek Fathers
2- Transfiguration and the Mass
3- Transfiguration and St John's Gospel
4- Transfiguration, the Assumption and Cana