aeternus

Determination.

It is perhaps this singular word which makes me love Saint Teresa of Avila so much. Though I appreciate her great witty style of prose, her humble, self-deprecating demeanor and her obvious intelligence of soul, it is Teresa’s ability to practice a determined spirit of life which attracts me so much to her. For she knew, in keen awareness of her own human nature, that it is no easy road which we climb as we set our journey upwards and home-wards to our eternity.

Teresa does not teach us about things which can not be attained for through determination she attained them. (And by the way, I am not talking about the effects of mystical prayer which ONLY God can bestow upon a soul. I am talking about the determined effort we can use for ourselves in ordering and centering our lives on prayer and adoration of our Lord and God.)

Teresa teaches us how to leave the daily grind and superfluous chatter behind us, to allow it only to be a “white noise” in the background. She teaches us to focus our spiritual capacities on Him and only Him. To do ALL for Him and whatever is not of Him and only of ourselves to fall away. We become impoverished souls emptying our self-centered worth to become rich in Him.

I thought to present as an example of this determination, a passage from Teresa’s autobiography (The Book of Her Life). Here she talks of a soul who has begun this life of dedicated prayer and who must now remain faithful through a determined spirit so they are not lost. And, please, you gotta love this woman who is so humble as to compliment herself as a “vile worm!” - what a hoot! I LOVE HER! She makes my sides hurt from laughter!

Notice how strong the soul feels in this stage after prayer. It is would gladly give itself up a thousand times for God for it is feeling a heroic determination of spirit. But when it is again placed in this world, it sees itself plainly (warts and all as they say!). This is how God teaches us. To know Him and to see ourselves and how desperately far from perfection we are! But His mercy and love is so great that if a soul loves God, God can not help but love it. For God is love and He can not deny Himself…

Let us listen to dear Teresa’s words…

CHAPTER XIX. The effects of this Fourth State of Prayer. Earnest exhortations to those who have attained to it not to go back, nor to cease from prayer, even if they fall. The great calamity of going back…

There remains in the soul, when the prayer of
union is over, an exceedingly great tenderness ; so
much so, that it would undo itself not from pain, but
through tears of joy : it finds itself bathed therein,
without being aware of it, and it knows not how or
when it wept them. But to behold the violence of the
fire subdued by the water, which yet makes it burn the
more, gives it great delight. It seems as if I were
speaking an unknown language. So it is, however.

It has happened to me occasionally, when this
prayer was over, to be so beside myself as not to know
whether I had been dreaming, or whether the bliss I
felt had really been mine ; and, on finding myself in a
flood of tears which had painlessly flowed, with such
violence and rapidity that it seemed as if a cloud from
heaven 1 had shed them to perceive that it was no
dream. Thus it was with me in the beginning, when
it passed quickly away. The soul remains possessed
of so much courage, that if it were now hewn in pieces
for God, it would be a great consolation to it. This is
the time of resolutions, of heroic determinations, of the
living energy of good desires, of the beginning of hatred
of the world, and of the most clear perception of its
vanity. The soul makes greater and higher progress
than it ever made before in the previous states of
prayer ; and grows in humility more and more, because
it sees clearly that neither for obtaining nor for re
taining this grace, great beyond all measure, has it ever
done, or ever been able to do, anything of itself. It
looks upon itself as most unworthy for in a room into
which the sunlight enters strongly, not a cobweb can be
hid ; it sees its own misery ; self-conceit is so far away,
that it seems as if it never could have had any for
now its own eyes behold how very little it could ever
do, or rather, that it never did anything, that it hardly
gave even its own consent, but that it rather seemed as
if the doors of the senses were closed against its will
in order that it might have more abundantly the
fruition of our Lord. It is abiding alone with Him :
what has it to do but to love Him ? It neither sees nor
hears, unless on compulsion : no thanks to it. Its past
life stands before it then, together with the great mercy
of God, in great distinctness ; and it is not necessary
for it to go forth to hunt with the understanding,
because what it has to eat and ruminate upon, it sees
now ready prepared. It sees, so far as itself is con
cerned, that it has deserved hell, and that its punish
ment is bliss. It undoes itself in the praises of God,
and I would gladly undo myself now.

Blessed be Thou, O my Lord, who, out of a pool
so filthy as I am, bringest forth water so clean as to be
meet for Thy table ! Praised be Thou, O Joy of the
Angels, who hast been thus pleased to exalt so vile a
worm !

The Life of ST. TERESA OF JESUS, OF THE ORDER OF OUR LADY OF CARMEL. WRITTEN BY HERSELF TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH BY DAVID LEWIS. Third Edition Enlarged. “With additional Notes and an Introduction by REV. FR. BENEDICT ZIMMERMAN, O.C.D. LONDON : THOMAS BAKER. MCMIV. THE COPYRIGHT OF MR. LEWIS TRANSLATION IS THE PROPERTY OF THE ” ST. ANSELM SOCIETY.” ALL OTHER MA1TER CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME IS THE PROPERTY OF THE PRESENT PUBLISHER.