St Teresa of Avila - Wednesday Meditation

St. Teresa of Avila was a Spaniard who lived and died over 400 years ago. She became a Carmelite nun as a young adult, but did not get really serious about her vows and prayer life until middle age. Then she became a power-house of prayer and reform of the Carmelite order, for women first, and then for men (She was a close spiritual and personal friend of St. John of the Cross). She wrote several books about prayer and spiritual development which continue to sell today. They are both used, and studied by scholars. She founded a number of small reformed convents which got her visits from the Spanish inquisition. St. Teresa of Avila’s day (October 15) was added as a minor feast day to the calendar of the Episcopal Church after the 1979 BCP had been approved. (Kathryn Piccard)

From The Secret to Successful Meditation from Teresa of Avila by Dan Burke

In Teresa’s own words:

I am not lucky enough to have time to write you a long letter as I am sure I wish that I could. I am delighted to hear from you and learn how God bestows greater blessings on you every day. He is rewarding you for what you did for us here.

Do not tire your brain by trying to work it during meditation. I have often told you what to do; perhaps you may remember. It is a higher grace from God that you should continually praise Him and wish that others should do so too, and a striking proof that your mind is fixed on Him. May He be pleased to teach us both how to repay part of what we owe Him and may He give us much to suffer for Him—if only from fleas, ghosts, and bad roads.

Reflection:

She admonishes her reader to avoid overtaxing his mind during mental prayer. She is oft quoted as saying that “the good of the soul does not consist in its thinking much, but in its loving much.” Some mistakenly take this to mean that thoughts during prayer are to be avoided or to be “let go” of.

Instead, she is counseling against an unhealthy preoccupation with what we think or feel in prayer. She is aware that the Holy Spirit burns with love in the devoted soul even when our thoughts and imagination do not seem to cooperate with Him. Here, the effort to be vulnerable to the presence of God can be frustrated when we dissipate ourselves on trying to control our thoughts. It is a question of surrender and trust.

Instead, prayer becomes the simple effort of patiently awareness of the Lord’s presence in the midst of our own brokenness. St. Teresa is not surprised that we face distractions in prayer, but invites our merely natural and psychological efforts to a completely new loving attentiveness made possible by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

 

Prayer:

O God, by your holy Spirit you moved Teresa of Avila to manifest to your Church the way of perfection: Grant us, we pray, to be nourished by her excellent teaching, and enkindle within us a keen and unquenchable longing for true holiness; through Jesus Christ, the joy of loving hearts, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

St. Teresa of Avila Bookmark

In English:

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing.
God never changes.
Patience
obtains all things.
Whoever has God
lacks nothing.
God is enough.

In Spanish (original):

Nada te turbe;
nada te espante;
todo se pasa;
Dios no se muda,
la pacïencia
todo lo alcanza.
Quien a Dios tiene,
nada le falta.
Solo Dios basta.