Life of St Teresa of Jesus by Teresa of Avila (paper ebook reader .TXT) đź“–
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contains excellent doctrine.
Chapter XXVI.—She continues the same subject; explains and tells
things that have happened to her which caused her to lose fear
and convinced her that the spirit which spoke to her was a
good one.
Chapter XXVII.—Of another way in which God teaches a soul, and,
without speaking, makes His Will known in an admirable manner.
She goes on to explain a vision, though not an imaginary one, and
a great grace with which God favoured her. This chapter
is noteworthy.
Chapter XXVIII.—She treats of the great favours God showed her,
and how He appeared to her for the first time; she explains what
an imaginary vision is, and speaks of the powerful effects it
leaves and the signs whether it is from God. This chapter is
most profitable and noteworthy.
Chapter XXIX.—She continues and tells of some great mercies God
showed her, and what His Majesty said to her in order to assure
her (of the truth of these visions), and taught her how to
answer contradictors.
Chapter XXX.—She continues the history of her life, and how God
sent her a remedy for all her anxieties by calling the holy Friar
Fray Pedro de Alcantara of the Order of the glorious St. Francis
to the place where she lived. She mentions some great
temptations and interior trials through which she sometimes had
to pass.
Chapter XXXI.—She speaks of some exterior temptations and
apparitions of Satan, and how he ill-treated her. She mentions,
moreover, some very good things by way of advice to persons who
are walking on the way of perfection.
Chapter XXXII.—She narrates how it pleased God to put her in
spirit in that place of Hell she had deserved by her sins.
She tells a little [6] of what she saw there compared with what
there was besides. She begins to speak of the manner and way
of founding the convent of St. Joseph where she now lives.
Chapter XXXIII.—She continues the subject of the foundation of
the glorious St. Joseph. How she was commanded to have nothing
(further) to do with it, how she abandoned it, also the troubles
it brought her and how God consoled her in all this.
Chapter XXXIV.—She shows how at that time it happened that she
absented herself from this place and how her Superior commanded
her to go away at the request of a very noble lady who was in
great affliction. She begins to tell what happened to her there,
and the great grace God bestowed upon her in determining through
her instrumentality a person of distinction to serve Him truly;
and how that person found favour and help in her (Teresa).
This is noteworthy.
Chapter XXXV.—Continuation of the foundation of this house of
our glorious Father St. Joseph; in what manner our Lord ordained
that holy poverty should be observed there; the reason why she
left the lady with whom she had been staying, and some other
things that happened.
Chapter XXXVI.—She continues the same subject, and shows how the
foundation of this convent of the glorious St. Joseph was finally
accomplished, and the great contradictions and persecutions she
had to endure after the Religious had taken the habit, and the
great trials and temptations through which she passed, and how
God led her forth victorious to His own glory and praise.
Chapter XXXVII.—Of the effects which remained when God granted
her some favour; together with other very good doctrine.
She shows how one ought to strive after and prize every increase
in heavenly glory, and that for no trouble whatever one should
neglect a good that is to be perpetual.
Chapter XXXVIII.—She treats of some great mercies God showed
her, even making known to her heavenly secrets by means of
visions and revelations His Majesty vouchsafed to grant her; she
speaks of the effects they caused and the great improvement
resulting in her soul.
Chapter XXXIX.—She continues the same subject, mentioning great
graces granted her by God; how He promised to hear her requests
on behalf of persons for whom she should pray. Some remarkable
instances in which His Majesty thus favoured her.
Chapter XL.—Continuation of the same subject of great mercies
God has shown her. From some of these very good doctrine may be
gathered, and this, as she declares, was, besides compliance with
obedience, her principal motive (in writing this book), namely to
enumerate such of these mercies as would be instructive to souls.
This chapter brings the history of her Life, written by herself,
to an end. May it be for the glory of God. Amen.
1. St. Teresa wrote no title, either of the whole book or of the
Preface, but only the monogram J.H.S., which is repeated at the
beginning of the first chapter and at the end of the last,
previous to the letter with which the volume concludes.
2. “El Señor” is everywhere translated by “God” in distinction to
“Nuestro Señor,” “Our Lord.”
3. “In an excellent manner,” scored through by the Saint herself.
4. “To be read with great care, as it is explained in a most
delicate way, and contains many noteworthy points,” also scored
through by St. Teresa herself.
5. “This is most admirable,” scored through by the Saint.
6. “Una cifra,” a mere nothing.
Preface by David Lewis.
St. Teresa was born in Avila on Wednesday, March 28, 1515.
Her father was Don Alfonso Sanchez de Cepeda, and her mother Doña
Beatriz Davila y Ahumada. The name she received in her baptism
was common to both families, for her great-grandmother on the
father’s side was Teresa Sanchez, and her grandmother on her
mother’s side was Teresa de las Cuevas. While she remained in
the world, and even after she had become a nun in the monastery
of the Incarnation, which was under the mitigated rule, she was
known as Doña Teresa Sanchez Cepeda Davila y Ahumada; for in
those days children took the name either of the father or of the
mother, as it pleased them. The two families were noble, but
that of Ahumada was no longer in possession of its former wealth
and power. [1] Doña Beatriz was the second wife of Don Alfonso,
and was related in the fourth degree to the first wife, as
appears from the dispensation granted to make the marriage valid
on the 16th of October, 1509. Of this marriage Teresa was the
third child.
Doña Beatriz died young, and the eldest daughter, Maria de
Cepeda, took charge of her younger sisters—they were two—and
was as a second mother to them till her marriage, which took
place in 1531, when the Saint was in her sixteenth year. But as
she was too young to be left in charge of her father’s house, and
as her education was not finished, she was sent to the
Augustinian monastery, the nuns of which received young girls,
and brought them up in the fear of God. [2] The Saint’s own
account is that she was too giddy and careless to be trusted at
home, and that it was necessary to put her under the care of
those who would watch over her and correct her ways.
She remained a year and a half with the Augustinian nuns, and all
the while God was calling her to Himself. She was not willing to
listen to His voice; she would ask the nuns to pray for her that
she might have light to see her way; “but for all this,” she
writes, “I wished not to be a nun.” [3] By degrees her will
yielded, and she had some inclination to become a religious at
the end of the eighteen months of her stay, but that was all.
She became ill; her father removed her, and the struggle within
herself continued,—on the one hand, the voice of God calling
her; on the other, herself labouring to escape from her vocation.
At last, after a struggle which lasted three months, she made up
her mind, and against her inclination, to give up the world.
She asked her father’s leave, and was refused. She besieged him
through her friends, but to no purpose. “The utmost I could get
from him,” she says, “was that I might do as I pleased after his
death.” [4] How long this contest with her father lasted is not
known, but it is probable that it lasted many months, for the
Saint was always most careful of the feelings of others, and
would certainly have endured much rather than displease a father
whom she loved so much, and who also loved her more than his
other children. [5]
But she had to forsake her father, and so she left her father’s
house by stealth, taking with her one of her brothers, whom she
had persuaded to give himself to God in religion. The brother
and sister set out early in the morning, the former for the
monastery of the Dominicans, and the latter for the Carmelite
monastery of the Incarnation, in Avila. The nuns received her
into the house, but sent word to her father of his child’s
escape. Don Alfonso, however, yielded at once, and consented to
the sacrifice which he was compelled to make.
In the monastery of the Incarnation the Saint was led on, without
her own knowledge, to states of prayer so high, that she became
alarmed about herself. In the purity and simplicity of her soul,
she feared that the supernatural visitations of God might after
all be nothing else but delusions of Satan. [6] She was so
humble, that she could not believe graces so great could be given
to a sinner like herself. The first person she consulted in her
trouble seems to have been a layman, related to her family, Don
Francisco de Salcedo. He was a married man, given to prayer, and
a diligent frequenter of the theological lectures in the
monastery of the Dominicans. Through him she obtained the help
of a holy priest, Gaspar Daza, to whom she made known the state
of her soul. The priest, hindered by his other labours, declined
to be her director, and the Saint admits that she could have made
no progress under his guidance. [7] She now placed herself in
the hands of Don Francis, who encouraged her in every way, and,
for the purpose of helping her onwards in the way of perfection,
told her of the difficulties he himself had met with, and how by
the grace of God he had overcome them.
But when the Saint told him of the great graces which God
bestowed upon her, Don Francis became alarmed; he could not
reconcile them with the life the Saint was living, according to
her own account. He never thought of doubting the Saint’s
account, and did not suspect her of exaggerating her
imperfections in the depths of her humility: “he thought the evil
spirit might have something to do” with her, [8] and advised her
to consider carefully her way of prayer.
Don Francis now applied again to Gaspar Daza, and the two friends
consulted together; but, after much prayer on their part and on
that of the Saint, they came to the conclusion that she “was
deluded by an evil spirit,” and recommended her to have recourse
to the fathers of the Society of Jesus, lately settled in Avila.
The Saint, now in great fear, but still hoping and trusting that
God would not suffer her to be deceived, made preparations for a
general confession; and committed to writing the whole story of
her life, and made known the state of her soul to F. Juan de
Padranos, one of the fathers of the Society. F. Juan understood
it all, and comforted her by
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