Life of St Teresa of Jesus by Teresa of Avila (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📖
- Author: Teresa of Avila
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or in the Sacrament, or, if it be a vision of the Saints, then to
lift up the heart to the Holy One in Heaven, and not to that
which is presented to the imagination: let it suffice that the
imagination may be made use of for the purpose of raising me up
to that which it makes me see.
“11. I say, too, that the things mentioned in this book befall
other persons even in this our day, and that there is great
certainty that they come from God, Whose arm is not shortened
that He cannot do now what He did in times past, and that in weak
vessels, for His own glory.
“12. Go on your road, but always suspecting robbers, and asking
for the right way; give thanks to our Lord, Who has given you His
love, the knowledge of yourself, and a love of penance and the
cross, making no account of these other things. However, do not
despise them either, for there are signs that most of them come
from our Lord, and those that do not come from Him will not hurt
you if you ask for direction.
“13. I cannot believe that I have written this in my own
strength, for I have none, but it is the effect of your prayers.
I beg of you, for the love of Jesus Christ our Lord, to burden
yourself with a prayer for me; He knows that I am asking this in
great need, and I think that is enough to make you grant my
request. I ask your permission to stop now, for I am bound to
write another letter. May Jesus be glorified in all and
by all! Amen.
“Your servant, for Christ’s sake.
“Juan de Avila
“Montilla, 12th Sept., 1568.”
Her confessors, having seen the book, “commanded her to make
copies of it,” [15] one of which has been traced into the
possession of the Duke and Duchess of Alva.
The Princess of Eboli, in 1569, obtained a copy from the Saint
herself, after much importunity; but it was more out of vanity or
curiosity, it is to be feared, than from any real desire to learn
the story of the Saint’s spiritual life, that the Princess
desired the boon. She and her husband promised to keep it from
the knowledge of others, but the promise given was not kept.
The Saint heard within a few days later that the book was in the
hands of the servants of the Princess, who was angry with the
Saint because she had refused to admit, at the request of the
Princess, an Augustinian nun into the Order of Carmel in the new
foundation of Pastrana. The contents of the book were bruited
abroad, and the visions and revelations of the Saint were said to
be of a like nature with those of Magdalene of the Cross, a
deluded and deluding nun. The gossip in the house of the
Princess was carried to Madrid, and the result was that the
Inquisition began to make a search for the book. [16] It is not
quite clear, however, that it was seized at this time.
The Princess became a widow in July, 1573, and insisted on
becoming a Carmelite nun in the house she and her husband, Ruy
Gomez, had founded in Pastrana. When the news of her resolve
reached the monastery, the mother-prioress, Isabel of St.
Dominic, exclaimed, “The Princess a nun! I look on the house as
ruined.” The Princess came, and insisted on her right as
foundress; she had compelled a friar to give her the habit before
her husband was buried, and when she came to Pastrana she began
her religious life by the most complete disobedience and
disregard of common propriety. Don Vicente’s description of her
is almost literally correct, though intended only for a general
summary of her most childish conduct:
“On the death of the Prince of Eboli, the Princess would become a
nun in her monastery of Pastrana. The first day she had a fit of
violent fervour; on the next she relaxed the rule; on the third
she broke it, and conversed with secular people within the
cloisters. She was also so humble that she required the nuns to
speak to her on their knees, and insisted upon their receiving
into the house as religious whomsoever she pleased.
Hereupon complaints were made to St. Teresa, who remonstrated
with the Princess, and showed her how much she was in the wrong,
whereupon she replied that the monastery was hers; but the Saint
proved to her that the nuns were not, and had them removed
to Segovia.” [17]
The nuns were withdrawn from Pastrana in April, 1574, and then
the anger of the Princess prevailed; she sent the Life of the
Saint, which she had still in her possession, to the Inquisition,
and denounced it as a book containing visions, revelations, and
dangerous doctrines, which the Inquisitors should look into and
examine: The book was forthwith given to theologians for
examination, and two Dominican friars, of whom Bañes was one,
were delegated censors of it by the Inquisition. [18]
Fra Bañes did not know the Saint when he undertook her defence in
Avila against the authorities of the city, eager to destroy the
monastery of St. Joseph; [19] but from that time forth he was one
of her most faithful friends, strict and even severe, as became a
wise director who had a great Saint for his penitent.
He testifies in the process of her beatification that he was firm
and sharp with her; while she herself was the more desirous of
his counsel, the more he humbled her, and the less he appeared to
esteem her. [20] When he found that copies of her life were in
the hands of secular people,—he had probably also heard of the
misconduct of the Princess of Eboli,—he showed his displeasure
to the Saint, and told her he would burn the book, it being
unseemly that the writings of women should be made public.
The Saint left it in his hands, but Fra Bañes, struck with her
humility, had not the courage to burn it; he sent it to the Holy
Office in Madrid. [21] Thus the book was in a sense denounced
twice,—once by an enemy, the second time by a friend, to save
it. Both the Saint and her confessor, Fra Bañes, state that the
copy given up by the latter was sent to the Inquisition in
Madrid, and Fra Bañes says so twice in his deposition.
The Inquisitor Soto returned the copy to Fra Bañes, desiring him
to read it, and give his opinion thereon. Fra Bañes did so, and
wrote his “censure” of the book on the blank leaves at the end.
That censure still remains, and is one of the most important,
because given during the lifetime of the Saint, and while many
persons were crying out against her. Bañes wished it had been
published when the Saint’s Life was given to the world by Fra
Luis de Leon; but notwithstanding its value, and its being
preserved in the book which is in the handwriting of the Saint,
no one before Don Vicente made it known. It was easy enough to
praise the writings of St. Teresa, and to admit her sanctity,
after her death. Fra Bañes had no external help in the applause
of the many, and he had to judge the book as a theologian, and
the Saint as one of his ordinary penitents. When he wrote, he
wrote like a man whose whole life was spent, as he tells us
himself, “in lecturing and disputing.” [22]
That censure is as follows:
“1. This book, wherein Teresa of Jesus, Carmelite nun, and
foundress of the Barefooted Carmelites, gives a plain account of
the state of her soul, in order to be taught and directed by her
confessors, has been examined by me, and with much attention, and
I have not found anywhere in it anything which, in my opinion, is
erroneous in doctrine. On the contrary, there are many things in
it highly edifying and instructive for those who give themselves
to prayer. The great experience of this religious, her
discretion also and her humility, which made her always seek for
light and learning in her confessors, enabled her to speak with
an accuracy on the subject of prayer that the most learned men,
through their want of experience, have not always attained to.
One thing only there is about the book that may reasonably cause
any hesitation till it shall be very carefully examined;
it contains many visions and revelations, matters always to be
afraid of, especially in women, who are very ready to believe of
them that they come from God, and to look on them as proofs of
sanctity, though sanctity does not lie in them. On the contrary,
they should be regarded as dangerous trials for those who are
aiming at perfection, because Satan is wont to transform himself
into an angel of light, [23] and to deceive souls which are
curious and of scant humility, as we have seen in our day:
nevertheless, we must not therefore lay down a general rule that
all revelations and visions come from the devil. If it were so,
St. Paul could not have said that Satan transforms himself into
an angel of light, if the angel of light did not sometimes
enlighten us.
“2. Saints, both men and women, have had revelations, not only in
ancient, but also in modern times; such were St. Dominic,
St. Francis, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Gertrude, and many others that might be named; and as the
Church of God is, and is to be, always holy to the end, not only
because her profession is holiness, but because there are in her
just persons and perfect in holiness, it is unreasonable to
despise visions and revelations, and condemn them in one sweep,
seeing they are ordinarily accompanied with much goodness and a
Christian life. On the contrary, we should follow the saying of
the Apostle in 1 Thess. v. 19-22: ‘Spiritum nolite extinguere.
Prophetias nolite spernere. Omnia [autem] probate: quod bonum
est tenete. Ab omni specie mala abstinete vos.’ He who will
read St. Thomas on that passage will see how carefully they are
to be examined who, in the Church of God, manifest any particular
gift that may be profitable or hurtful to our neighbour, and how
watchful the examiners ought to be lest the fire of the Spirit of
God should be quenched in the good, and others cowed in the
practices of the perfect Christian life.
“3. Judging by the revelations made to her, this woman, even
though she may be deceived in something, is at least not herself
a deceiver, because she tells all the good and the bad so simply,
and with so great a wish to be correct, that no doubt can be made
as to her good intention; and the greater the reason for trying
spirits of this kind, because there are persons in our day who
are deceivers with the appearance of piety, the more necessary it
is to defend those who, with the appearance, have also the
reality, of piety. For it is a strange thing to see how lax and
worldly people delight in seeing those discredited who have an
appearance of goodness. God complained of old, by the Prophet
Ezekiel, ch. xiii., of those false prophets who made the just to
mourn and who flattered sinners, saying: ‘Maerere fecisti cor
justi mendaciter, quem Ego non contristavi: et comfortastis manus
impii.’ In a certain sense this may be said of those who
frighten souls who are
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