Catholic World, Vol. 24, October, 1876, to March, 1877: A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and ScienceVarious
Religion
Catholic World, Vol. 24, October, 1876, to March, 1877: A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
The convent garden is surrounded by high walls. It wears the same
smiling aspect as in the saint’s time, but it is larger. The
neighboring house occupied by St. John of the Cross, with the land
around it, has been bought and added to the enclosure. The house has
been converted into an octagon chapel, called the _Ermita de San Juan
de la Cruz_. The unpainted wooden altar was made from a part of St.
Teresa’s cell. In this garden are the flowers and shrubbery she loved,
the almond-trees she planted, the paths she trod. Here are the
oratories where she prayed, the dark cypresses that witnessed her
penitential tears, the limpid water she was never weary of
contemplating――symbol of divine grace and regeneration. St. Teresa’s
love of nature is evident on every page of her writings. She said the
sight of the fields and flowers raised her soul towards God, and was
like a book in which she read his grandeur and benefits. And she often
compared her soul to a garden which she prayed the divine Husbandman
to fill with the sweet perfume of the lowly virtues.
In the right wing of the convent is a little oratory, quiet and
solitary, beloved of the saint, where an angel, all flame, appeared to
the eyes of her soul with a golden arrow in his hand, which he thrust
deep into her heart, leaving it for ever inflamed with seraphic love.
This mystery is honored in the Carmelite Order by the annual festival
of the Transverberation. Art like-wise has immortalized it. We
remember the group by Bernini in the church of Santa Maria della
Vittoria at Rome, in which the divine transport of her soul is so
clearly visible through the pale beauty of her rapt form, which
trembles beneath the fire-tipped dart of the angel. What significance
in this sacred seal set upon her virginal heart, from this time rent
in twain by love and penitence! _Cor contritum et humiliatum, Deus,
non despicies!_ was the exclamation of St. Teresa when dying.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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