The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of the Order of Our Lady of CarmelTeresa, of Avila, Saint
Religion
The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel
Teresa, of Avila, Saint
Avila (Spain) -- Biography; Christian saints -- Spain -- Avila -- Biography; Teresa, of Avila, Saint, 1515-1582
4. On one of the feasts of St. Paul, [3] when I was at Mass,
there stood before me the most Sacred Humanity, [4] as painters
represent Him after the resurrection, in great beauty and
majesty, as I particularly described it to you, my father, when
you had insisted on it. It was painful enough to have to write
about it, for I could not describe it without doing great
violence to myself. But I described it as well as I could, and
there is no reason why I should now recur to it. One thing,
however, I have to say: if in heaven itself there were nothing
else to delight our eyes but the great beauty of glorified
bodies, that would be an excessive bliss, particularly the vision
of the Humanity of Jesus Christ our Lord. If here below, where
His Majesty shows Himself to us according to the measure which
our wretchedness can bear, it is so great, what must it be there,
where the fruition of it is complete!
5. This vision, though imaginary, I never saw with my bodily
eyes, nor, indeed, any other, but only with the eyes of the soul.
Those who understand these things better than I do, say that the
intellectual vision is more perfect than this; and this, the
imaginary vision, much more perfect than those visions which are
seen by the bodily eyes. The latter kind of visions, they say,
is the lowest; and it is by these that the devil can most delude
us. [5] I did not know it then; for I wished, when this grace
had been granted me, that it had been so in such a way that I
could see it with my bodily eyes, in order that my confessor
might not say to me that I indulged in fancies.
6. After the vision was over, it happened that I too
imagined--the thought came at once--I had fancied these things;
so I was distressed, because I had spoken of them to my
confessor, thinking that I might have been deceiving him.
There was another lamentation: I went to my confessor, and told
him of my doubts. He would ask me whether I told him the truth so
far as I knew it; or, if not, had I intended to deceive him?
I would reply, that I told the truth; for, to the best of my
belief, I did not lie, nor did I mean anything of the kind;
neither would I tell a lie for the whole world. [6] This he knew
well enough; and, accordingly, he contrived to quiet me; and I
felt so much the going to him with these doubts, that I cannot
tell how Satan could have put it into my head that I invented
those things for the purpose of tormenting myself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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