The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel — John Shaqi
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
What the Saint wrote for Fra Ibañez has not been found. It is,
no doubt, substantially preserved in her Life, as we have it now,
and is supposed to have reached no further than the end of
ch. xxxi. What follows was added by direction of another
Dominican father, confessor of the Saint in the new monastery of
St. Joseph, Fra Garcia of Toledo, who, in 1562, bade her "write
the history of that foundation, and other matters."
But as the Saint carried a heavy burden laid on her by God, a
constant fear of delusion, she had recourse about the same time
to the Inquisitor Soto, who advised her to write a history of her
life, send it to Juan of Avila, the "Apostle of Andalucia," and
abide by his counsel. As the direction of Fra Garcia of Toledo
and the advice of the Inquisitor must have been given, according
to her account, about the same time, the Life, as we have it now,
must have occupied her nearly six years in the writing of it,
which may well be owing to her unceasing care in firmly
establishing the new monastery of St. Joseph. The book at last
was sent to Blessed Juan of Avila by her friend Doña Luisa de la
Cerda, and that great master of the spiritual life wrote the
following censure of it:
"The grace and peace of Jesus Christ be with you always.
"1. When I undertook to read the book sent me, it was not so much
because I thought myself able to judge of it, as because I
thought I might, by the grace of our Lord, learn something from
the teachings it contains: and praised be Christ; for, though I
have not been able to read it with the leisure it requires,
I have been comforted by it, and might have been edified by it,
if the fault had not been mine. And although, indeed, I may have
been comforted by it, without saying more, yet the respect due to
the subject and to the person who has sent it will not allow me,
I think, to let it go back without giving my opinion on it, at
least in general.
"2. The book is not fit to be in the hands of everybody, for it
is necessary to correct the language in some places, and explain
it in others; and there are some things in it useful for your
spiritual life and not so for others who might adopt them, for
the special ways by which God leads some souls are not meant for
others. These points, or the greater number of them, I have
marked for the purpose of arranging them when I shall be able to
do so, and I shall not fail to send them to you; for if you were
aware of my infirmities and necessary occupations, I believe they
would make you pity me rather than blame me for the omission.
"3. The doctrine of prayer is for the most part sound, and you
may rely on it, and observe it; and the raptures I find to
possess the tests of those which are true. What you say of God's
way of teaching the soul, without respect to the imagination and
without interior locutions, is safe, and I find nothing to object
to it. St. Augustine speaks well of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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