Moment of Onenesss St. Teress of Jesus, November 22, 2023

Upper Room Inclusive Catholic Community

November 22, 2023

Mystic Moment:  St. Teresa of Jesus, OCD

March 28, 1515 – October 4, 1582

Zoom Link:  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81507551772 

Call-in Phone No.       +1 646 558 8656  

          OPENING PRAYER

Holy One, we come in praise of beloved St. Teresa of Jesus, to learn from her life how to balance prayer and active service in our lives. We thank you for shining your light through St. Teresa as her spiritual gifts: a hunger for an intimate relationship with You through a commitment to silent prayer; the importance of spiritual advisors and friends throughout our lives; and a dedicated, personal effort of involvement in the renewal of our Church and world. Bless us as we learn how St. Teresa matured in love, and gave us worldwide spiritual communities of Carmelites to inspire us, we humbly ask in her name. Amen 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn4v6atYpq8   Short Biography of St. Teresa

READING 1

Teresa Ali Fatim Corella Sanchez de Cepeda y Ahumada was born in Avila, Spain, in 1515 into a world of change, turmoil, and revolution.  20 years earlier Columbus opened the Western Hemisphere to exploration. Two years after her birth, Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation, and the Spanish branch of the Papal Inquisition was ablaze. She was destined to shake up her world and the Church, providing leadership down through the centuries forever reminding us that growth often means painful reform. She drew the best from the ubiquitous oppression of women with her quick-wit and self-effacing manner that often had the men disarmed and captivated, surrendering to her goals for Carmelite reform. Her major written works and the worldwide devotion to Teresian spirituality reveal her Holy Wisdom that still transfix us today. We will focus on three streams of her gifts: the importance of and manner of praying; the keen influence of positive friendships and spiritual direction; and the importance of being deeply and continually involved in growth, renewal and reform, of ourselves and of our church. 

QUOTE

 

PRAYER 1                   Prayer   Friendship    Reform

Praise to you, Saint Teresa of Jesus, whose wisdom, courage, and humor flow abundantly into our century, bringing vibrant life to the garden of our souls. With passion and grace, you transcended the limits imposed on you and became a timeless teacher of how to pray. You exemplified the exquisite balance between active service and quiet contemplation. Teach us to be passionate about helping others in our troubled world, at the same time that we cultivate joyous intimacy with the Beloved who is only a whisper away.  We ask your vision to identify and bless holy friendships with those who help us focus on our spiritual life, and continuing courage to  engage in efforts to make changes in our world to bring peace to all sentient beings.  Amen    adapted from Mirabai Starr 

READING 2    First Prayer, Then Action

Entering the Avila Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation at age 20, Sr. Teresa fell victim to the laxity of monasteries of the age. They admitted women due to family convenience, widowhood, or to escape an unwanted life. Nuns had their own apartments, servants, pets, and money. Early on, Sr. Teresa contracted a form of malaria that came and went, which would plague her the rest of her life. However, being beautiful, witty, clever, and loving comfort, Sr. Teresa engaged in this lifestyle for nearly 20 years, using poor health as an excuse for not continuing to engage in mental prayer (silent prayer). She recited mandatory rote vocal prayers, but did not persevere in an intimate relationship with the Holy One through silent prayer.  At age 39, a life-changing vision of the scourged Jesus effected an immediate, revolutionary life change, as she understood that Jesus is always with us and wants to be a part of our day-to-day life as our Beloved Friend. In her immortal wisdom: “We must have a determined determination to never give up prayer.” Living a converted life in the way of mental prayer set her soul on fire with Love of the Holy One. Prayer is so important that St. Teresa shared much of her written gifts to us directly related to cultivating and engaging in daily silent prayer, which she explained: “Prayer is nothing more than spending a long time alone with the one I know loves me.” She compared prayer to: “the importance of air to the lungs - what air is to the lungs so is prayer to the soul. Healthy lungs need constant and pure air; a healthy soul must be constantly breathing through prayer—the oxygen of the soul!” St. Teresa then began, under obedience to confessors, to share her life as she took up the feather and inkpot, writing her autobiography, “The Book of My Life.”

PRAYER 2

Glorious Mother St. Teresa, inspire us to value silent prayer as a cornerstone of our lives, which gives us strength to carry out our active charism to touch the lives of everyone we meet with the love of the Holy One. Remind us that there is nothing in our life more important than cultivating this holy relationship within, the silent opening of our mind and heart to the heart of the Holy One, letting go of our need to control.  Your loving and gentle guidance as “simply being alone with Him, looking at Him, sharing His friendship, loving Him and allowing oneself to be loved" teaches us that prayer is for everyone, not just monastics, but the relationship communication of every person with the Holy One who lives within us.  Amen

READING 3   

The Carmelite Rule was originally written by St. Albert, Bishop of Jerusalem, in 1206 for the “Carmelite” hermits living on Mt. Carmel in the Holy Land. Within 50 years, these Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers had to flee Mt. Carmel, leaving their eremitical life. They dispersed to Europe due to wars, the Great Scism, and the Black Death. Around Europe some groups of pious women were loosely following the Carmelite Rule; the Beguines, the Beatas in Spain, the Mantellatta in Italy, and Humiliates in France. One group petitioned the Carmelite Friars in 1452 for admittance to the Order as nuns. The Carmelite nuns then quickly spread throughout Europe. By the 15th century, spiritual practices in religious houses had seriously degraded; the ancient observance was rarely to be found. They needed to be renewed and reinvented to be the life intended by the founders.

The Carmelite Charism gifted by St. Teresa embraces a healthy balance of silent solitude for prayer where the individual can begin to hear the whisper of the Beloved, and living in a small community that gathers for liturgy, prayer, meals, and recreation.  In 1562, with Pope Pius IV’s authorization, 52-year-old Mother Teresa left the Incarnation Monastery with 4 “daughters” who also wanted to follow the new Teresian Charism, based on ancient observance. With her lifelong devotion to St. Joseph, she named her first foundation St. Joseph’s Monastery, in Avila. For five years she lived at St. Joseph’s, writing a “Holy Rule” and “Constitutions” for them to live by: strict enclosure, a life centered around solitude, silence, and prayer for the whole world – prayer for all those who never learned to pray, don’t want to pray, or don’t know how to pray, or reject prayer.

Between 1567 and 1582 she travelled Spain on foot and in a covered wagon to found 17 new Monasteries of nuns. As a reflection of her insistence on the importance of the nuns living in poverty, their name reflected her heart. The new order was called the Order of Carmelites Discalced, OCD, meaning shoeless. Wearing the rope sandals of the poor, the nuns demonstrated leaving the clothes of the wealthy behind. It is during these years she wrote prolifically, hundreds of letters to Carmelite, Jesuit, and Dominican priests, to her family, benefactors who would donate for the new foundations, and even to the Pope. As well, she gifted us with her classic treatise on prayer, “The Interior Castle,” prompted by her spiritual daughters in all the monasteries asking her to teach them how to pray this silent prayer Mother Teresa so loved. 

PRAYER 3    St. Teresa of Jesus     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycy0a5eHgVs    

Virtual Carmelite Choir for 500th Anniversary of St. Teresa

Nada Te Turbe     

Let nothing disturb you, Nada te turbe,

Let nothing upset you.    nada espante

Though all things pass, todo se pasa,

God alone is unchanging. Dios no se muda,

With patience all things are possible. la paciencia

Whoever has God lacks nothing. todo lo alcanza,

God alone is enough. quien a Dios tiene

nada le falta solo Dios basta.

READING 4

While establishing the reformed monasteries for nuns, Mother Teresa received permission from the Carmelite Provincial Father General in Rome to found a reformed Carmelite monastery for men. Needing a male counterpart, and contrasting personalities aside, she recognized the depth of spirituality of 25 year-old newly ordained Fray Juan de Yepes y Alvarez.   Her outgoing, people-person personality, highly intelligent and witty, was in stark contrast with Fray Juan de la Cruz, who was reserved, gentle, and quiet. The immense depth of his spirituality clicked with hers, and she recruited him to help reform and found 14 Discalced Carmelite Monasteries for men.  Their spiritual likenesses developed a lifelong  friendship, and advanced them toward the same goal while their differences enhanced the spirit that would permeate the reform. The reformed order (OCD) became a separate Province from the original Carmelites. However, the original, unreformed Provincial and Priors continued painful attacks as enemies of the Reform on both Mother Teresa and Fray Juan. 

Mother Teresa’s visionary experiences, when reported to her confessors and superiors, brought about a tsunami of mockery and rejection of her mystical experiences, even calling them demonic and from evil forces. Through magnificent use of her natural resources, she demonstrated bravery to fight back with moral courage for what she  believed her Beloved was asking of her. Today we would say she used a high degree of social intelligence, compassion, and forgiveness of those who behaved so cruelly against her. She was a psychologist par excellence for her time, exhibiting a deep understanding of human nature and how to work with diificult people. She taught us to put our prayer life first, then our life’s mission and work will flow from that source of grace.  St. Teresa’s most magnificent gift to us was to teach the world the what and how of communications skills, how to pray with the Holy One, or to Jesus, or to the Great Mystery, or our Beloved, or however we experience The Source in our lives. 

After traveling hundreds of miles, an exhausted Mother Teresa became fatally ill. On her way to Avila, she was forced to stop at the Carmelite Monastery Our Lady of the Annunciation at Alba de Tormes. There, in a small cell on the lower floor, she passed her final 15 days on this earth before being united with her Beloved on October 4, 1582. She was canonized  In 1622, forty years after her death, by Pope Gregory XV, and declared a Doctor of the Universal Church on 27 September 1970 by Pope Paul VI, proclaiming St. Teresa the first female Doctor of the Church in recognition of her centuries long legacy to Catholicicsm. 

 

PRAYER 4      GROWING OLDER       St. Teresa of Jesus

Love, You know better than I myself

that I am growing older and will someday be old.

Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking

I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.

Release me from craving to

straighten out everybody’s affairs.

Make me thoughtful but not moody;

helpful but not bossy.

With my vast store of wisdom,

it seems a pity not to use it all;

but You know, Love,

that I want a few friends at the end.

Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details;

give me wings to get to the point.

Seal my lips on my aches and pains;

they are increasing, and love of rehearsing them

is becoming sweeter as the years go by.

I dare not ask for improved memory,

but for a growing humility and a lessening cock-sureness

when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others.

Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken.

Keep me reasonably sweet, for a sour old person

is one of the crowning works of the devil.

Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places

and talents in unexpected people;

and give, O Love, the grace to tell them so. Amen.

A FINAL THOUGHT

St. Teresa of Jesus is often considered to be the female saint and mystic who has had the most impact and influence on the world.  Her ascetic doctrine has been accepted as the classical exposition of the contemplative life, and her spiritual writings are among the most widely read and relevant for now and new generations to come. Her book, Mother Teresa of Jesus (published in 1611) is autobiographical; the Book of the Foundations (1610) describes the establishment of her monasteries. Her recognized written masterpieces on the progress of the Christian soul toward God through prayer and contemplation are: The Way of Perfection (1583), The Interior Castle (1588),  Exclamations of the Soul to God (1588), and Conceptions on the Love of God. Of her poems, 31 are extant; of her letters, 458 are extant; she has written over 2000 pages of spirituality that represent the culmination of Christian Mysticism for all the ages. She said: “Just being a woman is enough for my wings to fall off,” meaning that despite the social conditions for women in her time, she would not let her wings be clipped. Let us take great heart from the wisdom she has shared with us, and let our own spiritual lives be enflamed and take wing.  Today, we can still practice reasonable asceticism, which moves our hearts away from selfishness. It is a tool in our spiritual toolbox, helping us combat the excesses in our culture that cloud our ability to connect with the poor, the marginalized, the suffering, the mentally ill, those affected by war, and our next door neighbor. Thank you Holy Mother, be in our lives today and whisper help and guidance on our way.

Pope Francis: 

“The same generosity and self-sacrifice which guided your founders must now inspire you, their spiritual children, to keep alive the charisms which, by the power of the same Spirit who awakened them, are constantly being enriched and adapted, while losing none of their unique character. It is up to you to place those charisms at the service of the Church and to work for the coming of Christ’s Kingdom in its fullness.” (Pope Francis, Apostolic Letter to All Consecrated People)

References and Resources 

Alvarez, T. (2011). St. Teresa of Avila: 100 Themes on Her Life and Work. ICS Publications, Washington, DC. Translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD.

Avila, T. (2008). Teresa of Avila: The Book of My Life. New Seeds, Boston. Translated by Mirabai Starr.

Foley, M., Teresa of Avila, & Rodriguez, O. (2012). Saint Teresa of Avila The Book of Her Foundations: A Study Guide. ICS Publications.

Giles, M. E. (1981). Francisco de Osuna: the third spiritual alphabet. Paulist Press.

Griffin, M. (1985). Lingering with my Lord: post-Communion experiences of St. Teresa of Avila. Alba House.

Kavanaugh, K., & Rodriguez, O. (1980). The collected works of St. Teresa of Avila. Vol. 1 & 2. Washington, ICS - Institute for Carmelite Studies.

Sackville-West, V. (2011). The eagle and the dove: a study in contrasts: St. Teresa of Avila, St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Bello.

Sinetar, M. (2007). Ordinary people as monks & mystics: lifestyles for spiritual wholeness. Paulist Press.

Starr, M., & Bielecki, T. (2008). Teresa of Avila : the book of my life. New Seeds.

Underhill, E. (1999). The essentials of mysticism and other essays. One World Publications.

Wolcott, B. (2007). The flame that enkindles all [Master’s Thesis].

And others..

WEBSITES

https://heartsawake.org/spirituality/teresian-charism/

https://www.simplycatholic.com/st-teresa-of-avila/

https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-teresa-of-avila/

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES 

For Mystic Moment: St. Teresa of Jesus

Alvarez, T. 2011. St. Teresa of Avila: 100 Themes on her life and work. (Kieran      Kavanaugh, trans.) ICS Publications. Washington, D.C. Original Spanish edition published in 2007 under title: 100 Fichas Sobre Teresa de Jesus. 

de Osuna, F. The third spiritual alphabet. 1981. (Mary E. Giles, trans.) Paulist Press. New York.

Foley, M. 1949. The book of her foundations by St. Teresa of Avila: a study guide. Text for The book of her foundations is taken from the Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Vol.3, trans. by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD, and Otilio Rodrigues, OCD, ICS Publications. 

Sinetar, M. (2007) Ordinary people as monks and mystics: lifestyles for spiritual wholeness. Paulist Press. NY. 

Wolcott, B. (2007) The flame that enkindles all: Francisco de Osuna, the exercise of recollection, and the overarching law of love. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

PHOTOS AND VIDEOS 

FROM An official VMG virtual choir, "Nada Te Turbe" is one of two virtual choirs produced for the celebration of St. Teresa of Jesus's 500th birthday. The choir is made up of Carmelite Nuns and Seculars from around the world and is accompanied by the Teresian Orchestra of St. James Cathedral in Seattle, Washington, USA. Music composed by Claire Sokol, OCD., University of Notre Dame

https://www.ncregister.com/blog/5-important-lessons-from-st-teresa-of-avila 

https://aleteia.org/slideshow/this-cow-explains-catholic-religious-orders-and-congregations-better-than-most-textbooks/

https://aleteia.org/2020/10/15/3-lessons-from-the-life-of-st-teresa-of-avila-for-the-modern-christian/

ARTWORK

1. https://www.coraevans.com/blog/article/take-a-moment-to-dwell-on-the-holy-wisdom-of-st-teresa-of-avila    coraevans.com blog