The Plan of Life of St. Teresa of Avila: Friend of the Lord

by Susan Fox

Life History

Born: March 28, 1515 in Avila, Castile, Spain
Died: Oct. 14, 1582
Canonized in 1622
Feast Day: Oct. 15

First woman to be declared a doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI in 1970. She reformed the Carmelite order, returning the nuns to the practice of the strict rule of its foundation. Despite bitter opposition from the calced Carmelites - those who lived under a more relaxed rule, she founded 16 reformed convents, and eventually her Discalced Reform was recognized as a separate province by Pope Gregory XIII in 1580. While establishing her second convent at Medino del Campo, she met a young friar, John Yepes (St. John of the Cross). She founded her first reformed Carmelite monastery at Duruelo in 1568, and then turned over the task of founding reformed Carmelite monasteries to John.

Experiences, temptations, and what she learned from them

Chastity

Admired beautiful mother, who was chaste and without any vanity.

Focus on doing things for God's ske alone

As a young girl, developed a habit of reading trashy novels of chivalry. She found her treasure in this activity, not happy unless she is doing it. Later she understands this was a waste of time, and finds her treasure in doing things for God's sake alone. Enters the convent in 1536 without any desire to do so and with no love for God, but God gave her great joy and converted her aridity to tenderness. Learned that if she resolves to do a thing for God's sake alone, God allows her to be very afraid, but if she achieves her resolve, her reward from God is great. As a beginner in prayer, she found that it's important to persevere in prayer for God's sake alone despite desolations or in the midst of consolations.

Humility

As a young girl, she was tempted to care what others thought of her. She began to take great trouble with her hands and hair. Worldly honor is important to her. As a young novice, she is still plagued by vanity. She fears anything that makes her appear ridiculous, delights in being well thought of, and is particular about everything she does. When she was beginning to experience the joys of prayer and increase in virtue, she wanted this good for all the others. This led her to be overzealous in helping others to improve. She learned to look at the virtues and good qualities which we find in others, and keep our own grievious sins before our eyes so we may be blind to their defects. She learned the value of one great virtue--namely to consider all others better than ourselves. She had models in her life of great humility (including her mother) and admired this virtue. She was judged harshly as word of her favors in prayer got out, and these experiences of persecution and judgment taught her humility. Also she ceased to care what people thought of her.

Value of good companionship, and the danger of bad companions

The young Teresa learned to enjoy gossip with a frivolous relative. After her mother's death in 1527 when she was 12, Teresa was sent to an Augustinian convent where the friendship of a good nun turned her back from the frivolous lifestyle she had been about to embrace. From these experiences, she learns the value of GOOD COMPANIONSHIP, and the damage done by bad companions. As a young Carmelite nun, Teresa engaged in frivolous conversations with visitors to the convent. Actually, these conversations were contrary to the rule of her order, but widely practiced anyway, and therefore she thought receiving visitors was okay. Besides, it enhanced her reputation from a worldly point of view. She learned the practice is dangerous because it represents a great waste of time. Christ appeared to her in her mind's eye with sternness and warned her about these relationships. Satan convinced her unless a vision is in body form, it doesn't count. She continued with the visitations. A great ugly toad hops toward her and a visitor.

Friendship with God

The rule was kept poorly in her Carmelite convent, at one point in her formation Teresa falls back into her vanities, and became ashamed to approach God in the "intimate friendship which comes from prayer." She began her prayer life always with a book by her side because she was afraid of being distracted.

She learns to relax in prayer through thinking of a field or water or flowers to remind her of the Creator. Those who enjoy using their reasoning powers: don't spend all your time in doing so. They need a kind of Sunday - a period of rest from their labors where they can imagine themselves in the presence of Christ, and let them remain in converse with Him and delight in Him without using their minds. She recommends as a prayer Point, Christ bound to the column. Meditate on such as this until the Lord leads us to other methods that are supernatural. Other prayer points: Imagine yourself in heaven, in hell, upon death, the greatness of God revealed in his creatures, the Passion, the life of Christ, etc.

She learns that her virtue increases the more time she spends with the Lord in prayer. She learns beginners in prayer must think over their past life (study their plan of life). Beginners must experience aridities in prayer, and persevere soley to please God, and expect to be distracted by evil thoughts. Teresa endured these trials in prayer for many years. These trials require courage. The Lord gives us these "tortures" and many other temptations to test "His lovers" and see if they are willing to drink of His chalice and help Him bear his Cross before He trusts them with His great treasures.

She learned its important for a soul to persevere in prayer and set little store by consolations and tenderness in devotion, and not to be elated when the Lord gives them, nor depressed when He witholds them. After she was no longer a beginner in prayer, Teresa was tempted by false humility to abandon her intimate friendship with Christ: Seeing her sins, she resolved to leave off praying until she had achieved virtue. She went on this way for more than a year. The result was she almost lost her soul. "I do not believe I have ever passed through so grave a peril as when the devil put this idea into my head under the guise of humility." This was the same principle on which the devil tempted Judas (also a friend of the Lord). Satan would have gradually brought me to the same fate (suicide and despair)."The worst life I ever led was when I abandoned prayer." (She gave up her plan of life to be a friend of the Lord.) Her good spiritual director told her to abandon certain friendships which were not actually leading her to offend God. There was a great deal of affection in these friendships and she feared that to abandon them would be to sin by ingratitude. She asked her confessor why she must do so, and he said she should ask God and recite the hymn Veni Creator. While reciting the Veni Creator, she was put into rapture and heard these words, "I will have thee converse now, not with men, but with angels." Since then she has been unable to maintain a friendship with anyone except those who love God and try to serve him. After that she was able to give up everything for God. And so she was given FREEDOM, something she had been unable to achieve herself despite doing violence to her self to the point where it affected her health.

Trust vs. self confindence
(the importance of good spiritual direction)

When the Lord begins to give the soul the prayer of quiet, St. Theresa found that it is easy to fall back into sin. What's important now is to continue persevering in prayer for prayer will enlighten them as to what they are doing. And the Lord will grant them repentance and strength to rise again. Even should a soul receive great favors from God in prayer, it must not trust itself, nor expose itself to near occasions of sin. This is a temptation to self-confidence. When a soul is experiencing great favors, it seems like there will be no falling away from what it is now enjoying. It is not pride, but extreme confidence in God, which knows no discretion. The soul doesn't realize it is like a bird still unfledged. It is able to come out of the nest, but it still can't fly. And it has no experience to warn it of the dangers, nor is it aware of the great harm done by self- confidence. She said self-confidence ruined her. The soul has a great need of a good spiritual director and of intercourse with spiritual people. As raptures in prayer began, she realized it was God's strength working in her, and of herself she is doing nothing. Instead God is holding her by His hand, so she shouldn't turn back. When she began experiencing supernatural events in her prayer life, she received bad spiritual direction. She suffered the trial of being told her visions were from Satan because her life still included many sins and weaknesses.

She was consoled during this time by Saint Paul, who taught her that God is faithful and never allows those who love Him to be deluded by the devil. Interestingly, a saintly priest, Fr. Peter of Alcantara appeared to her before his death, but more frequently afterwards, and gave her spiritual direction via supernatural means.

Hope
(God's goodness is greater than any evil we can do)

Teresa suffered terrible bouts of false humility between her raptures. She felt evil, and all the evils in the world were caused by her sins. This disquiet and unrest plunges the soul into a state where they do not have any disposition to prayer or good works. This state is caused by Satan. It leads a soul to despair. When she was tempted to despair because of her mistakes and sins, she finally learned the value of trusting in the goodness of God which is greater than any evil we can do by over-confidence or whatever. Learned in dealing with devils: that when we pay little heed to them, they lose much of their power. They appear frightening so as to make us afraid.

False loyalty vs. loyalty to God alone

Teresa was tempted often by false loyalty in her friendships. She befriended a priest who had an affectionate (7-year) relationship with a woman in the convent. He'd lost all honor, but no one had reproved him. Teresa is sorry for him because she likes him very much. At this time, she thinks it is a virtue to be grateful and loyal to anyone who likes her. Since then she has learned that any loyalty that militates against loyalty to God is to be cursed. "I had a very serious fault which led me into great trouble. If I realized that a person liked me, and I liked them, I would grow so fond of them that I would think of them constantly without any intention of offending God. This was such a harmful thing, it was ruining my soul." God solved that problem by giving her a vision of Himself. "Once I had seen the great beauty of the Lord, I saw no one who by comparison with Him seemed acceptable to me or on whom my thoughts wished to dwell. For if I merely turn the eyes of my mind to the image of Him which I have within my soul I find I have such freedom that from that time forward everything I see appears nauseating to me by comparison." "Although, He is my Lord, I can talk to Him as my friend." She talks often about how the Lord shared his "secrets" with her.

Obedience

She learned great harm is done to religious when religious life is not properly observed. If a friar or nun begin to follow their vocation truely, she said after much bitter experience, they need to be more afraid of the religious in their own house than of all the devils. When she finally received good spiritual direction for her prayer life, she learned the value of obedience.

All knowledge is from God

Teresa finds she is unable to explain her spiritual experiences to her confessors. But suddenly right before she begins to write her autobiography she is given infused knowledge of how to explain what has been happening to her in prayer. She recognizes she is indebted to God for her knowledge and no one else because until she was given the gift of infused knowledge, her confessors were quite aware she was unable to explain what was happening to her.

Silence and Solitude

Teresa liked to think about the Lord at the times in His life when He was alone - like the Agony in the Garden. As a young nun, she was concerned about her own comfort and pleasure, and she was tempted to worry about her health when it came to mortifications. She discovered that silence never hurt anyone. She learned the value of secrecy about mystical experiences because one spiritual director under obedience told her to tell a certain group of people, who in turn discussed the experiences among themselves and with others. This caused her great harm. She says the Lord permitted this to happen so that she might suffer for Him.

Confirmation of Teresa's Plan

Saints

Teresa's mother had a great devotion to the Rosary, and when her mother died, Teresa asked Mary to be her Mother. She felt this gave her a special protection all her life. Teresa suffered a serious illness soon after she joined the Carmelites. She said she was cured from paralysis and given the power to walk again through the intercession of St. Joseph. She says the Lord was subject to him on earth, and still does all he asks. She named the first convent she founded at Avila, St. Joseph's Convent. Teresa read the Confessions of St. Augustine. His conversion caused her own. She cried at the scene where the Lord spoke to St. Augustine in the garden. The Lord heard her prayers, and she began to spend more time with the Lord. She loved this quote from St. Augustine: "Give me Lord what thou commandest me and command what thou wilt."

Scripture

Teresa loves the passage from St. Paul: Everything is possible with God. St. Theresa reflected that St. Peter lost nothing by throwing himself into the sea even though, after he had done so, he became afraid. Also she loved the Scripture passage about the woman at the well, who offered Jesus water, but was told she should have asked for water herself, and He would have given her "living water." This is the water Teresa sought all her life in the intimate friendship of prayer.

Temptations

Loyalty (misplaced in persons rather than God), honor (her own instead of God's), false humility (leading her to give up prayer until she is virtuous), good opinion of others (she cares what they think of her. She is vain.) Teresa was tempted by concern for her health. This led her not to undertake mortifications. This impeded her prayer life. These fears held her back from penances. She overcame this. When Satan suggested that something should ruin her health, she'd respond, "Even if I die, it is of little consequence." Since she stopped caring about her health, it has improved. Teresa warns us of the temptation to extreme self-confidence in God, causing us to let down our guard with respect to the near occasions of sin. It's easy to fall back into sin after we begin to experience the prayer of quiet. Another temptation Teresa had was to desire good for others. She said when one is beginning to experience the benefits of prayer, one desires that everyone be very spiritual. It's not wrong to desire this, but it must be done with extreme discretion. She said she was preaching the practice of prayer when her life was lived such that it was poverty striken in virtue, and this tempted others into believing certain sins were okay because Teresa did it, and she prayed. Another temptation is to be distressed by the sins and failings in others (desire for perfection in others, when we should keep the focus on Christ and our own faults). This causes us to stop praying and to get anxious. It can lead us to meddle. She said safety lies in not being anxious about anything and anybody. (St. John of the Cross may have learned this from her. He also taught: treat all as strangers). Teresa learned humility: namely to consider all others better than ourselves.

On the Eucharist

He is our Companion. With so good a Friend at our side. He is a true Friend. She learned that God grants His favors through His Most Sacred Humanity, and recommends meditating on that. It is by the door of His Humanity, that we must enter if we wish the Lord to show us "great secrets." Some people of her time recommended meditating on his Godhead, his Divinity, but she says this should not be done until the soul is very proficient. Until there the Creator must be sought through his creatures. And Christ's humanity is not a corpeal object to be ignored. Look at His Life - that is our best pattern. There is no other way. She reflects on the lives of the great saints: They followed the same path - to imitate the life - the humanity - of Christ: St. Francis of Assisi with the stigmata Saint Anthony of Padua with the Divine Infant. Saint Bernard and Saint Catherine of Siena delighted in Christ's humanity. In seasons of aridity, "We have a very good Friend in Christ. He becomes our Companion." When we get in the habit of thinking of him in this way, it becomes easy to find Him at our side.