Today we celebrate the feast of one of the most intelligent and holy women of the Church: Teresa of Avila. She was born in 1515 - just after Christopher Columbus discovered America and the Protestant Revolution was getting underway. Early on she led a very high-spirited and even rambunctious life. When just a child she had her first heavenly vision - and she knew that she was destined for a more intense spiritual life, and life in the Church, than most others. But it took many years to tame this daughter of Spain. It was only after being sent to a Carmelite convent as a way to deal with her rowdiness that she became familiar with a way of life that she herself later would do much to help reform.
In her young adulthood she contracted malaria and suffered related illnesses and physical maladies for the rest of her life - this along with a spiritual transformation that paralleled the same time span of the physical suffering. After being deeply moved by meditating on the image of Jesus Crucified, Jesus took her on a spiritual journey through the purgative, illuminative and unitive ways where she reached the heights of sublime communion with God. She was a gifted writer and so was able to write it all down for others to follow on her own path! Later in life she founded her own order of Discalced Carmelites. She died in 1582 on the feast of St. Francis - and was canonized in 1622 along with Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier and Philip Neri. She was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1970.
The first reading today perfectly described how God dealt with Teresa. She knew she was a part of all creation that was inwardly groaning for fulfillment in Christ - especially because of her weak physical condition. She knew that it was the Spirit that helps us in our weakness - and intercedes for us with God according to God’s will. In the gospel passage the image of the vine and the branches again perfectly describe the immense union that she felt with God - as the branches are grafted onto the vine. Her only desire in life was to remain firmly attached to that vine until the day when she would experience communion with God and the glory of God in the fullest extreme.
In these ways Teresa is an excellent model in holiness for all of us - especially those who seem to end up taking roundabout ways to get to the depths of spirituality and holiness. She is also an example of how fully embracing the obstacles that life sends our way can not only be productive - but essential and even virtuous. Jesus said over and over again that we MUST embrace our cross if we are to share in his resurrection. He was not kidding!
Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.
This day may we commit ourselves to studying the writings of people like St. Teresa and all of the Doctors and Fathers of the Church. We will meet God there. We will experience his life there! We will move further along the path of our own spiritual growth as we journey to the fullness of holiness and complete communion and life in God!
No comments:
Post a Comment