St. Teresa of Avila

William Thomas Walsh

• Publisher: TAN Books
• Year: 1992
• ISBN:
  9781618904898
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Denominazioni cristiane

A definitive life of one of the greatest Saints of the church and one of the most appealing women of all time by a master writer. Immensely sane, witty, intelligent, charming and courageous, she is the reformer of the Order of Mt. Carmel, founder of many convents and monasteries, and is universally considered the greatest mystical writer of the Church, for which she was declared "Doctor of the Church." A life filled with delight, surprises and love of God! 608 pgs,

Chapter 1

GIRLHOOD

“He who loves Thee, O my God, travels safely by the open and royal road, far from the precipice; he has scarcely stumbled at all when Thou stretchest forth Thy hand to save him.”

—St. Teresa

“IT was the little girl who made me do it,” pleaded Rodrigo de Cepeda, and although he did not know it, the excuse was as old as the world.

The “little girl” in question was Rodrigo’s seven-year-old sister Teresa, who had been seized with a burning desire for martyrdom. She wanted to see God, she passionately assured her brother, and as it was necessary to die first, martyrdom was obviously the only means to her end. Rodrigo himself had not seen the matter quite in the same light, but as Teresa was his own particular friend and playmate, and they had always done everything together, he had considered himself bound to enter into her views.

The two had set forth hand in hand at an early hour in the morning to seek the desired martyrdom in the country of the Moors, but fate had been against them. Scarcely had the children left the town of Avila when they fell into the hands of an uncle, who was returning from the country. Untouched by their tears and prayers, he promptly took them home, to the relief of the anxious mother, who was searching everywhere for the missing pair. Rodrigo’s excuse has already been given. Teresa with earnest eyes repeated her assertion: “I wanted to go to God, and one cannot do that unless one dies first.”

Doña Beatriz de Ahumada was a wise and saintly woman. She explained gently to her little daughter that for most people the road to God lies through a life spent faithfully in His service. Such a life, especially if one tried one’s best to please God in everything one did and was careful to avoid offending Him, might be quite as meritorious as the shorter way of martyrdom, which was, moreover, only for the few.

It was hard to give up all one’s dreams. Teresa consulted the Lives of the Saints and decided that the most desirable thing, after a martyr’s death, was a hermit’s life. Assisted by the faithful Rodrigo, she set to work to build a hermitage in the garden, but, as cement had not entered into their plans, the stones fell down as fast as they built them up. Teresa was at last obliged to admit sorrowfully that there seemed no more prospect of a hermit’s life than of a martyr’s death, and it was in this moment of discouragement that her mother’s words came back to her. To do one’s best to please God and not to offend Him seemed possible for anybody; she determined, therefore, to try this simple plan and with her usual energy set to work at once.

She had not very much pocket-money, but what she had she gave to the poor; she tried to say her prayers as devoutly as possible and resolved to do a kind action or say a kind word to everyone she met. It sounds like a simple program, but it took the little girl all her time and cost her many acts of self-denial—how many, those who practice it will soon discover. But she brought sunshine with her wherever she went, and she began to be supremely happy, for there is no joy like that of giving joy to others.

Doña Beatriz de Ahumada, Teresa’s sweet young mother, did her utmost to bring up her large family in the fear and the love of God. Gentle, pure and devout, she was herself their best example. Of the three sisters and nine brothers who made up the merry family party in the big house at Avila, not one in later life lost the strong faith and fervor that had been so firmly rooted in their childish hearts. Don Alonso de Cepeda, her husband, was a man whom all respected. Truthful, charitable and chivalrous, he was loved as well as obeyed by all his children. St. Teresa herself tells us that she never knew her father or mother to respect anything but goodness and that all the children in mind and heart took after their parents. “All, that is,” she adds in her humility, “but myself.”

The happy family life was soon to be broken up. When Teresa was between twelve and thirteen years old, Doña Beatriz died. In the anguish of loneliness that followed the loss of the mother to whom she had confided all her joys and sorrows, the child flung herself on her knees before the Blessed Virgin, begging her to be her mother now that she no longer had one on earth.

Of all the family, Teresa was perhaps the one who missed Doña Beatriz the most sorely and needed her guiding hand the most. Maria, her elder sister, was already grown up; Juana, the younger, scarcely more than a baby; Teresa, beautiful, brilliant and lovable, was just growing from childhood into girlhood. Her brothers adored her, and among the troop of young cousins who frequented the house she ruled as a little queen. There was no danger as long as Teresa carried out her resolution of pleasing God and never offending Him; but time wore on, and she who had inspired that resolution was no longer at hand to encourage and advise.

The apparition of the Holy Child to St. Teresa.

There was one among Teresa’s cousins, a good deal older than herself, whose conversation, she tells us, did her much harm. She was a shallow and frivolous girl who thought of nothing but pleasure and amusement. By the time Teresa was fourteen, she seemed to have forgotten all her old desires of being a Saint. Whatever time could be spared from the reading of romances was spent in setting off her girlish beauty to the best advantage and enjoying the admiration that she received from all within the little home circle.

But the Blessed Virgin did not forget the child who had thrown herself at her feet on the day of her mother’s death. Though Teresa was her father’s darling, he was not so blinded by affection for his young daughter as not to notice the change in her behavior. He was the first to see that her prayers were more hurried, her visits to the church fewer; that she thought more of herself and less of others. He noticed with distress the unworthy friendship that was doing all the mischief. He noticed, too, that in spite of all her amusements, Teresa was less joyous than of old when she had set her childish steps to “go to God.”

He took counsel with his eldest daughter, Maria, who had also remarked the change in her sister and was grieving over it in silence. She herself was soon to be married, and it was this that helped them to come to a decision, for when Maria was established in a house of her own, Teresa could not very well remain at home alone with her brothers. It was decided to send her to the Augustinian Convent to complete her education, and no sooner was the wedding over than the plan was carried out.

After the first week or two of homesickness, Teresa was heartily glad. She was already tired of the life she had been leading, and the old desires were tugging at her heartstrings. Sister Maria Briceño, the nun who was the mistress of the secular children at the convent, helped a great deal to set Teresa on the path to sanctity. It was she who opened Teresa’s mind, by her holy example and advice, to the possibility of becoming a nun.

Teresa remained a year and a half at the convent in the company of this holy nun. Then, however, she became seriously ill and had to return to her father’s house. When Teresa’s strength was somewhat recovered, she and her father, Don Alonso, set out for Castellanos de la Canada, the home of Teresa’s sister Maria. On the road lay the home of Don Pedro, Teresa’s uncle, a holy old man who lived the life of a recluse and a Saint in Hortigosa. Don Alonso’s stay could only be short, as he was obliged to return home on business, but Don Pedro was so delighted with Teresa that he begged his brother to leave her with him until he could come back and fetch her home himself a week or two later.

Hortigosa seemed a little dull to Teresa after the happy life she had led with her sister until Don Pedro, the greater part of whose time was passed in prayer and study, proposed one day that his niece should read aloud to him in her spare moments. Teresa, always ready to give pleasure to others, set herself bravely to a task which she did not expect to enjoy. To her surprise, however, the Epistles of St. Jerome and the writings of St. Augustine and St. Gregory, which were what her uncle chiefly preferred, turned out to be less dry than she had expected. Her quick intelligence and love of all that was noble and beautiful soon made her almost as eager for the hour of reading as Don Pedro himself, and many were the happy moments spent in the old Spanish garden at Hortigosa.

As the time went on, Don Pedro and his young niece found that they had much in common. They talked now over the daily reading, while the old desire to seek and to find God arose more strongly than ever in Teresa’s heart, with a deeper understanding of the means to be taken. Already she had discovered that earthly pleasures were unsatisfying. She had learned that those who give the most to God are the happiest, and yet her nature shrank, as human nature will, from sacrifice and suffering. How was it all to end? That was the question uppermost in Teresa’s heart when her father came to take her home to Avila.

Chapter 2

THE CALL OF GOD

“Let him begin by not being afraid of the Cross, and he will see how Our Lord will help him to carry it.”

—St. Teresa

TERESA was courageous by nature, and the long talks with her uncle in the garden at Hortigosa had reawakened all the desires of her childhood. A long life of experience had taught the old man what the child had learned by intuition, that “to get to God” was the one thing in the world worth striving for.

What was the surest way to Paradise? was the question Teresa asked herself. In spite of the fact that her nature shrank from the thought of the religious life with all that it entailed of self-sacrifice, she earnestly prayed that God would show her what He desired of her and that He would give her the strength to do it. How would it be for her in the future if she remained in the world? She had been weak once already in the presence of danger.

That the religious life was the highest life she was certain; she soon became convinced that for her at least it was the safest. As for its hardships, its self-denial, if other people had borne them, why not she? Could she not suffer a little for that Lord who had suffered so much for her? And after all, was not He Himself the strength of those who chose the rough ways for His sake?

So it was, in quiet communing with her own soul, weighing the things of earth against the things of Heaven, that Teresa chose the latter, with all that the sacrifice entailed. It remained to break the news to her father. That he would suffer Teresa knew, but, once assured that her resolve was taken, she had no doubt but that he would give her generously to God.

In this, however, she was mistaken. Don Alonso absolutely refused his consent. Entreaties were of no avail; arguments could not move him. In vain Teresa appealed to her sister Maria, to her uncle, Don Pedro; in vain her brothers, touched by her evident distress, pleaded her cause with their father. Teresa was his favorite child, said Don Alonso; he could not and would not part with her. He wished to hear no more of the matter.

But if Don Alonso was resolute, Teresa was resolute too, for God had spoken, and she saw clearly where her duty lay. Although her heart was breaking at the thought of parting from those she loved so dearly and the home life that was so sweet, she determined to take things into her own hands.

St. Teresa as a young girl entering the monastery.

Close to the town of Avila, in the midst of its quiet gardens, lay the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation. Thither a few years before Juana Suarez, a beloved friend of Teresa’s, had gone to give her young life to God in the cloister. From her Teresa had learned something of the peace and happiness of the religious life, and the prayers of Juana and of her sisters in religion had been enlisted to win Don Alonso’s consent.

One of Teresa’s brothers—not the faithful Rodrigo, who was already making a military career for himself in the New World, but Antonio—showed her much sympathy, for the desire of his heart also was to belong to God. Brother and sister at last resolved to leave their father’s house together and to enter religion, Teresa at the Incarnation and Antonio at the Dominican monastery nearby.

Early in the morning, before the household was astir, as in the old days when Teresa had crept out with Rodrigo to seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors, the two set forth. Teresa herself tells us that the agony she felt at leaving the beloved home of her childhood was so great that she did not think the pains of death could be greater, but not for that would she pause.

Once within the convent walls a deep peace fell on her soul. On that very day, as was the custom, her beautiful hair was cut off and she was clothed with the novice’s habit and veil. Kneeling before the Tabernacle, she thanked God who had given her the strength to do what she knew was His Will and offered herself to Him forever. A few days later her happiness was complete, for Don Alonso, who had been thinking things over in his heart, came himself to the Convent of the Incarnation to give his daughter the consent that he had so long withheld.

The bond between the two was now deeper and stronger than ever, ennobled as it was by sacrifice. Humbly Don Alonso asked Teresa to teach him, now that she herself had chosen the higher life, how to serve God better. The parlor of the Incarnation became for him and for Teresa’s brothers the sunniest spot in Avila. There each one brought his troubles and difficulties; careers were decided on and plans discussed for the future; the bright young novice had help and advice for all. Even Antonio would come from time to time from his monastery to talk about the spiritual life with the sister who had helped him so much to understand its meaning during their last days at home together. As for the little Juana, Don Alonso brought her himself to the convent, that her education might be carried on under Teresa’s care.

If the struggle was still sometimes keen in the novice’s heart, no one was allowed to suspect it. She performed her humble duties with such a radiant face that everyone who saw her was cheered by the sight. She prayed with so much fervor and atoned for her mistakes with so much humility that her sisters used sometimes to wonder what the little novice would become in later life. Her greatest joy was in helping others. She was always on the look-out for such little opportunities, but the old and the infirm were her special care.

When Teresa knelt at her bedside at night, if her chances of practicing...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• 1. Girlhood
• 2. The Call of God
• 3. The Great Mistake
• 4. Christ or Satan?
• 5. Probation
• 6. The Divine Mission
• 7. Silence and Patience
• 8. St. Joseph’s
• 9. Foundations
• 10. Prioress of the Incarnation
• 11. The Last Trial
• 12. The End of Sorrow
• Back Cover
• A Collection of Classic Artwork
• Brief Life of Christ
• A Prayerbook of Favorite Litanis
• Tan Classics
• Become a Tan Missionary!
• Share the Faith with Tan Books!
• Tan Books