Don't worry about anything: Tereza's recipes for life.

According to the catechesis of Benedict XVI. from February 2, 2011, prepared by Fr. David Vopřada

For the visitors of the general audience on February 2 of this year, the Holy Father prepared a small surprise. He concluded the series of talks about medieval theologians and women to start a series devoted to the teachers of the Church with a reflection on another woman. He set the bar quite high by dedicating his thoughts to a saint who “represents one of the peaks of Christian spirituality of all time” – St. Teresa of Jesus, also known as Teresa of Ávila. Many of her advice and insights are an excellent contribution to life. Inspired by the Pope's address, I will highlight a few of them.

There is probably no need to bring forth the biography of Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada, born in the Castilian city of “songs and saints”, and to recall her childhood escapes, driven by the desire to attain martyrdom and “see God.” As she herself recounts, even a small child can understand the basic truth about the world, “which Teresa summarized in two fundamental principles. On one hand, the “fact that everything that belongs to this world passes away,” and on the other hand, the understanding that only God is “forever, forever, forever.”

The same theme returns in the famous poem

The Pope then spoke about the fundamental moments of Teresa's life: her entry into Carmel, her cloistered life and its difficulties, her mystical experience with Christ present in her innermost being, the emerging idea of reforming the Carmelite order and establishing the first reformed convents, her meeting with St. John of the Cross, in short, about a life full of activity, which closed on the night of October 4 to 15, 1582 (indeed, Teresa dies just hours after the Gregorian calendar came into effect), after her last two sentences escaped her lips: “I die as a daughter of the Church” and “The time has come, my Bridegroom, when we will see each other.” She was beatified in 1614 and canonized in 1622.

In 1970, Pope Paul VI declared her a Doctor of the Church. Teresa is a teacher who, although she “did not undergo academic formation,” knew that she could learn much from “theologians, authors of books, and spiritual teachers.” Even though her teachings were primarily enriched by “what she personally experienced, or what she observed from the experiences of others,” she also learned from the “saints” of her time through her friendships with them and through “reading the Church Fathers: St. Jerome, St. Gregory the Great, and St. Augustine.” This inspiration is evident in her writings, and I must say that for a patrologist, Teresa reads quite well – her writings represent familiar territory for him.

The Holy Father then briefly characterized her works, in which the saint engraved her experience, teaching others what she herself learned (in this, she resembles St. Ambrose, whom I study in my exploration of patristics). He particularly recalled her famous analogy: the heart as a castle in the innermost being, in its center, in seven rooms, resides the sought-after and expected Bridegroom, Christ.

However, it is interesting to pause over the points that Benedict XVI highlighted in Teresa's teaching. Like everyone who has encountered Carmelite and Teresian spirituality, he too struggled with how to summarize it in just a few words.

He attempted to capture it in the following way:

1. St. Teresa considers the “foundation of all Christian life” to be the evangelical virtues:
   1. especially detachment from possessions or evangelical poverty – this does not concern only religious or Carmelites, but “all of us”;
   2. “mutual love as an essential element of community and social ‘life’ – although Teresa is such a highly contemplative person, she will rather recommend Martha than Mary from the parable of Luke (12, 38–44);
   3. “humility as love of truth” – not the false sense that I am “of no use,” but the understanding of the beauty as well as the weakness of humanity; for her, the human heart will be a beautiful diamond, yet at the same time nothing compared to God, who alone is sovereign;
   4. “determination as a fruit of Christian courage” – again: this contemplative woman does not sit discontentedly and idly in seclusion, but carries out a reform of the order and the Church, starting within her own soul;
   5. “theological hope, which she describes as living water”;
   6. “She does not forget the human virtues either: kindness, sincerity, gentleness, politeness, cheerfulness, nobility.”
2. “St. Teresa invites us to deep communion with great biblical figures and to listening to the Word of God. She feels particularly united with the bride of the Song of Songs and with the Apostle Paul, and of course with the suffering Christ and with Jesus in the Eucharist.”
3. “The saint further emphasizes the importance of prayer; prayer – she says – is “a friendly conversation with the One whom we know loves us” (Life 8, 5).” This definition of prayer has already surprised many who opened the Catechism of the Catholic Church and found it quoted there. As the Pope recalled, it is not just her invention, but Teresa stands within the best theological traditions, becoming not only a teacher but – like St. Ambrose, who is very close to her in the concept of spiritual life – one who introduces into the mystery, that is, performs mystagogy.
   The mentioned idea of St. Teresa is in accordance with the definition of theological love provided by St. Thomas Aquinas: love is “amicitia quaedam hominis ad Deum”, a certain kind of friendship between man and God, who first offered his friendship to man; the initiative comes from God (cf. Summa Theologia II-II, 23,1).
   “Prayer is life and develops gradually and simultaneously with the growth of the Christian life: it begins with vocal prayer, then transitions into the innermost place in meditation and contemplation, until it arrives at a union of love with Christ and the Most Holy Trinity. Of course, it is not about a development in which moving to one stage means abandoning the previous type of prayer, but rather a gradual deepening of the relationship with God that permeates one’s entire life. Rather than a pedagogy of prayer, Teresa offers true “mystagogy.” The readers of her works learn to pray by praying together with her; she often interrupts her storytelling or explanation and moves into prayer.”
4. “Another theme dear to this saint is the central position of Christ's humanity. For Teresa, the Christian life is a personal relationship with Jesus, culminating in union with Him through grace, love, and imitation. Hence the importance Teresa assigns to meditating on the Passion of the Lord and the Eucharist, as well as on the presence of Christ in the Church, which is the core of liturgy for every believer. St. Teresa lives with unconditional love for the Church. She expresses a vibrant “sensus ecclesiae” (awareness of the Church) amid divisions and conflicts in the Church of her time. She reforms the Carmelite order with the intention of serving better and defending “the holy Roman Catholic Church” better, and she is willing to give her life for it (cf. Life 33,5).”
5. The last aspect of Teresa's teaching that the Pope pointed out is “fulfillment (biblically speaking: new heavens and a new earth) as the expectation of the entire Christian life and its ultimate goal.” The saint has a very clear idea of Christ’s “fullness,” to which the Christian must reach. At the end of the Castle of the Soul, Teresa describes in the last “room” this fullness, realized by the dwelling of the Trinity in the soul, in uniting with Christ through the mystery of his humanity.”

The points outlined in this teaching are, according to the Pope, so stimulating that one can speak of Teresa as a “genuine teacher of the Christian life for believers of all times.” Someone might consider this designation hasty. How can such a deep mystic – known to the broader public perhaps only from Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa in the Roman church of S. Maria della Vittoria (in whose sacristy the Czech visitor may marvel at the panorama of the Battle of White Mountain) – resonate with people of today, whom many consider to be poor in spiritual values? According to the Pope, the opposite is true: Teresa is a teacher of the spiritual life suited to today’s times. Why? Because she teaches us precisely how to “be tireless witnesses of God,” how to write our “own biography” as a “book of the Lord’s mercies.” Teresa teaches how to be witnesses of “God's presence and action, she teaches us to truly feel the thirst for God, which is in our hearts, the desire to see God, to seek God, to converse with Him and to be His friends. This friendship is essential for all of us, and we must seek it day by day anew.”

Indeed, this desire to become witnesses of “God’s presence and action” also leads us, the hurried and rushed people of today, to “devote an appropriate time each day to prayer, to openness to God, to the journey of seeking God, so that we may see Him, that we may find His friendship, and thus true life.” After all, the avilian saint can be an excellent example for us: it is hard to imagine a more active person, yet she lived deeply contemplatively. Prayer, as she experienced it and as St. Teresa teaches it, allows a person to descend to the core of one’s own existence and find it. As the Pope points out, “many of us should indeed say, ‘I do not live, I truly do not live, because I do not live the essence of my own life.’ Time for prayer is therefore not a time wasted, but a time in which the way of life opens up, on which we acquire from God a fervent love for Him, for His Church, and a concrete love for our brothers.” This is what Teresa also impressed upon her sisters when she set Martha, the active figure from the episode in Luke’s gospel, as an example of the contemplative life.

This encouragement to pray may be inspiring for each of us even now. Perhaps we will complain less about people and about the Church and the world around us, and instead, we will start to love them more! This is indeed the only path to the reform of the Church – St. Teresa of Ávila has already tried it. Her recipe has proven effective. There is no reason why it could not work in our daily lives today.

The Czech translation of the entire address by Benedict XVI.
can be found on the website www.radiovaticana.cz in the section General audience.