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St. Teresa of Avila
The Way of Perfection
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INTRODUCTION
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INTRODUCTION
We
owe
this
book
, first and
foremost
, to the
affectionate
importunities
of the
Carmelite
nuns
of the
Primitive
Observance
at
çvila
, and, in the
second
place
, to that
outstanding
Dominican
who was also
St
.
Teresa
's
confessor
,
Fray
Domingo
B
‡-
ez
. The
nuns
of
St
.
Joseph
's
knew
something of their
Mother
Foundress
'
autobiography
, and, though in all
probability
none of them had actually
read
it, they would have been
aware
that it
contained
valuable
counsels
to
aspirants
after
religious
perfection
, of which, had the
book
been
accessible
to them, they would have been
glad
to
avail
themselves. Such
intimate
details
did it
contain
, however, about
St
.
Teresa
's
spiritual
life
that her
superiors
thought
it should not be
put
into their
hands
; so the only
way
in which she could
grant
their
persistent
requests
was to
write
another
book
dealing
expressly
with the
life
of
prayer
. This
P
.
B
‡-
ez
was very
anxious
that she should do.
Through the
entire
Way
of
Perfection
there
runs
the
author
's
desire
to
teach
her
daughters
to
love
prayer
, the most
effective
means
of
attaining
virtue
. This
principle
is
responsible
for the
book
's
construction
.
St
.
Teresa
begins
by
describing
the
reason
which
led
her to found the first
Reformed
Carmelite
convent
--
viz
., the
desire
to
minimize
the
ravages
being
wrought
, in
France
and elsewhere, by
Protestantism
, and, within the
limits
of her
capacity
, to
check
the
passion
for a
so-called
"
freedom
", which at that
time
was
exceeding
all
measure
.
Knowing
how
effectively
such
inordinate
desires
can be
restrained
by a
life
of
humility
and
poverty
,
St
.
Teresa
extols
the
virtues
of
poverty
and
exhorts
her
daughters
to
practise
it in their own
lives
. Even the
buildings
in which they
live
should be
poor
: on the
Day
of
Judgment
both
majestic
palaces
and
humble
cottages
will
fall
and she has no
desire
that the
convents
of her
nuns
should do so with a
resounding
clamour
.
In this
preamble
to her
book
, which
comprises
CHAPTERs
1
-
3
, the
author
also
charges
her
daughters
very
earnestly
to
commend
to
God
those who have to
defend
the
Church
of
Christ
--
particularly
theologians
and
preachers
.
The next
part
of the
book
(
Chaps
.
4
-
15
)
stresses
the
importance
of a
strict
observance
of the
Rule
and
Constitutions
, and before
going
on to its
main
subject
--
prayer
--
treats
of
three
essentials
of the
prayer-filled
life
--
mutual
love
,
detachment
from
created
things
and
true
humility
, the last of these
being
the most
important
and
including
all the
rest
. With the
mutual
love
which
nuns
should have for one another she
deals
most
minutely
,
giving
what might be
termed
homely
prescriptions
for the
domestic
disorders
of
convents
with the
skill
which we should
expect
of a
writer
with so
perfect
a
knowledge
of the
psychology
of the
cloister
. Her
counsels
are the
fruit
, not of
lofty
mental
speculation
, but of
mature
practical
expedience
. No less
aptly
does she
speak
of the
relations
between
nuns
and their
confessors
, so
frequently
a
source
of
danger
.
Since
excess
is
possible
even in
mutual
love
, she next
turns
to
detachment
. Her
nuns
must be
detached
from
relatives
and
friends
, from the
world
, from
worldly
honour
, and -- the last and
hardest
achievement
-- from themselves. To a
large
extent
their
efforts
in this
direction
will
involve
humility
, for, so
long
as we have an
exaggerated
opinion
of our own
merits
,
detachment
is
impossible
.
Humility
, to
St
.
Teresa
, is nothing more nor less than
truth
, which will
give
us the
precise
estimate
of our own
worth
that we
need
.
Fraternal
love
,
detachment
and
humility
: these
three
virtues
, if they are
sought
in the
way
these
CHAPTERs
direct
, will make the
soul
mistress
and
sovereign
over all
created
things
-- a "
royal
soul
", in the
Saint
's
happy
phrase
, the
slave
of none
save
of Him Who
bought
it with His
blood
.
The next
section
(
Chaps
.
16
-
26
)
develops
these
ideas
, and
leads
the
reader
directly
to the
themes
of
prayer
and
contemplation
. It
begins
with
St
.
Teresa
's
famous
extended
simile
of the
game
of
chess
, in which the
soul
gives
check
and
mate
to the
King
of
love
,
Jesus
. Many
people
are
greatly
attracted
by the
life
of
contemplation
because they have
acquired
imperfect
and
misleading
notions
of the
ineffable
mystical
joys
which they
believe
almost
synonymous
with
contemplation
. The
Saint
protests
against such
ideas
as these and
lays
it down
clearly
that, as a
general
rule
, there is no
way
of
attaining
to
union
with the
Beloved
save
by the
practice
of the "
great
virtues
", which can be
acquired
only at the
cost
of
continual
self-sacrifice
and
self-conquest
. The
favours
which
God
grants
to
contemplatives
are only
exceptional
and of a
transitory
kind
and they are
intended
to
incline
them more
closely
to
virtue
and to
inspire
their
lives
with
greater
fervour
.
And here the
Saint
propounds
a
difficult
question
which has
occasioned
no
little
debate
among
writers
on
mystical
theology
. Can a
soul
in
grave
sin
enjoy
supernatural
contemplation
? At first
sight
, and
judging
from what the
author
says
in
CHAPTER
16
, the
answer
would seem to be that, though but
rarely
and for
brief
periods
, it can. In the
original
(or
Escorial
)
autograph
, however, she
expressly
denies
this, and
states
that
contemplation
is not
possible
for
souls
in
mortal
sin
, though it
may
be
experienced
by those who are so
lukewarm
, or
lacking
in
fervour
, that they
fall
into
venial
sins
with
ease
. It would seem that in this
respect
the
Escorial
manuscript
reflects
the
Saint
's
ideas
, as we
know
them, more
clearly
than the later one of
Valladolid
; if this be so, her
opinions
in no
way
differ
from those of
mystical
theologians
as a whole, who
refuse
to
allow
that
souls
in
mortal
sin
can
experience
contemplation
at all.
St
.
Teresa
then
examines
a
number
of other
questions
, on which
opinion
has also been
divided
and even now is by no
means
unanimous
. Can all
souls
attain
to
contemplation
? Is it
possible
, without
experiencing
contemplation
, to
reach
the
summit
of
Christian
perfection
? Have all the
servants
of
God
who have been
canonized
by the
Church
necessarily
been
contemplatives
? Does the
Church
ever
grant
non-contemplatives
beatification
? On these
questions
and others often
discussed
by the
mystics
much
light
is
shed
in the
seventeenth
and
eighteenth
CHAPTERs
.
Then the
author
crosses
swords
once more with those who
suppose
that
contemplatives
know
nothing of
suffering
and that their
lives
are one
continuous
series
of
favours
. On the
contrary
, she
asserts
, they
suffer
more than
actives
: to
imagine
that
God
admits
to this
closest
friendship
people
whose
lives
are all
favours
and no
trials
is
ridiculous
.
Recalling
the
doctrine
expounded
in the
nineteenth
CHAPTER
of her
Life
she
gives
various
counsels
for the
practice
of
prayer
, using once more the
figures
of
water
which she had
employed
in her first
description
of the
Mystic
Way
. She
consoles
those who cannot
reason
with the
understanding
,
shows
how
vocal
prayer
may
be
combined
with
mental
, and
ends
by
advising
those who
suffer
from
aridity
in
prayer
to
picture
Jesus
as within their
hearts
and thus always beside them -- one of her
favourite
themes
.
This
leads
up to the
subject
which
occupies
her for the
rest
of the
book
(
Chaps
.
27
-
42
) -- the
Lord
's
Prayer
. These
CHAPTERs
, in
fact
,
comprise
a
commentary
on the
Paternoster
,
taken
petition
by
petition
,
touching
incidentally
upon the
themes
of
Recollection
,
Quiet
and
Union
. Though nowhere
expounding
them as
fully
as in the
Life
or the
Interior
Castle
, she
treats
them with
equal
sublimity
,
profundity
and
fervour
and in
language
of no less
beauty
.
Consider
, for
example
, the
apt
and
striking
simile
of the
mother
and the
child
(
Chap
.
31
), used to
describe
the
state
of the
soul
in the
Prayer
of
Quiet
, which
forms
one of the most
beautiful
and
expressive
expositions
of this
degree
of
contemplation
to be found in any
book
on the
interior
life
whatsoever
.
In
CHAPTER
38
, towards the end of the
commentary
on the
Paternoster
,
St
.
Teresa
gives
a
striking
synthetic
description
of the
excellences
of that
Prayer
and of its
spiritual
value
. She
enters
at some
length
into the
temptations
to which
spiritual
people
are
exposed
when they
lack
humility
and
discretion
. Some of these are
due
to
presumption
: they
believe
they
possess
virtues
which in
fact
they do not -- or, at least, not in
sufficient
degree
to
enable
them to
resist
the
snares
of the
enemy
. Others
come
from a
mistaken
scrupulousness
and
timidity
inspired
by a
sense
of the
heinousness
of their
sins
, and
may
lead
them into
doubt
and
despair
. There are
souls
, too, which make
overmuch
account
of
spiritual
favours
: these she
counsels
to
see
to it that, however
sublime
their
contemplation
may
be, they begin and end every
period
of
prayer
with
self-examination
. While others whose
mistrust
of themselves makes them
restless
, are
exhorted
to
trust
in the
Divine
mercy
, which never
forsakes
those who
possess
true
humility
.
Finally
,
St
.
Teresa
writes
of the
love
and
fear
of
God
--
two
mighty
castles
which the
fiercest
of the
soul
's
enemies
will
storm
in
vain
-- and
begs
Him, in the last
words
of the
Prayer
to
preserve
her
daughters
, and all other
souls
who
practise
the
interior
life
, from the
ills
and
perils
which will ever
surround
them, until they
reach
the next
world
, where all will be
peace
and
joy
in
Jesus
Christ
.
Such, in
briefest
outline
, is the
argument
of this
book
. Of all
St
.
Teresa
's
writings
it is the most
easily
comprehensible
and it can be
read
with
profit
by a
greater
number
of
people
than any of the
rest
. It is also (if we
use
the
word
in its
strictest
and
truest
sense
) the most
ascetic
of her
treatises
; only a few
CHAPTERs
and
passages
in it, here and there, can be
called
definitely
mystical
. It
takes
up
numerous
ideas
already
adumbrated
in the
Life
and
treats
them in a
practical
and
familiar
way
--
objectively
, too, with an
eye
not so much to herself as to her
daughters
of the
Discalced
Reform
. This last
fact
necessitates
her
descending
to
details
which
may
seem to us
trivial
but were not in the least so to the
religious
to whom they were
addressed
and with whose
virtues
and
failing
she was so
familiar
.
Skilfully
, then, and in a
way
profitable
to all, she
intermingles
her
teaching
on the most
rudimentary
principles
of the
religious
life
, which has all the
clarity
of any
classical
treatise
, with
instruction
on the most
sublime
and
elusive
tenets
of
mystical
theology
.
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