Carmelite Family – Bulletin of Lay Carmel

Number 21, Summer 2004.

Contents

·         Editorial

·         In the Spirit and Strength of Elijah – Lecture by Titus Brandsma, O.Carm.

·         Interpreting St Teresa of Avila – Our Daily Bread (XVII) (below)

·         The Night Prayer Psalm – Compline Sunday

·         Mary in the Annunciation (III)

Interpreting St Teresa Of Avila (XVII)

The Humanity of Jesus Christ

Patrick Burke, O.Carm.

If we try to understand the spiritual experiences of St. Teresa, for instance when she received the graces of rapture and ecstasy, we, ordinary humans, are more spellbound than confused. Yet the object in writing the “Way of Perfection” and “Interior Castle” was to help the likes of us, ordinary people, to have intimate friendship with God, sustained by the contemplative ideal of loving union with God, rooted in practical and solid virtue. In a sense she explains this because of the favours the Lord granted her in prayer, which she wishes us to share. “It used to happen, when I represented Christ within me in order to place myself in His presence, or even while reading, that a feeling of the presence of God would come upon me unexpectedly so that I could in no way doubt He was within me or I totally immersed in Him” (L. 10,1). The humanity of Christ must be the means to the most sublime contemplation. In opposition to those who held that for all advancing in prayer “corporeal images, even when referring to the humanity of Christ, are an obstacle or impediment for the most perfect contemplation”, Teresa felt that “to withdraw completely from Christ or that this divine body be counted in a balance with our own miseries or with all creation, I cannot endure.” She goes on to explain how God led her, despite the influence of other ways, to experience “something of supernatural prayer”. The result was that she “strove to turn” aside from everything corporeal, especially in the practice of recollection of Christ’s presence and she was delighted. “Since I felt that benefit and consolation, there was no one who would have me return to the humanity of Christ” (L. 22, 3). She attests that the Lord “to remedy the matter “ sent her the Dominican spiritual director, Garcia de Toledo, who, “drew her away from this error” and “whoever lives in the presence of so good a friend and excellent a leader who went ahead of us to be the first to suffer, can endure all things.” And Teresa assures us: “The Lord helps us, strengthens us and never fails; He is a true friend. And I see clearly and I saw afterward that God desires that if we are going to please Him and receive His great favours, we must do so through the most sacred humanity of Christ, in whom He takes His delight” (L. 22. 6).

Here was her method of prayer at this time. ‘The soul can place itself in the presence of Christ and grow accustomed to being inflamed with love for His sacred humanity. It can keep Him ever present and speak with Him, asking for its needs and complaining of its labours, being glad for Him in its enjoyments and not forgetting Him because of them, trying to speak to Him, not through written prayers but with words that conform to its desires and needs” (L. 12, 2). This, Teresa acknowledges, is an excellent way of making progress. It is unselfish prayer streaming from her faith. “We shouldn’t care at all about not having devotion”. She adds: “This way of praying keeps Christ present with us, but its success depends on rooting it firmly in humility”.

The place of Christ in our spiritual life is so vital and central that it is hard to understand how in Teresa’s time some spiritual directors forbade the use of Christ’s humanity in our prayer life, disregarding or belittling the imaging of the Lord during His earthly life. Referring to those foolish directors, she says: “They give strong advice to rid oneself of all corporeal or bodily images and to approach contemplation of the Divinity (L. 22, 1). Such priests seem to have been ignorant of St. Thomas teaching, canonised by theological schools throughout the ages. In the Summa Theologica (Tome 3, 8, art 1), he wrote about the Grace of Christ, as Head of the Church:

“Hence Christ as God can give grace (or the Holy Spirit) in His own right. As man, He can give it, but instrumentally. For his humanity was the instrument of His divinity. And so His actions brought salvation to us through the power of the divinity. They caused grace in us both by meriting it and by some kind of efficient causality.”

St. Thomas works out the details of this meritorious and efficient causality in his theology of the redemption and in his sacramental theology. The nuns with Teresa evidently seem to be unaware of this instruction. About their mentors, Teresa continues: "They give strong advice to rid oneself of all corporeal images. They say that in the case of those who are advancing, these images, even when referring to the humanity of Christ are an obstacle or impediment to the most perfect contemplation .....They think that since this work is entirely spiritual, any corporeal thing can hinder or impede it, that one should try to think of God in a general way, that He is everywhere and that we are immersed in Him” (L. 22.1).

For Teresa to turn her back on the human Christ or to count His divine Body in a balance with our own miseries would be unendurable. She acknowledges that if she had kept to this restricted practice she would not be where she now was. She explains what happened. When she began to experience a more advanced form of prayer (prayer of quiet), she tried to blot out everything corporeal or bodily. But it seemed to me that I felt the presence of God and I strove to recollect myself in His presence” (L. 22, 3). While she wanted to keep the image or painting of Christ before her mind, she could not do so because “I thought the humanity was an impediment”. As she had been devoted to Christ all her life, so now, she readily returned to her custom of “rejoicing in the Lord, especially when I received. Is it possible, my Lord, that it entered my mind that you would be an impediment to my greater good” (L. 24, 4). Teresa is ever conscious that Christ was the Way, the Truth and the Life. “No one knows the Father except the Son and those whom the Son chooses to reveal Him”. As she advised her Dominican director, Garcia de Toledo, so she advises each of us. She wrote to him:

“Even if you are at the summit of contemplation take no other path than that by the Sacred Humanity of Christ. In this you walk safely. This Lord of ours is the one through whom all blessings come to us. He will teach us these things. Look at His life: He is the best model, what more do we desire than to have such a good friend at our side who will not abandon us. When one is in the midst of business matters, and in times of persecutions and trials, when one can t maintain so much peace, and in times of dryness, Christ is a very good friend because we behold Him as man and see Him with weaknesses and trials — and He is company for us.” (L. 22, 7 — 10)

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