Interpreting St Teresa of Avila (XII)

Patrick Burke, O.Carm.

Second Degree of Praying

In the analogy that St Teresa uses to describe the cultivation of prayer, she says that we must strive like good gardeners to cultivate the garden of our soul, which may consist of very barren soil, wild with lots of dreadful weeds. Cleaning it up demands a lot of our energy but there is no hope of getting plants to grow and produce fruit unless the garden has water. Here we treat of the second method Teresa suggested for providing a water supply – the second degree of praying, according to her model. A water wheel, not uncommon in Teresa’s time for supplying water to a garden, consisted of tilting buckets attached to the rim of a large mechanical wheel, which was rotated by a flowing stream or some other device. As the wheel rotated the buckets were filled with water carried to the top at which the buckets in turn tilted and emptied the water into an aqueduct. There were lots of advantages with this over the first method where water was drawn from the bottom of a well when available, normally involving great labour, “Now the gardener obtains more water with less labour” (Life 14,1) she adds. Teresa warns: “Here the soul begins to be recollected and comes upon something supernatural, because in no way can it acquire this prayer through any efforts it makes itself”. She acknowledges that as in the model with the wheel the water is at a higher level in the earth so that much work is not required to raise the water to the garden. She explains that in the spiritual application the “water is closer because grace reveals itself more clearly to the soul” (Life 14, 1).

Obviously Teresa considered that during his earthly life, Christ’s humanity was the instrument of the Word for giving grace and life, whether it was in curing a leper (Matthew 8:2) or one deaf and dumb who received his speech (Mark 7:32). It was by his word that Christ restored Lazarus in the tomb to life. She writes at length on how the humanity of Christ advances our prayer life even to the most sublime contemplation. He is the owner of the garden we are to cultivate. Certainly “everything depends on the favour the Lord grants to each soul” (Life 22, 8). Consequently “whoever lives in the presence of so good a friend and excellent leader can endure all things”. It was only later that she was able to treat of the reality of Christ’s presence for our prayer and “hear the infinite Word in the finite and see the eternal imageless model in the finite form”, as Dom Marmion expresses it.

Teresa appreciated that all of us at every moment must be aware that the mystery of Jesus Christ transcends all the experience of God accessible to us as human beings. It transcends the moving experience of God displayed in the Old Testament because its theology was restricted and limited to the natural knowledge of God. Given the preparation for Christ’s coming evident in the Old Testament, there still remains an infinite chasm between God and creature which in faith is the essence of contemplating God-made-man. The absolute Being that God is shows itself in the human life of Jesus Christ. This is such a great mystery that one is not surprised at the reaction of his contemporaries when the paralytic was cured: “they were astounded and praised God saying, we have never seen anything like this” (Mark 2:12). Even for Christians today, there is always a danger of perceiving Christ as an example of perfect humanity rather than contemplating the Word-made-Flesh. When we contemplate the Son we are always faced with the Divine. Even his mother when she found him in the Temple after being lost for days, was overcome and said “My child, why have you done this to us?” Jesus replied “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs”. She didn’t understand what he meant. Mary stored up all these things in her heart. At the Last Supper, to Philip’s query, Jesus replied: “To have seen me is to have seen the Father. I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:9).

Regarding the Second Degree of Prayer, our communication with Jesus touches the very essence of our being. “There is nothing here to fear but only something to desire”, Teresa says, explaining: “For mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an imitate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him whom we know loves us. In order that love be true and the friendship endure, the wills of friends must be in accord” (Life 8, 5).

For Teresa the important thing was to keep the owner of the garden – Jesus Christ – always present with us (Life 12, 3). 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 problems; being glad with him in its enjoyments but 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 (Life 12, 2). What she asks of us is to converse with the Lord.

Teresa shows clearly that she was well aware of the psychological mechanism of our human nature though in terms of modern science it was limited. In explaining her systematic approach to conversation with Christ, the principal faculties are the intellect and the will, the former related to thought and reasoning, the latter related to acts of doing or wishing such as love and affection. The intellect supplies the information or knowledge of some thing for the will to love. Anything loved by the will has been perceived and understood by the intellect. To this intellectual process, Teresa adds a function known in psychology as the intellectual memory or imagination, that is, the formation of images from the memory and reasoning or consideration. The process produces conversation with Christ as a work of the will.

So Teresa advises, regarding discursive reflection: “I say they should not pass the whole time using their reasoning powers. They should place themselves in the presence of Christ, and without tiring the intellect, speak with and delight in him and not wear themselves out in reasoning arguments; rather they should tell him their needs, acknowledging how right he is not to allow us to be in his presence” (Life 13, 11).

As a conclusion to her account of the Second Degree of praying, Teresa wrote: “This prayer of quiet is the beginning of all blessings. The flowers are already at the point in which hardly anything is lacking for them to bud; and the soul sees this very clearly. In no way is it able to believe at that time that God is not with it. When it sees again the cracks and the imperfections in itself, it then fears everything. And it is good that it is fearful” (Life 15, 15).

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