Teresa of Avila & John of the Cross
October
Today is the remembrance of Teresa of Avila, and of St John of the
Cross – two 16th Century contemplatives. We are using the readings and prayer for
Teresa, but we keep in mind also her friend and follower John of the
Cross. From the companion to our
readings we are told that Teresa of Avila was a Spanish nun of the sixteenth
century whose visions of Christ and gifts as a spiritual director have placed
her among the greatest of all Christian mystics. She was the only daughter of a
minor nobleman and entered the Carmelite convent in her native town of A’vil-a
when she was twenty-one. Over the next two decades she endured many illnesses,
one of which left her paralyzed, and also a nagging sense that in her prayers
and devotions she was doing nothing more than “treading water.”
Then, in answer
to her despair, she began to have visions and hear “interior voices.” The most
famous of these experiences, known as “transverberation of the heart,” took
place over a number of days in 1559. At her left side Teresa beheld an angel
who held a golden spear with a flaming tip, with which he pierced her heart
again and again. Teresa later wrote that each time the angel withdrew the spear
she was ‘ ‘left completely afire with a great love for God,” and knew that her
soul would “never be content with anything less than God.”
Three years later, in obedience to another vision, Teresa left her
convent with thirteen other nuns to observe the primitive constitutions of the
Carmelite Order in all their strictness. Despite fierce, sometimes violent
opposition from the Carmelite establishment, Teresa eventually founded sixteen
other Reformed Carmelite houses.
In the midst of her other concerns Teresa also found time to write
a number of books, which reflect her holiness, wisdom, and sense of humour; and
through them she has become one of the most widely loved saints in the Church,
attractive even to those who have not shared
Then of John of the Cross we are told he was the greatest Spanish
mystic of the sixteenth century, and his writings still nourish modern
Christians in their hunger for true experience in the spiritual life. John was
born in 1542 and became a Carmelite friar at the age of twenty-one. Four years
later he met Teresa of Avila and joined in her reform of the Carmelite Order,
serving as confessor to Teresa’s nuns. His prominence in the reform-movement made
him a target of intrigues; twice he was abducted and imprisoned. After Teresa’s
death he also suffered vindictive treatment at the hands of his own superiors
in the Reformed Carmelites, and their harshness contributed to his death in
1591.
Through all his trials John was sustained by an intense mystical
love for Jesus Christ. Like Teresa, he experienced the presence of Christ in
“intellectual visions.” His reflection upon these experiences issued, first of
all, in poetry of extraordinary power and beauty. At the urging of his
disciples, he selected a number of his poems and produced prose commentaries on them, which have become
classics of mystical theology. John united the vocation of a theologian with
the experience of a mystic, and his writings are the supreme example of
theology as the fruit of prayer.
What bound these two together, and the reason we mark both at the
same time is this common thread of prayer.
And that prayer is sometimes dangerous, disturbing, powerful, filled
with unfilled and fulfilled longings and hopes. Even sometimes filled with
visions… And sometimes filled with nothing.
Often when we hear of Elijah’s journey into the wilderness – his
fearful flight from king Ahab and the king’s murderous rage. We focus on the still, small voice at the end
of Elijah’s vision but we forget what brought Elijah to this place – the fear,
the anxiety, running from his home and from all that was his. We forget that he needed sustenance for his
journey – provided miraculously by the angel in the story. We forget he was so
tired he lay down under a tree and slept – then we forget that before he got to
the place of the still, small voice he had to pass through ‘the earthquake,
wind and fire’. Considering all that he
was going through, that’s a pretty terrifying experience, if you think about
it.
Theresa’s vision wasn’t a pleasant one – as we hear it today we
are perhaps slightly shocked by the idea that she had her heart pierced by an
angel again and again… sometimes called the Dart of longing love… but that on
the other side of that vivid vision, experienced over days, came an
overwhelming desire to know, to feel, to engage with the presence of God.
From John of the Cross we gain that powerful and painful image of
the ‘dark night of the soul’ – an experience he had, and that expresses the
feeling that many people have – of a spiritual emptiness even whilst seeking
God in prayer and contemplation. It is
the title of a prayer by John, talking of the soul’s journey towards God and
the hardships one faces in that spiritual journey.
We often, I think, take prayer for granted – we have words
provided for us by our prayer books, and we have the prayers of the people, we
have spiritual songs and hymns that give voice to our hopes and longings and
fears and triumphs. We have an extensive vocabulary.
But these two mystics teach us that prayer is so much more than
that. Prayer is exposing ourselves to
the divine, being vulnerable to God. It is being willing to discipline
ourselves in prayer, to being silence, to seeking God in the difficult parts of
life, to clinging to the faithfulness of God no matter what is happening to and
around us.
Prayer is painful. To truly
journey to the heart of God is not a pleasant experience – because in doing so
we confront ourselves, and we touch something greater than we can ever
comprehend. When we are open to God in
prayer we take away all other supports and all of the things we rely on to make
us comfortable, we are willing to bear the spiritual wilderness and face up to
our fears, even to death itself. In
order that we might find our way to resurrection.
We are encouraged to not let our hearts be troubled, to hold fast
to the knowledge of Christ’s faithfulness even in that face of death – to cling
to the one who is the way of truth and life.
But when we find ourselves stripped before God we might not feel that
sense of reassurance that we long for.
That’s where the examples of those through the ages who teach us
about God being in the midst of the darkness, the God who is there when we
don’t feel she is – the God who is faithful – this is where their examples can
bring us encouragement. To hold on, or
as John Bell Scottish writer and member of the Iona Community once said ‘we
grasp God, that we may be grasped by God in return’.
These faithful pilgrims, our sister and brother in faith,
encourage us to be faithful ourselves in whatever situations we find
ourselves. They encourage us to travel
deeper into faith, even when the way seems frightening and desolate. They
remind us that God is not easily found in comfort and complacency, but in struggle and discipline. They remind us that faith is risky, and that
prayer is dangerous.
