Q-1. What’s this we hear
about the Carmelites celebrating St. Teresa’s 500th birth anniversary in 2015. Tell us a little about her.
A. Sure! First, about her childhood. St. Teresa of Avila was born on March 28, 1515 to Don Alonso
Sanchez de Cepeda and Doña Beatriz Davila y Ahumada. There were nine children of this marriage, of whom Teresa
was the third, and three children of her father's first marriage. Teresa Sanchez de Ahumada was an
unusually active, imaginative, and sensitive child. Piously reared as she was, Teresa
became completely fascinated by stories of the saints and martyrs, as was her
younger brother Rodrigo, her partner in youthful adventures. Once, when Teresa was seven, burning
with a child’s desire to see God, she prevailed upon Rodrigo to offer
themselves as martyrs. They
made a plan to run away to the land of the Moors to be beheaded, imagine!
Q-2. A
seven-year-old, wanting to be beheaded?
That’s awful... but awesome, too.
So what happened?
A. Their plan was
aborted! They had set out
secretly, but had gone only a short distance from home when they met an uncle
just outside Avila’s walls! The
uncle, of course, wasted no time in bringing the two kids back to their anxious
mother. But Teresa was
unstoppable. Shifting instantaneously,
she now persuaded Rodrigo that if they could not be martyrs, they might as well
become hermits. And so they piled
up stones to construct “hermitages” in the garden—she liked playing hermit, not
playing house, bahay-bahayan as most
girls that age do. Thus we see
that religious thoughts and influences already dominated the mind of the future
saint in childhood.
Q-3. Did Teresa “play hermit” until she
became a nun?
A.
No, but this is interesting.
The make-believe hermitages in the orchard soon tumbled down, and the
would-be prioress began to turn her attention elsewhere. As the years passed, Teresa was
to write that she “began to be aware of the natural attractive qualities the
Lord had bestowed on me—which people said were many.” Teresa
was a magnet for attention, a sociable girl who could not help liking people—as
long as they liked her. She
basically let herself be swept by the tide, her heart divided between God and
the world.
Q-4. Hmmm… sounds like a woman of the world
in the making. What did her mother
say to all that?
A.
Well, Teresa’s mother died when she was barely 12, and she later wrote
of her sorrow in these words: “As soon as I began to understand how great a
loss I had sustained by losing her, I was very much afflicted; and so I went
before an image of our Blessed Lady and besought her with many tears that she
would be gracious enough to be my mother.” At
14, “I began to dress in finery and to desire to please and look pretty, taking
great care of my hands and hair and about perfumes and all the empty things in
which one can indulge, and which were many, for I was very vain…. For many years I took excessive pains about
cleanliness and other things that did not seem in any way sinful.”
Q-5. She must have been quite a handful for
her father who was raising a dozen children singlehandedly...
A.
You bet! Clearly the young
girl could not be left without a female watchdog. And so in 1529 her father decided to pack her off to a nearby
Augustinian convent that ran a kind of finishing school where other young
women of her class were being educated—on social graces, home arts, and things like needlepoint
and embroidery, cooking, child care—and really being prepared for a devout
domestic life.
Q-6. So, Don Alonso turned over his headache
to the nuns?
A.
Quite the contrary. This
period showed some change in the self-centered teenager. Teresa conceived a
deep and abiding affection for the nuns of Our Lady of Grace. The novice mistress, Sr. Maria Briceño,
who was in charge of the pupils, impressed the young Teresa with her piety and
goodness. Gradually, in her
tranquil new environment, she found her thoughts turning towards God; but,
although prayer now became a part of her daily life, she wrote, “But still, I had no desire to be a nun, and I asked God not to give me this
vocation; although I also feared marriage…”
Q-7. Isn’t that ironic? The would be Saint and Doctor of the
Church asked God not to make her a nun?
A.
Well, it seemed to Teresa she had to make a choice. What direction should she take regarding
her own future? Her mind toyed
with the options, unable to decide finally one way or another. Her indecision was so bad it affected
her health. She fell ill with the
first of many mysterious ailments that dogged her through life. For three months she wrestled with her
fears but at last common sense prevailed and she yielded. She would write: “And
although my will did not completely
incline to being a nun, I saw that the religious life was the best and safest state,
and so little by little I decided to force myself to accept it.”
Q-8. Sensible girl, indeed. Her father must have rejoiced over her
decision...
A.
Hard to believe but Don Alonso was heartbroken when his favorite
daughter sought his permission! Stubbornly he refused
consent—Teresa
would go only over his dead body!
But Teresa was undaunted about getting her own way and took her brother
Antonio into her confidence. One
November night they set out secretly together. She took the Carmelite habit in 1536, and chose the religious
name “Teresa of Jesus”. This time
it was not longer a game of unconsummated martyrdom but a continuing saga on the making of a mystic,
reformer, Saint and Doctor of the Church who sums up without complication the
meaning of her life with the words: “Finally, Lord, I am a daughter of the
Church.”
Q-9. How did Teresa switch from being papa’s
favorite daughter to being a “daughter of the Church”?
A. That’s a long story, but here’s the gist: Teresa’s
relationship with the Church was not only on the elementary level of birth,
nourishment, and a call to loyalty, but was, moreover, a transforming
relationship involving risk and growth. She wanted instant mysticism but it took her from ages 23-41
to realize that true growth is slow.
She realized that sanctity is learning to accept reality, being open to
God’s word and of bringing our own will into conformity with His. She understood that although union with
God was a gift, it was not necessarily achieved overnight. Just as a child once conceived still
takes up to nine months to become a viable person, so does the divine-human
relationship sometimes require a lengthy period of careful nurturing. She knew the Lord was prepared to wait
days, even years for us to respond.
After all, hadn’t He waited almost 20 years for her?
Q-10. It consoles us to know Teresa also made
God wait, just as we all like to do...
A.
Correct, and this is perhaps why she is so open about her own spiritual
failures—to
bolster our confidence today. Teresa
was so like everybody else! She
was for the longest time at cross-purposes with herself. The more she prayed, the more she
understood her faults, as she wrote, “When I was experiencing the enjoyments of
the world, I felt sorrow when I recalled what I owed to God. When I was with
God, my attachments to the world disturbed me. This is a war so troublesome that I don’t know how I was
able to suffer it even a month, much less for so many years… For more than eighteen
of the twenty-eight years since I began prayer, I suffered this battle and
conflict between friendship with God and friendship with the world.”
Q-11.
That reminds me of the popular song “Torn Between Two Lovers”—just like
us. Knowing Teresa’s struggle
certainly helps in our own journey...
A. Yes, Teresa was in
conflict, yet God
kept rewarding her efforts. “Indeed,
my King, You as One who well knew what to me would be most distressing, chose
as a means the most delicate and painful punishment. With wonderful gifts
You punished my sins!” The worse she behaved, the
better God seemed to like her.
Every failure increased her anxiety. She considered this a terrible record but also reasoned that
it might be the very thing to help those who are struggling with prayer: if God
will stick with someone like her, He will stick with anyone.
Q-12. Hmmm... it is very encouraging to know
God never tires of wooing sinners.
Tell me more...
A.
It was a painful and slow growth for Teresa, not one accomplished by a
miracle dispensing her from effort and pain. However, her life was beginning to blossom in holiness,
steadfastness in prayer and love for others. People came to recognize these fruits of the Spirit
operative in her changed demeanor, and enemies gradually became friends and
admirers. The Christ whom Teresa
loved was transforming her into His likeness and the transformation could not
be hidden. She had become the
personification of a respected and established religious, acknowledged to be
seriously living her vocation.
Yet... she was somewhat restless. She felt she should be doing more for
God, but what should that ‘something more’ consist of?
Q-13. So Christ
was transforming her... Did Teresa
know what was coming?
A.
It didn’t look like she knew.
Teresa seemed unsuspecting that she was on the threshold of the most
adventurous of her journeys. She
would be asked to abandon security and set out to launch a reform that began with
herself. Teresa was a woman’s woman whose genius
was expressed in the life she designed for her daughters. She had an intuitive grasp of what was
suitable and helpful which she enshrined in practical legislation, as well as
spiritual insight, giving birth to what is now known as the “Teresian ideal”—a
small group of Christians who would be good friends of the Lord by striving to
follow the evangelical counsels as closely as possible, and living a life of
prayer for preachers and theologians, the defenders of the Church; thus a life
in service of the Church, in service to Christ.
Q-14. From then
on, was it all prayer to Teresa?
Did it mean she was finally becoming a hermit if not a martyr?
A. That’s the wonder of Teresa. Carmel is not for ‘mystical high-flyers’ but for those whose
feet are firmly planted on the ground.
For
Teresa, prayer was a definite
apostolate, for “one moment of
pure love is more useful to the Church than all good works put together, though
it seems that nothing were done.”
From her life you could see what that “one moment of pure love” can
do. From the first foundation of
the convent of St. Joseph on August 24, 1562, Teresa went on to found 16 more,
including two monasteries for friars, journeying across mountains, rivers, and
arid plateaus on curtained carriages or carts drawn by mules through extremely
poor roads. She and her companions
endured all the rigors of harsh climates, scanty food, and nights spent in rat-infested
inns. Imagine a cloistered nun
doing all this!
Q-15. A
cloistered nun, founded 17 convents for nuns and two monasteries for
friars! Gosh, Teresa was one tough
lady!
A. Tough, yes, but alas, Teresa was not
Superwoman! Truly steadfast was
Teresa’s faith in God whom she considered a loving Friend, enabling her to face
all trials with courage and confidence.
Once when their carriage fell into a ditch, Teresa sighed and told the Lord, “If this is how You treat
Your friends, no wonder you have so few!”
While her spirit remained invincible, at age 67, her failing strength could no
longer be conquered by her determined will.
She had cancer of the uterus.
At the
convent in Alba de Tormes she patiently submitted to the prescribed remedies,
though she knew in herself they were of no avail.
Q-16. You mean,
Teresa knew when she was going to die?
A.
She knew the end was approaching and as the nuns gathered around her bed
she whispered: “Daughters,
I beseech you to pardon the bad example I have set you, I who have been the
greatest sinner in the world, and who have kept her Rule and Constitutions
the worst. For the love of God may you keep
the Rule and Constitutions with great perfection and obey your superiors.” Gradually she entered into a trance and
summed up the meaning of her whole life with the words: “Finally, Lord, I am a
daughter of the Church.” It was the
evening of October 4, 1582. Teresa
was canonized on March 12, 1662 by Pope Gregory XV; after which, on September
27, 1970, was declared the “first woman Doctor of the Church” by Pope Paul VI.
Q-17: Being a “Doctor of the Church” seems to
be a very important thing. What
does it mean anyway, and how does a person get to be declared as one?
A: “Doctor of the Church” is a
distinction given by the Holy Father to certain Saints whose body of writings,
teachings or homilies contributed much to the formulation of doctrine and
theology of the Church. A high degree of formal education is not a prerequisite
for one to be proclaimed a Doctor of the Church; indeed, some of them are even
unschooled. They are raised to
that distinction due to their holiness in life, the depth of their
understanding of the Word of God, the orthodoxy of their theological teaching
and the universal value of their contribution in the faith-life of the
Church—all luminous proofs that their writings have been inspired by the Holy
Spirit. There are 35 Doctors
of the Church at present, and four of these are women. St. Teresa of Avila is known as the
first woman to have been given that distinction.
From the National
Commission on the 5th Birth Centenary of St. Teresa of Avila
Education and Publicity
Committees
Refer to: 0918-878-5683
For more information on St. Teresa of
Avila, please visi
www.teresa500philippines.com
