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By
Ma. Lourdes Ll. Galza, OCDS
I met Santa Teresa de Avila in the kitchen. Newly wed, I had
to learn to cook; it was imperative.
Mom was a coloratura; her
rendition of Ave Maria by Gounod
could mend a broken heart. When
she played Rachmaninov’s concerto in
C minor, the piano trembled and people wept. But she could not cook.
My father took the situation in hand. More Spanish than Ilocano, he missed
virgin olive oil in his food and also wanted me to have the benefit of homespun
wisdom on marriage and family life. To address both concerns, he deposited me in the home of mom’s
cousin, my Tia Amalia Lallave Perez of St. Teresa of Jesus of Avila, OCDS. We
sautéed, braised, and steamed from that day on while she told stories about Santa Teresa “La Grande”.
“Nada te turbe, pour in hot water gently,” she couched when I
panicked over the broth drying up in my pan. For Spanish type tinola (boiled meat dish with ginger,
green papaya and pepper leaves), she placed chicken, whole white onions and big
potatoes on crushed garlic and diced onion sautéed in olive oil over a low
flame. No ginger.
“Prayer in my opinion is
nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends,” Tia said
matter-of-factly. “It means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we
know loves us.” The rich
aroma of olive oil wafted through the kitchen but as I reached for the cover of
the pan to take a peak, she blocked me and placed the mortar I had used to
crush the garlic, right on the cover to seal in the flavors.
It was a witty Teresa I met in
the kitchen. A woman of grace who brooked no nonsense and could tell it like it
is and still be politically correct. Teresa haggling over fresh vegetables was
an eye -opener and for an Ilocana like me, pure vindication.
Tia’s story about
the toad that Teresa saw in the parlor convinced me that even good activities can
be the devil’s way of distracting
us from the crucified Christ. Four decades since, I have learned that Teresa
felt that her efforts to be holy were inadequate. Her experience was similar to
that of St. Paul who wrote: “I am no longer trying for perfection by my own
efforts, the perfection that comes from the law, but I want only the perfection
that comes through faith in Christ, and is from God and based on faith. I want
to know Christ.” (Phil 3, 10).
I pray to learn three habits St.
Teresa wanted: “The first of these is love for one another; the second is
detachment from all created things; the third is true humility, which, even
though I speak of it last, is the main practice and embraces all the others” (Way of Perfection 4, 4).
Teresa wrote of a subtle
self-love that does not allow one to understand what it is to want to please
ourselves rather than God. Yet she acknowledged that the active works they were
worried about “were all spent in the fulfilment of the duties of obedience and
charity,” adding: “know that if it is in the kitchen, the Lord walks among the
pots and pans, helping you both interiorly and exteriorly” (Found 5, 8).
