Georgina Linwood

The Carmelites in Malta

The Carmelite Order arrived in Malta from Sicily in 1418. The friars’ first home was at Lunzjata, which is located in Rabat, and afterwards the brothers went to live in Mdina. In the following centuries the Carmelites spread out along the island. Today there are four parishes, a school run by the Carmelites, religious vocations teams, Third Orders and groups following Carmelite spirituality.

The Third Order and Lay Carmelites

The Carmelite Third Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel is formed of lay members who, in a response to a call from God, promise to live the Gospel in the spirit of the Carmelite charism. The Third or Secular Order comprises both lay people and secular clergy. In the charism of Carmel they find a spiritual home which animates their own spiritual life and their mission in the Church and in the World. Among the Third Order in Malta we find a bishop, Rt Rev. Charles Scicluna, and a Saint – Gorg (George) Preca. Altogether we have more than five thousand members, and nineteen branches, including four based in Carmelite parishes. These communities welcome men and women, young people of various ages, and people from different social backgrounds. They meet to pray together, and follow a Carmelite-based programme of spiritual formation.

Each Third Order community has a council and its spiritual needs are taken care of by a Carmelite priest. Each group meets about once a month to discuss spirituality, organise Eucharistic adoration, retreats, sermons, and other spiritual and social activities.

The National Council of the Carmelite Third Order in Malta was founded on June 18^th, 2011. The Council meets to discuss and plan activities both spiritual and social. The Council felt the need to incorporate all members of the Third Order in Malta, and plan a programme of spiritual formation that can reach out to every tertiary. This brings Lay Carmelites together, giving direction and community formation according to the Carmelite Rule of Saint Albert and a new charter for Lay Carmel in Malta.

In 2003 the Carmelite Order issued a new Charter (Rule/Constitutions) for the Third Order. In 2009 the Maltese Carmelite Family discussed the situations of the Third Order in Malta and concluded that steps were needed to enact the Charter. The purpose of the document is to give directions on spiritual and community formation, so that each member follows the Rule and Constitutions of the Order and thereby grows in living Carmelite spirituality. The Third Order National Council was formed by the Maltese Prior Provincial to help realise this goal.

The National Council works as a team together with the friars’ Delegate for the Third Order, Fr Alex Scerri, O.Carm. Once a year the Council organises a National Congress, and a National Retreat that brings all Lay Carmelites together. The Council is now planning retreats, seminars and workshops on a province-wide level.

Lay and Third Order Carmelite Workshops

In Malta there are communities of the Carmelite Third Order as well as other groups of lay people inspired by the spirituality of Carmel. A team has been brought together to analyse the reality of these groups, and start planning workshops among them. These workshops will discuss: the Rule of Saint Albert and the Charter/Constitutions of the Third Order; ways to enrich catechesis and spiritual formation; the meaning of our consecration to the Lord; the teachings of the Carmelite mystics and saints. The team working on this is comprised of the Prior Provincial (Fr Alexander Vella, O.Carm.), the Delegate for the Third Order (Fr Alex Scerri, O.Carm.), the Delegate for Other Lay Carmelite Groups (Fr Charlò Camilleri, O.Carm.), other Carmelite friars, and three members of the Third Order National Council.

Deus Caritas Est

In the last four years a new group of Lay Carmelites has been formed in Malta. The group is called Deus Caritas Est (God is Love). The group welcomes women of all ages and situations in life. They meet on a regular basis for Mass, seminars of spiritual formation, and Adoration. The core group meets every week to practice Lectio Divina meditation on the Bible, praying and interceding for priests and for families. A few members of this community have also become members of the Third Order and have formed a distinct community. One of the activities of Deus Caritas Est is a project with children; through crafts and creative workshops Lay Carmel evangelises young people.

Celebrated Carmelite Figures in Malta

In Malta we are fortunate to have some inspiring figures in the Carmelite Family. Saint Gorg Preca (1880-1962) was a diocesan priest who founded The Society of Christian Doctrine. He was also a member of the Carmelite Third Order, and was keen that everyone should wear the Carmelite Brown Scapular. He used to love writing, and his many books contain a wealth of knowledge about spiritual formation. Another inspiring Carmelite was Fr Avertan Fenech, O.Carm. He was a very humble and simple friar who loved God. At this moment the Order is working towards his beatification. Another important Carmelite from Malta was Fr Anastasio Cuschieri, O.Carm. (1876-1962). He was a friar, senator, philosophy professor and author. He was twice elected Prior Provincial of the Carmelites. He is known as ‘The Virgin Mary’s Poet’ because most of his poems are about Our Lady.

Kees Waaijman, O.Carm.,

Titus Brandsma was born in 1881 in Oegeklooster (Friesland, The Netherlands). In 1898 he entered the Carmelite Order at Boxmeer (Brabant). After his training for the priesthood and his study of philosophy and sociology in Rome, he taught philosophy at the Carmelite school in Oss (Brabant). From the establishment of the Catholic University at Nijmegen in 1923, he served as its professor of philosophy and the history of mysticism. From 1935 on he was the spiritual advisor of the Roman Catholic Society of Journalists. In 1941 he made a round trip to visit the directors and chief editors of Catholic newspapers in The Netherlands to persuade them to refuse the advertisements of the Dutch Nazi Party (NSB) which the German occupation authorities forced them to place. This trip was viewed as an act of resistance. In 1942 Titus Brandsma was arrested and imprisoned (in Arnhem, Scheveningen, Amersfoort, and Kleve) and finally transported to the concentration camp in Dachau. On July 26, 1942, he died there as a result of a lethal injection. Although the historical facts concerning Titus Brandsma are in large part well-established and witnesses are still alive today who knew him personally, the iconization around him is already highly diverse.

Hero of the resistance and martyr

In the last years of the war (1942-1945) and the early post-war years, Titus Brandsma was primarily viewed as a hero of the resistance.[1] This image was established by his writings from prison: My cell, the Daily Schedule of a Prisoner, and Final Piece. His biographer, H.W.F. Aukes, in the first edition of his biography (1947), also highlights the last year of Titus’s life.

Journalist

Titus Brandsma’s resistance culminated in his round trip to the offices of the Catholic daily press in 1941. This made him a fighter for the freedom of the press and freedom of speech, an aspect that was strongly profiled by José Alzin in his biography: That Dangerous Little Monk.[2] The same occurs in the brochures of Houle and Shortis.[3] Most outspoken is the biography of Vallaine, A Journalist-Martyr: Father Titus Brandsma.[4] On the occasion of his beatification this image of the martyred journalist was the focus of much attention. During the beatification a painted design for a stained-glass window by Martini hung in the ‘gallery of Bernini’, on which Brandsma is depicted with a goose feather in his right hand. In the homily of John Paul II, too, the journalist was highlighted:

Pater Titus’s heart could not remain indifferent to the many brothers working outside of academic institutions, who might also feel the need for a word of clarification. To them he became a journalist.[5] 

The Union of Catholic Journalists (UCSI) held a press conference: “In Titus Brandsma we find a symbol and model of a reliable and meaningful approach to our profession”.[6]

Church and Culture

Within the framework of the Catholic emancipation movement, Titus Brandsma was intensely interested in the affairs of Church and culture. He took initiatives on behalf of the Organization of Catholic Education, was one of the founders of the Catholic University of Nijmegen, devoted himself to the cause of the Catholic press, exerted himself for the preservation of Frisian culture, was involved in ecumenical action vis-à-vis the Christian East, sympathized with the peace movement and the protection of animals. This activity was not purely institutional. Culture, for Brandsma, was

a dialogue concerning the problems of people, listening to and differentiating between the phenomena which touch the masses, attention to art and the environment, the restoration of folk traditions and popular piety that is despised by intellectuals, the defence of minorities and oppressed cultures (those of Friesland, Armenia, and the Jews), positive appreciation for the mass media as a new vehicle for Christian values, the elementary importance of Christian education and of missionary activities.[7] 

The Frisian

His ardent advocacy of the Frisian cause was linked, in Brandsma’s case, with his origins. It is not surprising, therefore, that Frisians view Titus Brandsma as an “intrepid example of Frisian fidelity and rectitude.”[8] The pope supported their view:

The moral strength which the blessed Titus Brandsma exhibited in his many and varied activities, and in the end in his way of the cross and death, was definitely inherent in his nature, his Frisian character, marked as it was by this firm adherence to principle, loyalty, soundness, and honesty.[9]

The mystical dimension

In his rewritten biography of 1961, Aukes shifts the emphasis to Titus Brandsma’s experience of God. Beginning in the decade of the sixties we see this shift to the spiritual dimension of his life in several publications.[10] On the basis of various testimonies people have prominently featured[11] the image of Titus Brandsma as “a mystic positioned squarely in the fullness of life”.[12] His writings, too, prove to be inwardly conditioned by this mystical dimension.[13] The symposium which the Titus Brandsma Institute conducted on the occasion of Titus’s beatification in 1985, bore the title: Titus Brandsma and mysticism.[14] Otger Steggink sees more than a professor in Titus Brandsma:

His studies and teaching in spirituality and mysticism, like those in the branches of philosophy, all bore the marks of his personal spiritual experience. (…) Therefore we who are gathered here today wish to view his professoriate in the light of his spiritual and mystical personality, since in the person of Titus Brandsma, the academic cannot be separated from the mystic.[15]

The saint

One who reads through the loose-leaf folder with prayer intentions[16] in the Titus Brandsma Memorial Chapel in Nijmegen is struck by the immense confidence people have in Titus Brandsma. His help is invoked in connection with illness and serious operations, family problems, and a long journey, crises in relationships and before examinations, for work and for peace. The confidence to which this devotion attests discloses in Titus Brandsma a saint who lived a life that was spontaneously good: Titus at ‘the community centre for Social Assistance’; Titus in search of a scholarship for a needy student; seeking employment for a graduate; arguing for the appointment of a female classics teacher at a training school for priests; concerning himself with the fate of the widow of a musician; Titus in search of a home for an Armenian refugee without parents. The image of a saint is further substantiated by the testimonies of colleagues: ‘he was cordially and universally loved by the families of colleagues’ (Rogier); someone who ‘gave much because he loved much’ (Van Ginneken); a person ‘who displayed an almost interminable range of activity for the common good’ (Sassen). His fellow brothers too testify to a goodness that sprang from a disinterested compassion for the other,[17] a disinterestedness which simply continued in prison.[18]

Kees Waaijman, O.Carm., is the author of Spirituality, Forms-Foundations-Methods. This article can be found on p. 614-617. Produced here with permission of the author.

[1]     L. de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog 5. ‘s Gravenhage 1961, 109-116.

[2]     J. Alzin, Ce petit moine dangereux. Paris 1954.

[3]     A. House, Titus Brandsma. Martyr. Aylesford 1958; J. Shortis, Father Brandsma. Carmelite, Educator, Journalist, Nazivictim. Melbourne 1956.

[4]     F. Vallaine, Un giornalista martire. Padre Tito Brandsma. Milano 1985.

[5]     Cited in J. Hemels, ‘Perswetenschappelijke visies van Titus Brandsma’ in: Titus Brandsma herdacht, (ed. C. Struyker Boudier). Nijmegen 1985, 132.

[6]     The Beatification of Father Titus Brandsma, Carmelite, (ed. R. Valabek). Rome 1986, 19.

[7]     B. Secondin, Culture for Man. ibid., 111.

[8]     K. Kasteel, Titus Brandsma. An Intrepid Example of Frisian Fidelity and Rectitude. ibid., 26-29.

[9]     K. Kasteel, November 3: Beatification of Fr. Titus Brandsma. ibid., 68.

[10]    See esp. J. Melsen, ‘Mystiek als levensdoel: Titus Brandsma’, in: Carmel 17 (1965), 157-173.

[11]    Thus Regout in the Album amicorum Titi Brandsma (1939), in the Titus Brandsma archive of the Nederlands Carmelitaans Instituut (NCI) at Boxmeer.

[12]    See O. Steggink, ‘Titus Brandsma herdacht en herzien’, in: Titus Brandsma herzien—herdacht—herschreven, (ed. C. Struyker Boudie). Baarn 1993, 36-38.

[13]    Titus Brandsma, mystiek leven. Een bloemlezing, (ed. B. Borchert). Nijmegen 1985.

[14]    Titus Brandsma en de mystiek (symposium report at the Titus Brandsma Institute). Nijmegen 1985.

[15]    O. Steggink, ‘Titus Brandsma: meer dan hoogleraar’, in: Titus Brandsma herdacht, (ed. C. Struyker Boudier). Nijmegen 1985, 107-108, 126.

[16]    Many folders are filled with them. They are stored in the NCI at Boxmeer.

[17]    See A. Staring, ‘Love of Neighbour’, in: Essays on Titus Brandsma. 156-160.

[18]    Ibid., 161-165.

Eduardo Agosta Scarel, O.Carm.,

Principles

1. The roots of the ecological crisis are linked to the way human beings relate both to the Divine and to nature.
2. The human heart is not satisfied with anything less than the Infinite.
3. Created things can never take the place of God.
4. God has created us to live in harmony with all created things and with God the Creator.
5. Societies with no understanding of this will seek to deal with unlimited human desire by fostering consumerism by every means possible.
6. The Carmelite call to contemplation presents a path to wisdom that can heal both the human person and the planet on which we live.
7. The Carmelite path of contemplation re-orders our human desire and helps us attain happiness without constantly feeding every whim.
8. The Carmelite path can help people appreciate the beauty of Creation and see a way to preserve it for the good of future generations.

Introduction

The gift that Carmel has received from God for the world (the Carmelite charism) is essentially based on three elements: prayer, community, and service. They guide the transforming spiritual journey of Carmelites and come together in contemplation, one of the elements of our charism that dynamically unifies them.

The whole of reality could be regarded from a trinitarian perspective: God, human beings and other created things (both visible and invisible), in mutual interpenetration, held together by the Divine Power, the Spirit of God, the enveloping and sustaining source of reality. The contemplation of such reality is a call to discover or be aware of the empowering love of God within human beings and other created things. Such a process requires a profound transformation. The Carmelite way proposes that this transformation is aided by prayer, community and service that are the paths to contemplation.

Ecology is the human activity concerned with the comprehensive management of nature in order to regulate the relationships within and between all created things on the earth that is home to all. Comprehensive management involves taking into account the oft forgotten divine dimension.  The expression ecological crisis, or environmental crisis, means that the comprehensive management of such relationships is at risk. The crisis arises from a number of factors including the lack of attention to the divine dimension of reality which is apparent in the way we have been behaving in westernized societies. The roots of the ecological crisis can be linked to the human relationship with the Divine and with nature. If this is so, the Carmelite value of contemplation can be regarded as an important way to rediscover the Divine dimension of reality. Therefore prayer, community and service are vital ways towards the healing of nature.

The Spiritual Roots of the Ecological Crisis

Understanding the link between ecology and the Carmelite charism requires understanding contemplation as a spiritual path that is intimately related to the human journey towards an integration of the human personality, both the dark and luminous sides. This is an ongoing journey towards maturity of human affectivity, intellect and sexuality. These three factors of human life can be considered as parts of the human desire dynamism. Carmelites sum up this journey towards integration with the proposal to live in allegiance to Jesus Christ (Constitutions 2). We believe that God has created us for life and to preserve harmonious relationships with all created things and with God. We need to understand that the roots of the current ecological crisis are human and not merely technical or scientific, as if ecological problems were only a matter of some changes in technology. It is not sufficient simply to change to new ‘clean’ technologies. If it were so, we would not be speaking about a crisis.

The current ecological crisis, evidenced by climate change, energy resource depletion, and an increasing gap between the richest and the poorest, seems to have started with a crisis within human beings. During the past century very profound social changes have taken place. Our understanding of what it means to be human has changed considerably. We moved from thinking of ourselves as creatures equipped with reason, self-sufficiency and freedom, able to make choices regarding what we considered to be best and proper for each of us, towards an understanding of the human being as eternally dissatisfied. Now technology, as a caring nanny, is expected to meet every need and desire.

Because of the huge development in technology, we have been able to take some extraordinary strides to transform nature and enhance and embellish the quality of life. However our expectations have risen greatly and we often look to technology to grant us everything we wish without delay. Our lives are now more comfortable and healthier, thanks to growing scientific knowledge. However, technological development has been appropriated by economic and cultural models to consolidate a particular way of living, which is the technocratic westernized lifestyle. Our western societies have various guiding mantras: ‘grow or die’; ‘if you are unhappy go out and buy something’; ‘quantity and acceleration’. Thus the traditional human rhythms and cycles of nature are forgotten.  We seem unaware that the technocracy model of human development is a human construction and is not an uncontrollable natural force before which we must bow.

Conventional economic theory is part of the model of technocratic human development. It is based on the logic of dissatisfaction of desire. Westernized economies empower the rivalry between human desire and greed, by producing an abundance of goods to temporarily alleviate the tension of desire.

In addition, globalized societies, guided by the technocracy laws, have created their own myths. The absence of material goods is seen as the ultimate evil and so human desire and greed are encouraged at every level. Other dangerous mantras of our societies are: ‘full is better than empty’; ‘much is better than little’; ‘big is better than small’. Therefore we must fill everything, have everything, know everything.

We have a developmental model that is based on the dissatisfaction-desire economy. Human desire can be easily manipulated by external factors. This fact is observed within the phenomenon of globalization, where social fragmentation, and the creation of goods and services for consumption induced by advertising, all become external forces that irresistibly control us from within. We no longer consume the things we need but everything we are offered, without distinction. We have new needs that did not exist before. The technological novelties appear to be little paradises of illusion that are updated every day and suited to our increasingly fragmented world. Hence, consumerism has been imposed as the only way for the development of westernized life. It has been imposed by the strong interests in the local economy of global enterprises. The maximization of profit is at the expense of many people’s lives as well as the environment. In the future, there will not be sufficient energy sources for life as we are now consuming many resources at the lowest cost and the maximum gain.

Another dilemma is that human desire is unlimited. According to the Carmelite, Saint John of the Cross, the heart of the human being is not satisfied with less than Infinite (Living Flame of Love, 3, 18). For this reason when desire is given free rein on a global scale, natural resources are insufficient to satisfy it. The earth implodes. The physical limits of the planet are too finite in comparison to unlimited desire.

Apart from unlimited human desire and the economy based on that desire, there exists another human limitation which has a negative influence on the health of the earth. Our daily actions are performed locally, but their effects are global. We seem to be unaware of this fact. This limitation can be seen in the issue of climate change. Global warming is a symptom of the global social-economic model that is ultimately unsustainable. The planetary temperature is increasing because more greenhouse gases (GHGs, such as carbon dioxide, etc.) are constantly emitted. The GHGs emissions increments are due primarily to energy consumption of oil, natural gas and coal. Ninety percent of global energy consumption is provided by non-renewable power sources.  Most of these are starting to disappear. It is said that oil-based energy will be available for another thirty to fifty years. The greater demands for energy come from the highly developed societies, which have 25 percent of the global population, and whose lifestyles are characterized by an excessive consumption. This means that we consume more than we need because of the manipulation of human desire through the latest thing constantly presented to us by means of the mass media.

Moreover, as a consequence of current global patterns of development and consumption, social injustice is prevalent in many parts of the world. Consumerism is a luxurious lifestyle when compared with half of the world’s population, that is to say that few technologically developed societies enjoy high standards by depleting global resources. A quarter of the global population consumes 80 percent of the earth’s resources in order to sustain their lifestyle.

The Path of Healing

The wisdom of the Carmelite tradition takes us on the inner journey towards the maturity of our human desires. It helps us to recognize the priority of God in our lives. Human desire seems to have such unique characteristics that perplex psychologists of all generations. We have immediate wants but often we do not know exactly what it is we really want. The spiritual path for human beings is to pay attention to what really matters. Only when a person is centred and when all the strengths of his/her desire are channelled in and towards God, is it possible to achieve equilibrium and peace. 

John of the Cross, describes the origin of unlimited human desire. He says that it is as if God wounds the soul and human life is a search for relief. In seeking relief, we can be too demanding, asking things to take the place of God. That is always the temptation: to make created things (either material or spiritual) such as success, pleasure, happiness, sex, power, science, etc., as well as people, our idols or gods and ask them to fulfil our unlimited desires.

However, there is no thing or person that can take the place of God in our lives. The divine wound is only healed by the Spirit of God. John of the Cross teaches that human desire always runs the risk of fragmentation in multiple desires attaching themselves to things and people, seeking from them what they cannot give. The Carmelite tells of the need to direct our desire toward God who alone can bring harmony and peace. Our addictions and unconscious desires are not obstacles to eliminate but to face up to and integrate within the desire for the Infinite. This process does not mean despising things, since we need them, but is a way to bring some order to our desires. Hence, the Carmelite spiritual itinerary regards the interior of the human being as immensely cluttered and therefore needs to be emptied out in order to be filled by God, who is the fulfilment of every human desire.

Our secular societies have no other ways to treat unlimited human desire than to feed them with consumerism. Natural disasters, climate change, air and water pollution, social injustice, impoverishment of many peoples – among other environmental and social issues – are the result of unsustainable development patterns of production and consumption that are supported by economies based on the eternally dissatisfied human desire that has no God.

Concluding Remarks

The Carmelite call to contemplation is an inner journey that leads to our maturity and re-ordering of our human desires. This leads to a healing for people and for the earth. Human beings need to abandon the belief that fulfilment is to be found in amassing material goods. Then we will be able to liberate the earth from the obligation to satisfy this desire for more and more. Such a proposal is certainly not easy because it requires, as a first step, recognition that human desire cannot be satisfied by the material. Opening oneself to experience the empowering love of God can help to re-orient our desires towards a simpler lifestyle. We can then learn that immediate gratification is not always necessary or possible. It requires some sacrifice so that we can receive something greater and better.

The Carmelite contemplative path of transformation by means of prayer, community and service brings about a personal, communitarian and planetary healing, helping us to understand that:

• Few things are really vital to our lives.
• Little is often sufficient.
• Dissatisfaction is part of life.
• Human aspirations and desires are infinite because they are made for God.

There is no doubt that humanity must face its capacity for self-destruction, which was limited by the sense of the sacred in the past, but now appears to be unlimited. Without a growth in awareness of the divine dimension of reality, an ecological catastrophe seems to be inevitable. It is a time for contemplation so that we might rediscover that all human desire is a manifestation of the profound desire for God.

In our communities we need to recognize that our local actions have global effects. Therefore it is urgent to change our patterns of communitarian life that affect the health of the planet. We need to work for the development of a new economy based on needs, and not to supply a never ending desire for more. We seek to help people become aware of the need to preserve the quality of life for the whole of creation because God has clothed all people and all things with a particular beauty that reflects the beauty of the Creator.

Presented by Eduardo Agosta Scarel, O.Carm., to a meeting of the Carmelite NGO. The paper first appeared in ‘Meeting the People in the Marketplace’ produced by the Carmelite NGO and reproduced here with kind permission.

In these most recent years we have been celebrating a number of centenaries that have great importance for the life of our Carmelite family: St Albert of Jerusalem and Jerónimo Gracián, the eighth and fourth centenaries of whose deaths occur respectively; and St Teresa of Jesus, the fifth centenary of whose birth occurs.

We would like to share some reflections on Fr Jerónimo Gracián with the whole Carmelite Family. We begin from the story of his life, not always well known to everybody. It is true that in these last few years, thanks to the publication of a series of bibliographies, studies and the edition of some of his writings, Gracián is beginning to find some space in Carmelite bibliography. It is also worth noting that in this process of recovery, his own La Peregrinación de Anastasio has had an important place.[1]

1.    A Man of his Times – 1545-1572

Jerónimo Gracián was born in the Castilian city of Valladolid, on June 6^th, 1545. It was there that he received the imprint that would develop to maturity in later life. Spanish and Polish blood ran through his veins. His father, Diego Gracián de Alderete, was ‘Latin Secretary to his Majesty’, King Philip II, and a humanist worthy of the name. He was distinguished for being an excellent calligrapher, polyglot and a connoisseur of classical culture. He worked as a secretary to bishops and as a translator of books, especially Greek and Latin books. In his youth he had a very close friendship with the one who would become his father-in-law, Juan Dantisco, Polish ambassador to the court of Charles I of Spain, and Charles V of Germany. With the passage of time he became a bishop, first of Culm, and later he was promoted to the Church of Warmia (Poland). Jerónimo Gracián would inherit both from his father and from his maternal grand-father a passion for literature and for classical culture.

Jerónimo Gracián was the third of twenty brothers. Teresa of Jesus used to sing the praises of his mother, Juana Dantisco on account of her deep piety, which she passed on to her children of whom seven entered religious life. The Carmelites were: María de San José, Isabel de Jesús, Juliana de Santa Teresa y Lorenzo Gracián. From his earliest years Jerónimo had a Jesuit as his spiritual director. He studied in the well-known university of Alcalá de Henares. At nineteen years of age, he was already a Master of Arts, a proof of his intelligence and his aptitude for study. He then studied theology, and came very close to the degree of Doctor. He was ordained a priest at twenty four years of age. His love for literature is widely known: “Reading and study of good books (principally from when I began to study Theology, which is my profession) has been something very ordinary, since the time when I was ten years old and I began to study, up to the present day” (PA, c. XV). The light of the Word, the cornerstone of his academic and theological formation, directed his reason and intellect towards the mystery of God (cf. Ps 108,109): “Our Lord helped him to understand that to knowledgeable people, whom he has enlightened through the ordinary pathway of study, it is not necessary to give particular revelations and visions.....” (PA, c. XV). Hence he affirms, “I set about writing” and “I did not hide the talent for writing that the Lord had given me” (PA, c. XV).

2.    His encounter with Saint Teresa of Jesus – 1572-1592

When he was ordained and had finished his studies for a doctorate he began to think about the possibility of joining the Jesuits. In this time of searching he got to know the Carmelite nuns in Pastrana and the prioress of the community, Isabel de Santo Domingo. The life and spirit of these women fascinated him:

I received the habit in Pastrana, in 1572, having fought for a year and a half with this vocation, which was a real torment. All the natural reasons were against me at that point: poor health, natural laziness, study fatigue, obligations towards my parents and brothers (...) All of this, on the one hand, battled against a burning desire to serve our Lord, and, on the other hand, since the reform of this Order was beginning at that time, it seemed to me that my Lord was calling me for that (PA, c. I).

Our Lady of Mount Carmel would be his companion on the journey from the very beginning. Teresa of Jesus attributed his choosing the Carmelite Order to his great devotion to Mary and his great desire to serve her. He said, indeed, that when he was a child, he very often prayed before a statue of Mary, for whom he had a deep devotion and to whom he referred as his “lover”: “I am blinded by the love of such a lady.... I would lose my life, which I would give so willingly to my Lady, the Virgin Mary” (PA, c. I). In the view of Teresa of Jesus, it was the intervention of the Blessed Virgin that led him to choose the Carmelite habit (cf. F 23, 4-8).

His Carmelite adventure began with a lot of responsibilities, even though he was still only a novice. He recounts:

I received the habit, and straightaway the jobs began, and I was soon worn out from preaching and hearing confessions in the Carmelite house and in the town of Pastrana and in the towns and villages round about, where we had benefactors (...) I had to instruct thirty novices that later were the pride of the Order; and we were alone, so alone that we had to be careful that they were not affected by the antics of some of the professed who tried to tell them what to do, so that they would not leave the order, and we had to do no small amount of work in this regard (PA, c. I).

He went on to illustrate the rigours and penances that the professed wanted to inflict on the novices. The first novices were young men who could neither read nor write, and had little experience or wisdom..... All of this was the cause of a crisis for Fray Jerónimo: “... I was about to leave the Order and not make my profession on its account”. He persevered in Carmel, however, under the wise direction of Mother Isabel de Santo Domingo (PA, c. I).

His Commitment to the Reform

In Jerónimo Gracián there is a unity in his love for the Rule of Carmel and for the reform that Saint Teresa had begun, for the initial ideals and for the ability to achieve them in ways that were new and renewing. This convergence was an expression of the springtime that the Church was experiencing in the aftermath of the Council of Trent. In a certain sense, it is the same as we see in our own time. The Second Vatican Council reminded us that the Church is faithful to its vocation only by being reformed constantly,[2] and Pope Francis has noted:

There are ecclesial structures which can hamper efforts at evangelization, yet even good structures are only helpful when there is a life constantly driving, sustaining and assessing them. Without new life and an authentic evangelical spirit, without the Church’s ‘fidelity to her own calling’, any new structure will soon prove ineffective.[3]

Teresa was a woman who exercised the gift of friendship intensely. In the first meeting with Fr Jerónimo Gracián de la Madre de Dios, in Beas de Segura in 1575, we find a certain empathy, openness and confidentiality between them:

The master, Gracián, was here for twenty days ... I think well of him, and for us it were best that we ask God for him .... I can now stop worrying about the running of these houses, for such perfection with such gentility, I have never seen” (MC 81, to Mother Isabel de Santo Domingo, May 12^th, 1575).

Following his profession, Jerónimo began to carry out tasks of some importance in the newly-born Reform of Carmel. Just a few months after his profession he was appointed Apostolic Visitator of the Carmelites in Andalucia: “Here I am, at 28 years of age, and a half year of profession, appointed the Prelate of the Carmelites in Andalucia, against the will of the General and Protector of the Calced Order” (PA c. I). In 1575, he would become the Apostolic Visitator of all the Carmelites in Andalucia, including the Discalced. At that time, he acted as the head of the Reform, the white-headed boy of Teresa of Jesus, to bring to completion the creation of the Discalced Province. In time, he would find himself in prison. In the end, and with the help of Philip II, a Brief from Rome confirmed the creation of the Discalced Province as part of the Carmelite Order. At the Chapter celebrated in Alcalá de Henares, in March 1581, Fr Jerónimo was elected Provincial of the Reformed Province. This is how he told the story:

The Fathers gathered for the Chapter in Alcalá; the province was set up; the laws were agreed; they elected me as their first Provincial, I governed the Province for my four years, opening houses of friars and nuns in the company of mother Teresa of Jesus, which involved all the ordinary work of travelling, doing business, writing letters, hearing confessions, preaching sermons and studying, etc. (PA, c. III).

On October 4^th, 1582, Teresa died in Alba de Tormes: “Blessed be God, for giving me such a great friend, whose love, now in heaven, will not grow cold and I can be sure that it will be a great help to me” (PA, c. XVI). The reformer found in him, providentially, the person who would consolidate and direct all that she had begun. Writing about him, she said that he was “a man who was very well educated, with great understanding and modesty, graced by many virtues all his life, it seems as if Our Lady chose him for the good of this primitive Order”.[4] What was notable, in talking about his style of governing, was the combination of goodness and firmness:

His manner is pleasant which means that for the most part those who deal with him love him (a grace from the Lord), such that he is loved very much by those who are under him, both men and women, and while he does not forgive any fault – because in this he cared very much about the spread of devotion – he was always able to act with such a pleasing gentleness that no one ever had reason to complain about him.[5]

St Teresa confided in him, promising him obedience (CC 30, 3) and, thanks to this vow, Fr Jerónimo could ask her not only to open new monasteries but also to complete the writing of her book on the Foundations and to write about her spiritual life which she did in the Interior Castle. Similarly, out of obedience to him, Teresa posed for her portrait to be painted by Fray Juan de la Miseria, thus leaving behind the well-known portrait which has been handed down to us (cf. PA, c. XIII).

Jerónimo Gracián, for his part, followed the teaching of Teresa of Jesus. This gave him the imprint of the evolving charism, and became a source of great spiritual and human sustenance in his apostolic activity. Teresa’s regard for Jerónimo had many features that covered the spectrum from loving mother to grateful child. The intense correspondence that went between them is legendary (CC 29,1; 30,3) and his friendship provided a valve for Teresa: “I am happy that Fray Antonio is not with you, because, they tell me, when he sees so many letters of mine and none of them for him, he gets upset” (MC 170 to Padre Jerónimo Gracián, around December, 1576). Fr Gracián remembered it as well:

She shared her spirit with me, not hiding anything from me, and I did the same with her, revealing everything I had inside, and in that way we were certain that we were in agreement on everything that had to do with the task in hand and she, as well as her religious vow, made another vow of obedience to me for the rest of her life, because of a particular revelation that she received (PA, c. XIII).

Fr Jerónimo also gave of himself, by accepting all that she taught. Teresa gave him his dreams and, much more, his ideals and his charismatic commitment: that is why, as well as being a friend and confidante for him, she was also ‘mother’. Not only that, he found in her the master that guided him through the pathways of the interior life, inspiring his ministry to the friars and nuns of the Reform.

The Brothers say ‘No’

In Lisbon, in 1585, Fr Nicolas Doria was elected Provincial and Fr Gracián remained as Vicar Provincial. Then, later, he was elected as the Vicar Provincial of the new province of Mexico at the intermediate Chapter that was held in Valladolid in 1587. He could not leave with the fleet that sailed to the so-called West Indies, because in 1587 and in 1588 no fleet set sail. He would instead spend two years in Portugal at the request of Cardinal Alberto, the Viceroy of Portugal, and he became the Apostolic Visitator of the Portuguese Carmelites. He was called to Madrid in 1590 and this was the beginning of his Calvary. He would end up being expelled from the Discalced Carmelites on February 17^th, 1592, among whom he had been the first provincial, after being accused of not being strict enough and of devoting more time to the apostolate than to the regular life and of having dishonest dealings with Maria de San José, formerly the prioress of Seville and, at that time, prioress of Lisbon.

They stripped Fr Jerónimo of his discalced habit which he had worn for twenty years, and dressed him in secular attire. “Finally they have taken away my habit, after a long period in prison. I was sorry that then they gave me a mantle and cassock of very good material, that belonged to a novice that had entered” (PA, c. IV). He finished by confessing the pain that he felt: “Only the one who has suffered it can tell what it is like, for one who entered the Discalced Order with the vocation with which I entered, and suffered so much to build the Province, and given the habit to the ones who now have taken it from me” (PA, c. IV). From that moment, he went back to being the priest, Don Jerónimo Gracián.

3.    The test of Fidelity – 1592-1596

The new stage in the life of Fr Jerónimo Gracián runs through a continuous pilgrimage, from one place to another, from one experience to another, passing through the quest for justice, the search for a place where he would be welcomed, and a bitter captivity in a strange land. This was a time of purification that was providential in that it helped him to centre himself in the heart of the Gospel, and in his religious life, helping to confirm his choosing to enter Carmel. In the most adverse situations, when things were falling apart, Fr Jerónimo always managed to look far ahead, by living in allegiance to Jesus Christ (Rule, Ch. 2) and by preaching the Gospel. Perhaps he is a more than significant witness for religious life today, in a time of crisis, and apparent disheartenment.

Later he would say that he asked the Lord for the “desire to suffer” and to carry a “naked and shameful cross” because “it appeared to him as the straightest and safest way to reach heaven” (PA, c. VIII). God heard his prayer. In time, he would say that the Lord did not delay in granting him what he had asked with such insistence: “Not long after this prayer I began to see that God was giving me his grace and was granting me all that I asked” (PA, c. VIII). Indeed, he came to know persecutions, displacement, fears, dangers, insults and other labours, that taught him a very sweet science: “that every virtue comes from the love of God and of neighbour and every virtue has that same love as its ultimate aim” (PA, c. XV). Fr Jerónimo discovered that we cannot decaffeinate the Gospel, and that anyone “who does not love the one who hates him is not a Christian,[6] because love for enemies is a fundamental law”[7] and “the supreme quintessence of virtue”.[8] In his Peregrinación he illustrates this with an example:

I thought of my adversaries as images of Christ .... If a tabernacle or a pyx of poor stone can contain the Most Blessed Sacrament, I would never not want to adore him and reverence him, even though I might like to see him dressed in gold and fine clothing. I know that God is in essence, presence and power in the one who persecutes me. Yes, I would love the tabernacle to be more beautiful, but I close my eyes to all that is outside and not to what is contained within (PA, c. XI).

Fr Jerónimo Gracián did not share the view of those who made a virtue out of strictness of observance, the banner of the reform and an end in itself. The conflict that led to his expulsion could be summed up in a paragraph that he left us in his writings:

Because there are spirits to whom it seems that all Carmelite perfection lies in not leaving their cell, or in never missing choir, even though the whole world may have gone up in flames, and that the good of the Order consisted in multiplying houses in the small towns and villages in Spain, and leaving the rest, and that think that every other way of thinking is restlessness and laxity. God did not lead me by this route, but rather by the way of saving souls; and in relation to the people that we employ in small places, we should begin with them to found houses in the more important cities in the different kingdoms for the real spread and benefit of the Order. And, as I talked about this many times and in great detail with Mother Teresa of Jesus, whose zeal was for the conversion of the whole world, this way of doing things stuck to me even more (PA, c. III).

One question went round and round in Gracián’s head: “Where is God?” The answer was clear: “there where love is uppermost” (PA, c. X). Gracián was faithful to the premise that “flexibility” is a good companion on the journey, that love is “creative” and that the one who does good is never lost.

Perseverance in the test: “Adam’s habit”

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine or nakedness or peril, or sword?” (Romans 8:35). Gracián’s pilgrimage continued with his journey to Rome to seek the protection of the Pope and he succeeded in speaking to Clement VIII. The Pontiff, through his secretaries, expressed the view that he should join another religious Order. He asked to join “the Capuchins, the Cistercians, the Discalced Franciscans, and all the other orders, asking to receive their habit: none would give it to me, and I saw myself rejected by every Order, as if I was the most despicable religious that you could find on the earth” (PA, c. V). He passed through Naples, and Sicily (where he stayed for eight months, helping out and hearing confessions in a hospital). On January 27^th, 1593, the Pope wrote a Brief, Uberes fructus, in which he confirmed Fr Gracián’s expulsion from the Discalced Carmelites, ordering him to join the Augustinians or some other observant Order. He left the port of Gaeta to travel to Rome:

As I came to the end of Mass, in which – against the interior pressure that came from the Virgin Mary and from Teresa of Jesus never to leave their Order – I decided to join the Discalced Augustinians, as the wind began to die down, the ships, on account of that, began to slow (PA, c. V).

The Gospel proclaimed, by one in chains

God worked hard on Fr Jerónimo Gracián. He asked God for “humility” and life offered him more than enough “humiliations” and opportunities to demonstrate how right his petition was. One more episode was added to his turbulent biography: his captivity in Argel. In his Peregrinación, Gracián writes about his ups and downs, his interest in evangelising and, finally, his freedom. More than once, while spending a long spell in prison he was sure that he was going to be executed. Gracián, zealous as ever for the salvation of souls, did not waste time. He writes about the conversations he had, how he preached, heard confessions and helped in getting release for people in prison. In the midst of the torment and restrictions of his own imprisonment he recounts:

I heard the confessions of my captive Christians ... comforting them when they were beaten with a stick, pacifying their quarrels and visiting them when they were sick. If they wanted to cut somebody’s nose or ears, I would manage to get forgiveness with a little money, which I got faithfully from the same Christians (PA, c. VI).

In many ways, throughout his whole life, Jerónimo was devoted to the mission of evangelisation. During his four years as Provincial he gave a missionary and expansionary slant to the Province that he governed: thus he had houses opened in Genoa (1584), the Congo (1584) and in Mexico (1585). Despite being held in captivity, he still managed to preach the Gospel to his companions and his captors. Returning to the Order he was at the Pope’s disposal to take on any missionary expedition and he dedicated some of his writings to this. This missionary zeal came out of his great desire to “save souls” and to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth. He said to Teresa that

sometimes it seemed to him that (a statue of the Blessed Virgin) had eyes that were swollen from weeping over the many offenses committed against her Son. As a result there arose in him a strong impulse and desire to help souls, and he felt it very deeply when he saw offenses committed against God. He has so great an inclination toward the good of souls that any hardship becomes small to him if he thinks that through it he can produce some fruit. I have seen this myself in the many trials that he has undergone.[9]

Teresa, evidently, did not imagine that still more trials awaited him, nor the greatness of spirit that he would show in them.

4.    In Mary’s Habit – 1596-1614

On April 11^th, 1595, the Bajá of Tunisia signed his letter of freedom. He arrived in Genoa where began a new and final stage in his life which covered the last eighteen years, as a Carmelite (O.Carm.). Gracián himself recounts that he arrived in Rome, threw himself at the feet of the Pope and got his permission to return to wearing the Carmelite habit. That is what Gracián tells us, as he summed up in just a few lines all that happened in his life until he got to Belgium:

He ordered me to put on the habit of the (calced) Carmelites despite the fact that the conclusion of the Consultation was that I was not to wear any habit, neither Carmelite nor Discalced Carmelite. I spent a short time in San Martin in Montibus (sic) with the (calced) Carmelites. From there the Protector of my Order sent me to the home of Cardenal Deza, the protector in Spain. I worked for him for five years as a theologian, writing and printing books. From the memos that I had written to the Pope it emerged that to the Congregation of Cardinals of Propaganda Fide De and to the Pope it seemed that I should return to Africa with a mission that they gave me to bring the Jubilee of the Holy Year to the Christians in those places. I had letters from the King for the guards at the borders that they should afford me safe passage. I was present for my mother’s death. I went to Cueta, and from there to Tetuan: I accomplished my mission; I returned with orders to make peace between our King and the Jarife; it didn’t work. I came to the house in Madrid: from there I went to Valencia and Alicante and then back to Rome to report to Pope Clement VIII: God took him to himself; I remained preaching and printing books in Valencia. They sent me to Pamplona to preach for Lent. From there I came to Flanders (PA, c. VIII).

Fr Jerónimo – in his Peregrinación – never ceases to express his joy and contentment with the treatment he received in the Carmelite Order.

They showed great pleasure in seeing me wearing their habit. The General soon made me Master of the Order and they gave me the seniority that I would have had if I had made my profession with them when I made my profession with the Discalced, and I have held on to that always, which is no small thing for which to be thankful (PA, c. XIV).

While the time he spent with the Reform was particularly fruitful in terms of his work in governing, his time with the Ancient Observance was distinguished for his gifts as a preacher and prolific writer.[10] Jerónimo now wrote on behalf of prelates and of the Prior General of the Order and his works include everything from missionary activity to the history and spirituality of Carmel. On the instructions of Fr Enrique Silvio, then Prior General of the Order, elected in Rome in 1598, he wrote his famous commentary on the Rule of the Order – Della disciplina regolare[11] – to stimulate the members of the Order towards greater observance. At that time he was also working tirelessly on printing the writings of St Teresa into other languages and on promoting her beatification. Flanders was the last stop on his journey. There he finished the writing of his Peregrinación de Anastasio, Dialogues of the persecutions, works, tribulations and crosses that Fr Jerónimo Graacian de la Madre de Dios suffered.

Gracián arrived in Brussels in 1607. He would spend the next years alternating an eremitical life, in a hermitage in the garden of the house, with his preaching and hearing confessions and working with the Discalced Carmelites who were beginning to open houses in that country. He had the joy of being alive when Mother Teresa of Jesus was beatified on April 24^th, 1614, by Paul V. On September 21^st, 1614, at six o’clock in the evening of that Sunday, Jerónimo Gracián died, a Carmelite. We have to include in his missionary activities the publication of the works of Teresa in Protestant areas, as well as his own works: Diez lamentaciones del miserable estado de los ateístas[12] (Ten Lamentations of the Miserable Condition of Atheists) and Leviatán engañoso, suma de algunos engaños[13] (The Deceitful Leviathan: an Account of Some Deceits). Just like Teresa, he wanted to respond, in a certain sense, to the schism that was created in the Church by the Lutheran separation, by opening monasteries in which there would be faithful and joyful witness to the Gospel. Jerónimo, through the diffusion of Teresa’s teaching, had the intention of offering a model of life transfigured by the Gospel and at the service of the Church.

Conclusion: victoria amoris – the victory of love (PA, c. x)

Clothe the naked is the first work of mercy according to the Hebrew tradition (cf. Matthew 25:36). Fr Jerónimo Gracián spent his whole life looking for clothes to put on: “I received the Discalced habit”; “they dressed me up in secular dress”; “they gave me a cloak and cassock of the finest material”; “they made me wear the habit of wretchedness”; “I saw that I was naked and I put on my new Adam’s suit”; “they gave me once again the calced habit”, etc. At the end of his life, with wisdom and discernment, he was able to say: God is well able to see that there is as much fruit from one habit as from another, as my own experience has shown me (PA, c. XVI). The ‘habit’ that he received went beyond his expectations: it was not an external garment, but an interior one. Gracián, just like Joseph in the book of Genesis, was stripped of his cloak (Genesis 37:3, 23, 31; 39:12; 41:14) in order to put on the “cloak of fine linen” (cf. Genesis 41:42) Linen, in order to be woven and become softer and more bright and luminous, has to be beaten and pounded. The linens are the good works of the saints ... (Acts 19:8). The epitaph of a Jewish rabbi illustrates what Jerónimo Gracián went through: “For every good work that a man does on the earth, a thread of light lights up in the heavens. Many good works make many threads. Why? In order to weave a garment of light. A garment of light that gives glory to the Master of the works”. A ‘garment of light’ made from threads of mercy, goodness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, peace, and the love which binds everything together in perfect harmony (cf. Colossians 3:12-15).

Fr Jerónimo Gracián invites us to become craftsmen and craftswomen of peace and reconciliation, so that, seeing our good works, the Father who is in heaven may be glorified (Matthew 5:16). Gracián’s peregrinación (pilgrimage) is the expression of a deeper spiritual journey, which is a response to the love that God poured into his heart through our Blessed Mother, in his desire to take on the Rule of Carmel in accordance with the teachings of Teresa of Jesus and his passionate desire to give himself to others for their salvation. This victoria amoris – victory of love – (PA c. X) lived, above all, in moments of tension, was an ecstasy of love for him, but not in the sense of a momentary flash, but as something permanent, a going out from the “I” closed in on itself, towards the liberation that comes from committing oneself and by so doing comes to find oneself again, and even more, to find God.[14] In Gracián’s pilgrimage we begin to see the pilgrimage of every disciple, and for that reason, our pilgrimage too, as we endeavour to follow that same path marked out by Jesus “which, through the cross brings him to the resurrection; the route of the grain of wheat that falls on the ground and dies, and so gives abundant fruit.”[15] We give thanks to God because we can reap the fruit of the witness and the message that our brother Jerónimo Gracián has left us.

Fernando Millán Romeral, O.Carm., Prior General

Saverio Cannistrà, O.C.D., Provost General

[1]     Jerónimo Gracián de la Madre de Dios: Peregrinación de Anastasio. Ed. Juan Luis Astigarraga. Roma: 2001. Hereafter: PA with the number of the chapter.

[2]     Cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, 6; Lumen Gentium, 8; Gaudium et Spes, 21.

[3]     Pope Francis: Evangelii Gaudium, 26.

[4]     Teresa de Jesús: Foundations 23, 1.

[5]     Ibid, Foundations 23, 7.

[6]     2 Epistle of Clement, 13ss.

[7]     Tertulian: Tract on Patience, 6.

[8]     John Chrysostom: Sermons on the Gospel according to Matthew, 18, 3.

[9]     Teresa de Jesús: Foundations 23, 5.

[10]    Nicolás Antonio: Bibliotheca Nova Hispana. Madrid: 1684.

[11]    Fr Jerónimo Gracián: Della Disciplina Regolare. Venice: 1600.

[12]    Fr Jerónimo Gracián: Diez lamentaciones del miserable estado de los ateístas. Brussels: 1611.

[13]    Fr Jerónimo Gracián: Leviathan engañoso, suma de algunos engaños. Brussels: 1614.

[14]    Pope Benedict XVI: Deus caritas est, 6.

[15]    Ibid, 6.

A reflection by Anne-Marie Bos, a Carmelite sister of the Dutch Province.

John Dons, an inmate who had to portray the camp-leaders, also made drawings of a few of his fellow-inmates. The drawing he made of Titus became famous and in it we see Titus as John Dons pictured him: a man in the wrong suit.

It doesn’t fit at all.
He has accepted it
and made it his own with his watch and his pencil,
that doesn’t seem to belong to this soldier’s garment.
On this garment his number, 58,
and the triangle, red as a sign of political inmate.
His famous lock is shaved.

Also in this face of Titus I see different expressions.
I see sadness in his face, but also a small smile.
The right and the left side of the face differ.
When I look at his eyes,
I see that he is looking and not-looking at the same time.
As if he is staring at something beyond, at a far horizon.
It seems like he is knowing.
His firm fist on the table presents determinedness.
His mouth is closed, and shows a tension.

I see that he is looking friendly, mild,
but also determined and with a concern.
He shows compassion.

Time after time, my eyes are drawn to his eyes.
I see sovereignty, mercy, kindness, compassion.
Looking at this face, makes me calm.
In this drawing, Titus is personal and close-by.
Like he is listening with attention, with compassion.

At the same time, the picture screams silence:
silence and simplicity.

Michael Plattig, O.Carm.,

An essential characteristic of spiritual life in the Judaeo-Christian tradition is that it describes a historical or, rather, biographical development. Christian spirituality is characterised by concepts such as development, growth, maturation, progression, advance, pilgrimage and ascent. Development and maturation belong to the core of the spiritual life, if it is to be understood as an imitation of Christ. Teresa of Avila explains this in the following words:

“If you do not strive for the virtues and practice them, you will always be dwarfs. And, please God, it will be only a matter of not growing, for you already know that whoever does not increase decreases. I hold that love, where present, cannot possibly be content with remaining always the same.”

Interior Castle VII,4,9[1]

Various images and comparisons, various systemisations to describe this process of Christian maturation are to be found in the course of history. A feature they all have in common is the description of a positive development in the sense of personal improvement or, rather, in the sense of intensification of personal encounters with God. This is not a matter of smooth, ever ascending biographies. On the contrary, breaks, leaps and bounds, detours and crises necessarily form part of the Christian concept of growth, for they are often just the impetus towards the next step in the maturation process.[2] The traditional concept for this growth, which also implies transformation, is “transformatio”. Kees Waaijman, my fellow brother from the Netherlands and former director of the Titus Brandsma Institute in Nijmegen, made “transformatio” the central concept in his definition of spirituality: “Spirituality is the ongoing transformation which occurs in involved relationality with the Unconditional.” This definition is not necessarily Christian or Judaeo-Christian, as “Unconditional” leaves the concept of God open, allowing me to decide on an unequivocally Judaeo-Christian view and to choose the following definition: “Spirituality is the ongoing transformation of a human being replying to God’s call.” This definition emphasizes that the initiative originates from God and presupposes that a human’s reply is, of course, always relational, that is, it is made at points in time and space, in the world, and in the context of a human’s relationships with himself and with other people. However, decisive for spirituality is the relationship with God, which is both personal and dialogical.

A certain hierarchy of relationships is to be found in the Old and New Testaments:

“Listen, Israel: Yahweh our God is the one, the only Yahweh. You must love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Let the words I enjoin on you today stay in your heart. You shall tell them to your children, and keep on telling them, when you are sitting at home, when you are out and about, and when you are lying down and when you are standing up; you must fasten them on your hand as a sign and on your forehead as a headband; you must write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

“One of the scribes who had listen to them debating appreciated that Jesus had given a good answer and put a further question to him, ‘Which is the first of all the commandments?’ Jesus replied, ‘This is the first: Listen Israel, the Lord our God is the one, only Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is: You must love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these’.”

Mark 12:28-31

So transformation also means development in a personal relationship with God, which will express itself in the love of one’s neighbour and of self. This is also the criterion for the authenticity of a human’s love of God in accordance with the discernment of spirits.

“I think the most certain sign that we keep these two commandments is that we have a genuine love for others. We cannot know whether we love God although there may be strong reasons for thinking so, but there can be no doubt about whether we love our neighbour or not. Be sure that in proportion as you advance in fraternal charity, you are increasing in your love of God, for His Majesty bears so tender an affection for us that I cannot doubt He will repay our love for others by augmenting, in a thousand different ways, that which we bear for Him.”

Interior Castle V,3

The guide on this way, as with all designs of Christian spirituality, is God Himself, or rather the Holy Spirit (cf. Matthew 28:20; Galatians 4:6: 5:18-25; Romans 8:15f, etc.).[3] Yet this presents the problem of discernment of spirits:

“My dear friends, do not trust every spirit, but test the spirits, to see whether they are from God; for there are many false prophets about in the world.”

1 John 4:1

Therefore, St Paul urges: “... test them all; keep hold of what is good...” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and counts the ability to discern spirits as one of the charisms (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:10). Thus growth in itself is not a criterion for the spiritual. Spiritual growth can be characterised more precisely as growth guided by God’s good Spirit. Various sets of criteria have been developed in the history of Christian spirituality to characterise and distinguish this growth. Describing them would be beyond the scope and object of this article.[4] The interesting aspect in the present context is the characterisation of Christian growth as a growth towards freedom, that is, the characterisation of the working of the Spirit as a process of increasing liberation from various kinds of dependence and slavery.

The initiate’s stage is often characterised by suffering from an existing false life. Faced with the desire for a life in abundance (cf. John 10:10), the present situation of need, want and dependence is no longer repressed. Man departs and his desire shows him the way.

St John of the Cross describes God’s guidance in this process as follows:

“Since the conduct of these beginners in the way of God is lowly and not too distant from love of pleasure and of self, … God desires to withdraw them from this base manner of loving and lead them on to a higher degree of divine love. And he desires to liberate them from the lowly exercise of the senses and of discursive meditation, by which they go in search of him so inadequately and with so many difficulties, and lead them into the exercise of spirit, in which they become capable of a communion with God that is more abundant and more free of imperfections. … when God sees that they have grown a little, he weans them from the sweet breast so that they might be strengthened, lays aside their swaddling bands, and puts them down from his arms that they may grow accustomed to walking by themselves. This change is a surprise to them because everything seems to be functioning in reverse.”

Dark Night I,8,3[5] 

Becoming a Christian person therefore means growing to maturity, and this is a task of discerning, of separating. Regressive infantilism, longing in a certain sense to return to the womb, should therefore be distinguished from creatively giving shape to spiritual childhood in the correct proportion of dependence, freedom and self-reliance. St John of the Cross uses the words “librar” and “más libres” to describe this process. Thus he describes the process, initiated by God and therefore guided by the Spirit, as liberating.

Teresa of Avila

To Teresa, it is beyond question that God is completely different, the Majesty, infinitely greater than any worldly king, powerful person or majesty:

“O King of Glory and Lord of all kings! How true that Your kingdom is not armed with trifles, since it has no end! How true that there is no need for intermediaries with You! Upon beholding Your person one sees immediately that You alone, on account of the majesty You reveal, merit to be called Lord. ... O my Lord! O my King! Who now would know how to repre­sent Your majesty! It’s impossible not to see that You in Yourself are a great Emperor, for to behold Your majesty is startling; and the more one beholds along with this majesty, Lord, Your humility and the love You show to someone like myself the more startling it becomes. Nevertheless, we can converse and speak with You as we like, once the first fright and fear in beholding Your majesty passes; although the fear of offending You becomes greater. But the fear is not one of punishment, for this punishment is considered nothing in comparison with losing You.”

Life 37,6

This is recognition of the sovereign power, of the different nature of God. From this, humility and fear of God are developed. That is, being in awe of God, not being afraid of God. Teresa words it as follows:

“Humility, no matter how deep, does not make the soul restless, anxious or confused, but brings it peace, inner joy and calmness.”

Way of Perfection 39,3[6] 

At the same time, Teresa is also convinced of the dignity of human beings, because the Trinity dwells in them:

“This vision differs from others, as this intuitive understanding derives its power from faith; it is of such a nature that one cannot doubt that the Trinity dwells in our souls, as a presence and through its power and consistent with its nature. It is very important to understand this truth. And when I was so amazed to find such a high Majesty in something as lowly as my soul, I understood: it is not low, My daughter, as it has been created in My image.”

Spiritual Testimonies 41 

Awe, the recognition of the greatness of God, makes a human broad and open to anything that God wishes to give him. It does not erase boundaries. It allows God to be God and allows the human being to reach out to this greater God, aware of his own finiteness and neediness. Fear of this great God, on the other hand, makes one narrow and closed; fear takes away one’s breath of life and one’s dignity as a creature of God created in His image. Teresa of Avila underlines the dignity and beauty of the soul in the following words:

“For in reflecting upon it carefully, Sisters, we realize that the soul of the just person is nothing else but a paradise where the Lord says He finds His ‘delight’. So then, what do you think that abode will be like where a King so powerful, so wise, so pure, so full of all good things takes His delight? I don’t find anything comparable to the magnificent beauty of a soul and its marvellous capacity. Indeed, our intellects, however keen, can hardly comprehend it, just as they cannot comprehend God; but He Himself says that He created us in His own image and likeness. Well if this is true, as it is, there is no reason to tire ourselves in trying to comprehend the beauty of this castle. Since this castle is a creature and the difference, therefore, between it and God is the same as that between the Creator and His creature, His Majesty in saying that the soul is made in His own image makes it almost impossible for us to understand the sublime dignity and beauty of the soul.”

Interior Castle I,1,1

God’s indwelling in humans is not static. It is not hidden in the tabernacle of the heart, so to speak. It is more dynamic, like a walk in a garden, a museful contemplation, and it gives God and the human being satisfaction and pleasure. God’s indwelling in humans is fulfilling and joyful.

Based on her own painful experiences, Teresa urges her sisters:

“So beware, daughters, of certain feelings of humility which the devil inculcates in you and which make you very uneasy about the gravity of your past sins: ‘Do I deserve to approach the Sacrament?’, ‘Am I properly prepared?’, ‘I am not worthy to live among good people’. These and similar thoughts should indeed be appreciated when they are linked to inner peace and delight and a good feeling that come with self-knowledge. However, when they are linked to confusion and unease and distress of the soul and an inability to calm down your thoughts, then trust that it is a temptation and do not consider yourself as humble, because such things do not come from humility.”

Way of Perfection 67,5

Teresa encourages her sisters to maintain an informal contact with God, especially during prayer. Special words, a specific pose or specific dispositions are not required to get in touch with God and to talk with Him. What she refers to is free prayer from a free heart, based on trust, that is, faith.

“Leave aside any of that faintheartedness that some persons have and think is humility. You see, humility doesn’t consist in refusing a favour the King offers you but in accepting such a favour and understanding how bountifully it comes to you and being delighted with it. What a nice kind of humility! … Have nothing to do with this kind of humility, daughters, but speak with Him as with a father, or a brother, or a lord, or as with a spouse; sometimes in one way, at other times in another; He will teach you what you must do in order to please Him. Don’t be foolish; take Him at His word. Since He is your Spouse, He will treat you accordingly. [Consider that it is well worthwhile for you to have understood this truth: that the Lord is within us, and that there we must be with Him.].”

Way of Perfection 28,3

Teresa comes to this conviction by contemplating the human nature of Jesus, by orienting herself towards the biblical message and through her inner dialogue with God, which she describes as follows:

“There is nothing here to fear but only something to desire. Even if there be no great progress, or much effort in reaching such perfection as to deserve the favours and mercies God bestows and the more generous, at least a person will come to understand the road leading to heaven. And if one perseveres, I trust then in the mercy of God, who never fails to repay anyone who has taken Him for a friend. For mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us.”

Life 8,5

Teresa’s definition does not lead to an interiority that is out of touch with the real world, but emphasizes that inner prayer and work, that is, inner and outer activities, complement one another and should not be played off against one another:

“Well, come now, my daughters, don’t be sad when obedience draws you to involvement in exterior matters. Know that if it is in the kitchen, the Lord walks among the pots and pans helping you both interiorly and exteriorly.”

Foundations 5,8

One may chuckle at these lines, yet they explain in a simple way what Teresa means. To her, there is no separation between church service and world service, between sacred and profane, between Sunday and everyday life in her relationship with God. Instead, this relationship is a holistically total, comprehensive and all-unifying, and therefore healing and completing, loving relationship with a person, with whom she is in constant touch and dialogue. Teresa practices and teaches a “Christology from the bottom up” that does not get entangled in abstract concepts and philosophical-theological reflections, running the risk of overlooking what is essential, but focuses people’s attention on Jesus of Nazareth. Teresa’s contemplation of the biblical Jesus works. Jesus’ human face shows us God’s face; his actions make God’s actions visible. Her contemplation involves the whole Jesus, who shows his most human face as a suffering and dying man, because God’s loving devotion to humans finds its deepest and most convincing expression in this face. This contemplation is not a standoffish intellectual process, but one that is holistic and thus involves thought as well as experience, the heart as well as the brains, reason as well as will. Teresa lives from this inner, friendly dialogue, which gives her strength to withstand the rigors of her time as well as strength to carry out her reform work.

It is clear that the relationship with God is so fundamental to and decisive for Teresa’s life, that praying for this relationship, that is, the care for it, is the basic chord of her life, a basic theme that is repeated in thousands of variations and keeps her busy all the time. She therefore stands in the old Carmelite tradition, that is, she is “walking in the presence of God” or, in the words of the Prophet Elijah: “As the LORD God of Israel lives, before whom I stand” (1 Kings 17,1), “standing before God”. This means that prayer is not an occasional pastime. Instead, praying should be, or should become, a life-defining, fundamental attitude of the human being. A central point of the Carmelite Rule is the exhortation in Chapter 8 that “each one of you is to stay in his own cell or nearby, pondering the Lord’s law day and night (meditantes) and keeping watch at his prayers, unless attending to some other duty.” Contemplating the Lord’s life and having him always nearby – Teresa describes it in the following words:

“Our Lord is He by whom all good things come to us; He will teach you. Consider His life; that is the best example. What more can we want than so good a Friend at our side, who will not forsake us when we are in trouble and distress, as they do who belong to this world! Blessed is he who truly loves Him, and who always has Him near him!”

Life 22,7

“There is no need for us to receive special consolations from God in order to arrive at conformity with His will; He has done enough in giving us His Son to teach the way. This does not mean that we must so submit to the will of God as not to sorrow at such troubles as the death of a father or brother, or that we must bear crosses and sickness with joy. ... Our Lord asks but two things of us: love, for Him and for our neighbour: these are what we must strive to obtain. If we practise both these virtues perfectly we shall be doing His will and so shall be united to Him.”

Interior Castle V,3

Teresa describes the transformatio in prayer using the following image:

“I shall have to make use of some comparison, although I should like to excuse myself from this since I am a woman and write simply what they ordered me to write. But these spiritual matters for anyone who like myself has not gone through studies are so difficult to explain. I shall have to find some mode of explaining myself, and it may be less often that I hit upon a good comparison. Seeing so much stupidity will provide some recreation for your Reverence.

It seems now to me that I read or heard of this comparison — for since I have a bad memory, I don’t know where or for what reason it was used, but it will be all right for my purposes. Beginners must realize that in order to give delight to the Lord they are starting to cultivate a garden on very barren soil, full of abominable weeds. His Majesty pulls up the weeds and plants good seed. Now let us keep in mind that all of this is already done by the time a soul is determined to practice prayer and has begun to make use of it. And with the help of God we must strive like good gardeners to get these plants to grow and take pains to water them so that they don’t wither but come to bud and flower and give forth a most pleasant fragrance to provide refreshment for this Lord of ours. Then He will often come to take delight in this garden and find His joy among these virtues. But let us see now how it must be watered so that we may understand what we have to do, the labour this will cost us, whether the labour is greater than the gain, and for how long it must last. It seems to me the garden can be watered in four ways. You may draw water from a well (which is for us a lot of work). Or you may get it by means of a water wheel and aqueducts in such a way that it is obtained by turning the crank of the water wheel. (I have drawn it this way sometimes —the method involves less work than the other, and you get more water.) Or it may flow from a river or a stream. (The garden is watered much better by this means because the ground is more fully soaked, and there is no need to water so frequently — and much less work for the gardener.) Or the water may be provided by a great deal of rain. (For the Lord waters the garden without any work on our part — and this way is incomparably better than all the others mentioned.) Now, then, these four ways of drawing water in order to maintain this garden — because without water it will die — are what are important to me and have seemed applicable in explaining the four degrees of prayer in which the Lord in His goodness has sometimes placed my soul. May it please His goodness that I manage to speak about them in a way beneficial for one of the persons who ordered me to write this, because within four months the Lord has brought him further than I got in seventeen years. This person has prepared himself better, and so without any labour of his own the flower garden is watered with all these four waters, although the last is still not given except in drops. But he is advancing in such a way that soon he will be immersed in it, with the help of the Lord.”

Life 11,5-8

The best watering is watering by rainfall. Now what does this mean for prayer? Prayer still needs practice, because a garden requires care, even when it rains, and also requires weeding, as weeds will shoot up like before. Then what has changed? According to Teresa, it is the degree of effort. Practice will be practice, but the attitude with which it is done has changed, just like the form, or rather the meaning of the form. The objective is no longer to achieve something, but rather to be something, more specifically, to be a partner of God or, as Teresa says, a friend of God. It is no longer action that holds a prominent place, but ascetic practice; it is no longer words that are offered, but a stay, even though the prayer will retain its external form. The garden remains unaltered; what changes is the method of watering, the inner attitude.

According to Teresa, transformatio takes place on the basis of the offer of friendship with God to which the human replies. It is God who brings about the transformatio in a human, but He will not work without the help of this human or without his permission given in a loving reply. The care of the garden of the soul, in which God takes pleasure and where he finds joy, is and continues to be exacting to the human, yet what initially may have been experienced as a duty has changed into living in and from the friendship with God. This may not reduce the effort, but does fundamentally change the motivation.

I would like to illustrate this by a simple example from the time when I was a chaplain in our parish in Vienna. Again and again, I noticed an unusual change in male altar servers. At times, it was rather difficult to maintain decorum when they reached the age of puberty. They would come to Mass with uncombed hair, wearing their oldest jeans and dilapidated sneakers, and it was only with difficulty that we could bring them to comb their hair at the very least. Then suddenly a change would set in. The same boys would come to Mass well-dressed and combed, smelling like a perfumery. What had happened? They had fallen in love and their adored ones were in the church or were also altar servers. What initially had seemed something that could only be achieved by pressure and threats became a natural thing through love; the effort that had been avoided became a light one that was readily made. It is a simple example, but I think that it describes well what also happens in faith: the effort of faith, the ascesis, the trouble of faith changes into a burden that is carried willingly and with pleasure in the friendship with God and out of love for God.

John of the Cross

Some lines by John of the Cross describing the transformatio point in a similar direction:

“A ray of sunlight shining upon a smudgy window is unable to illumine that window completely and transform it into its own light. It could do this if the window were cleaned and polished. The less the film and stain are wiped away, the less the window will be illumined; and the cleaner the window is, the brighter will be its illumination. The extent of illumination is not dependent upon the ray of sunlight but upon the window. If the window is totally clean and pure, the sunlight will so transform and illumine it that to all appearances the window will be identical with the ray of sunlight and shine just as the sun’s ray. Although obviously the nature of the window is distinct from that of the sun’s ray (even if the two seem identical), we can assert that the window is the ray or light of the sun by participation.

The soul upon which the divine light of God’s being is ever shining, or better, in which it is always dwelling by nature, is like this window, as we have affirmed.

A man makes room for God by wiping away all the smudges and smears of creatures, by uniting his will perfectly to God’s; for to love is to labour to divest and deprive oneself for God of all that is not God. When this is done the soul will be illumined by and transformed in God. And God will so communicate His supernatural being to it that it will appear to be God Himself and will possess all that God Himself has.”

Ascent to Mount Carmel II, 5,6f. 

John explains that love of God certainly has emotional qualities, which he considers important especially for beginners, but that mature love consists in labouring to detach and strip oneself for God’s sake of all that is not God, to achieve nothing less than total conformity to God, to become transparent to God.

Many people tend to have a rather romantic-emotional understanding of love, which is reinforced by the almost countless pop songs about love and passion. However, the New Testament, or rather the Greek language, distinguishes three types of love: eros, including eroticism, that is, intimate love; philia, or friendship; and agape, or love of one’s neighbour.

As the love for God concerns the whole human, these facets of love are also found in the love of God. However, John of the Cross sees a clear development in the sense of an ascending path to a love that shows itself in a mature relationship and develops from childish attachment and being in love to mature love, working on oneself for God’s sake.

Therefore, a religious human should ‘lay aside his swaddling bands’, and this is the reason why John of the Cross regards a constant longing for new religious experiences with disfavour. He writes:

“Any person questioning God or desiring some vision or revelation would be guilty not only of foolish behaviour but also of offending Him, by not fixing his eyes entirely upon Christ and by living with the desire for some other novelty.

God could respond as follows: If I have already told you all things in My Word, My Son, and if I have no other word, what answer or revela­tion can I now make that would surpass this? Fasten your eyes on Him alone, because in Him I have spoken and revealed all, and in Him you shall discover even more than you ask for and desire. You are making an appeal for locutions and revelations that are incomplete, but if you turn your eyes to Him you will find them complete. For He is My entire locution and response, vision and revelation, which I have already spoken, answered, manifested, and revealed to you, by giving Him to you as a brother, companion, master, ransom, and reward.” 

Ascent of Mount Carmel II,22,5 

The longing for religious experiences is a kind of dependence that should be overcome for two reasons. Firstly, the critical question arises as to what a human with such a longing is looking for – a religious experience or God. Especially nowadays, religion is more and more described functionally, that is, it is considered as meaningful only when it has a useful function for humans, that is, it is considered with nothing but the objective of satisfying human needs in mind. In the Church, too, there is widespread confusion: are we seeking God’s consolation or seeking God?

The second consequence of a dependence on experiences is, very simply, loss of freedom. I cannot be free in my relationship with God, when I constantly make this relationship dependent on expected experiences. God cannot be free anymore either, when He becomes the subject of my manipulations.

“Sometimes many beginners also possess great spiritual avarice. They will hardly ever seem content with the spirit God gives them. They become unhappy and peevish owing to a lack of the consolation they desire to have in spiritual things.” 

Dark Night I,3,1

John of the Cross considers such an interest in ‘something tasty’ as childish:

“They are like children who are prompted to act not by reason but by pleasure. All their time is spent looking for satisfaction and spiritual consolation; … God very rightly and discreetly and lovingly denies this satisfaction to these beginners, for if He did not, they would fall into innumerable evils because of their spiritual gluttony and craving for sweetness. Wherefore it is important for these beginners to enter the dark night and be purged of this childishness.”

Dark Night, I,6,6

On the whole, John of the Cross is more concerned with this critical moment during the transformation. He is interested in transition phenomena, such as at the transition from the phase of beginners to that of the advanced. The necessary changes involved are always also somewhat crisis-like, which he captures with the concept of the dark night.

“It should be known, then, that God nurtures and caresses the soul, after it has been resolutely converted to His service, like a loving mother who warms her child with the heat of her bosom, nurses it with good milk and tender food, and carries and caresses it in her arms. But as the child grows older, the mother withholds her caresses and hides her tender love; she rubs bitter aloes on her sweet breast and sets the child down from her arms, letting it walk on its own feet so that it may put aside the habits of childhood and grow accustomed to greater and more important things. The grace of God acts just as a loving mother by re-engendering in the soul new enthusiasm and fervour in the service of God. With no effort on the soul’s part, this grace causes it to taste sweet and delectable milk and to experience intense satisfaction in the performance of spiritual exercises, because God is handing the breast of His tender love to the soul, just as if it were a delicate child.” (1 Peter 2:2-3)

Dark Night I,1,2 

The dark night was seen as a necessary experience on the spiritual path of a person. May be it could also mean, that a community, an order will have the experience of a dark night to be purified from “childishness” and so mature.

In our tradition, it is considered a fundamental task to mature in one’s faith, in spiritual life, to free oneself from such childishness – or better, to be freed from it.

“Isaias explains this clearly: ‘Whom shall God teach His knowledge? And to whom shall He explain His message? To them that are weaned, he says, from the milk, and to them who are drawn away from the breasts’ (Isaiah 28:9). This passage indicates that the preparation for this divine influx is not the former milk of spiritual sweetness, nor aid from the breast of the discursive meditations of the sensory faculties which the soul enjoyed, but the privation of the one and a withdrawal from the other.

In order to hear God, a person should stand firm and be detached in his sense life and affections, as the prophet himself declares: I will stand upon my watch (with detached appetite) and will fix my foot (I will not meditate with the sensory faculties) in order to contemplate (understand) what God says to me (Hebrews 2: 1).

We conclude that self-knowledge flows first from this dry night, and that from this knowledge as from its source proceeds the other knowledge of God. Hence St. Augustine said to God: Let me know myself Lord, and I will know You.”

Dark Night, I,12,5

The development of independence and individuality, practiced in solitude with and for God, is important particularly in the tradition of our Order. Along with the eremitical tradition it is this conviction which underlies Chapter 6 of the Carmelite I that reads: “Next, each one of you is to have a separate cell...” It is the monk’s own cell as a sphere of retreat, of solitude and the dialogue with God to which the Carmelite Rule attaches decisive importance. As Chapter 10 of the Rule stresses, every Carmelite is supposed to be found in his cell at any time, unless he is busy completing a task in accordance with the Rule. The most important site of spiritual life in Carmel is the cell, it becomes the place of self-knowledge and the knowledge of God and thus the realm of spiritual development or transformation.

A human is called to nothing less than to achieve total conformity to God, and at the end of this process he will receive everything that John of the Cross expresses so powerfully in his “Prayer of a Soul Taken with Love”. I would like to conclude with this text.

“You will not take from me, my God, what you once gave me in your only son, Jesus Christ, in whom you gave me all I desire. Hence I rejoice that if I wait for you, you will not delay. With what procrastinations do you wait, since from this very moment you can love God in your heart? Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth. Mine are the nations, the just are mine, and mine are the sinners. The angels are mine, and the Mother of God, and all things are mine; and God himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me. What do you ask, then, and seek, my soul? Yours is all of this, and all is for you. Do not engage yourself in something less, nor pay heed to the crumbs which fall from your Father’s table. Go forth and exult in your Glory! Hide yourself in it and rejoice, and you will obtain the supplications of your heart.”

Sayings of Light and Love, 25[7] 

[1]     Teresa of Avila, Works quoted from: Teresa of Avila, Collected Works, translated by K. Kavanaugh & O. Rodriguez. Volume II. Washington D.C.: 1980.

[2]     Cf.: Bäumer R./ Plattig M. (Eds.), Noche Oscura y Depresiòn. Crisis espirituales y psicològicas: naturaleza y diferencias. Bilbao: 2011. Plattig M., Die `dunkle Nacht´ als Gotteserfahrung, in: Studies in Spirituality 4 (1994). 165-205.

[3]     The abbreviations and extracts from the Bible are taken from: The Revised English Bible, With the Apocrypha. Oxford/Cambridge: 1989.

[4]     A comprehensive discussion is found in: Guillet J., Bardy G., et al., ‘Discernement des esprits’, in: Dictionaire de Spiritualité, Volume III. 1222-1291.

[5]     John of the Cross, Works; quoted from: John of the Cross, The Collected Works, Revised Edition, translated by K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez. Washington D.C.: 1991.

[6]     This is from the translation of the Valladolid manuscript, a shorter edition of the Way of Perfection.

[7]     John of the Cross, Sayings of Light and Love, No. 25, quoted from: John of the Cross, The Collected Works, Revised Edition, translated by K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez. Washington D.C.: 1991. 669.

Michael Plattig, O.Carm., is a member of the German Province of the Order and is currently director of the Institutum Carmelitanum in Rome. This paper was delivered in the Carmelite European Youth meeting, which took place in Fatima in August 2014.

Angela Blardony Ureta, A.O.Carm

Today, we commemorate the feast day of one of the most remarkable women to have ever walked the earth, a Spanish contemplative nun who lived and died well over four centuries ago but whose words and deeds continue to impact us, especially those who have chosen to heed the silent call of Carmel.

Much had been said about Teresa of Avila – the great leader, mystic and reformer of the fifteenth century. Renowned scholars have written volumes of books and papers over the centuries about the depth of her theology and the complexity of her spiritual life. As one of the Church’s most popular and influential saints, she has inspired men and women to enter the religious life – particularly the monasteries and cloisters of Carmel – and to pursue a life dedicated to intimately knowing God. And from these followers of the great Teresa, there have been many martyrs, beatos and saints whom we now look up to as models of faith.

For us who are lay Carmelites, Teresa seems to be a more distant and looming figure than the “little flower” Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, who is certainly a favourite patroness of millions all over the world, or perhaps the more contemporary personages like twentieth century Carmelites Blessed Titus Brandsma and Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein).

What Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Blessed Titus Brandsma and Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross have in common is that they were all great admirers of Teresa of Avila, whose impassioned writings had greatly influenced their own vocation and spirituality.

From a lay perspective, especially for us who are neither scholars nor theologians, who is Teresa of Avila? How do we demystify her? How do we make her accessible and relevant to our daily lives?

As a media practitioner, I believe that the biggest challenge we face when introducing a subject is making our topic understood by all – because the nature of mass media is that you cannot choose your audience.

So how do we propose to speak about Teresa of Avila today? By talking less about the illustrious and lofty saint, and more about the witty and sensible woman who was, by and large, a product of her times. We have to see Teresa from the background of her historical, social, cultural and political milieu in order to understand her better and appreciate her spirituality, which ripened over time in the context of her personal human experiences.

Teresa in history: Born at a crossroads of time

Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada was born within the fabled walls of Avila on March 28, 1515. At that time, Europe ruled the world and the Holy Roman Empire ruled the crowned heads of the continent. The West was expanding into Asia and the Americas, hoisting the cross on one hand and the sword on the other.

The person that was Teresa had been shaped primarily by the historical, political, cultural and religious landscape in which she lived. She was born at a crossroads in history, when the world teetered between the Renaissance Period and the Age of Discovery and Exploration. Like the promise of springtime after the long winter that was the Dark Ages, the Renaissance signified ‘rebirth’, a widespread reform in intellectual and artistic pursuits, which saw the historical world move from darkness to light, from ignorance to enlightenment. Emboldened by their newfound skills and knowledge, the kingdoms of Europe ventured into distant territories in a zealous (and often brutal) mission to claim souls for Christ and gold for the crown.

During this period, Spain and Portugal led Europe in exploring the world’s seas and in opening oceanic trade routes. Large parts of the New World became Spanish and Portuguese colonies. Meanwhile, the Protestant Reformation gave a major blow to the authority of the Papacy and the Roman Catholic Church, as religious conflicts came to dominate politics. In the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire continued to expand, threatening the Christian colonizers. In the world of arts and sciences, the prodigious Italian painter Michaelangelo finished painting the Sistine Chapel, while Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus proposed a ‘heliocentric’ (sun-centred) universe but was met with strong resistance, although later proven to be correct.

Teresa was a product of this scholarly period; she could read and write, rare for women of her time. Born only 23 years after Christopher Columbus’ sail to Hispaniola under the Spanish flag, her life was in many ways intertwined with the early history of the Hispanic New World. She had at least two brothers who served as conquistadores in Peru, conquered by Francisco Pizzaro in 1533. And growing up hearing stories about the quest for gold and adventure in the New World, she harboured an intense desire to learn, to explore, to conquer the infidels and to die for the faith.

In 1542, the Roman Inquisition began, the same year that both Juan de Yepes y Alvarez (later known as John of the Cross) and Leonardo da Vinci were born. Teresa was then 27. (Two years earlier, the Society of Jesus was founded by her fellow Spaniard, Ignatius of Loyola, and in England, the apostate Henry VIII was king.)

Also in 1542, Conquistador Ruy Lopez de Villalobos sailed from Mexico on the route of Ferdinand Magellan, and reached land on the other side of the globe four months later; he named the new colony ‘Las Islas Filipinas’ in honour of the prince, Don Felipe de Asturias.

By 1562, Teresa had begun reforming Carmel with John of the Cross – just two years before, Galileo Galilei and William Shakespeare were born. In 1582, the year she died at Alba de Tormes, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the new Christian Calendar. The day she passed away – October 4 – was the last Julian day in pontifical states, including Spain. This is why we now celebrate her Feast Day on October 15.

From these few examples we can see that throughout her entire life, Teresa lived in a world that was changing rapidly, even if societies and cultures struggled against transformation. Despite the world opening up around them, she lived in a land where social customs and religious traditions continued to be inflexible, and where she was often criticized for her non-conformist ways and revolutionary thinking. If not for her inborn charisma and irrepressible wit, this feisty nun would have ended up in the unforgiving flames of the Inquisition instead of founding convents. But such was not her fate.

In 1622, forty years after her death, she was canonized by Pope Gregory XV, and in 1970 named the first female Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI. She wrote books which include her autobiography, The Life of Teresa of Jesus, and her seminal work, El Castillo Interior (The Interior Castle) – now integral components of Spanish Renaissance literature as well as of Christian mysticism and Christian meditation practices, as she teaches us in her other important work Camino de Perfección (The Way of Perfection).

She is one of the patron saints of Spain and is the special protector of people with bodily ills and headaches, of lace makers, orphans, people in need of grace, women in Religious Orders, and individuals who are ridiculed for their piety.

A saint but not an angel

Many accounts on her life and works describe Teresa as an astute religious reformer and administrator, an inspired spiritual director, and an extraordinary mystical writer. Truly, she was a saint… but definitely, she was no angel.

The first forty years of Teresa’s life give no clue to the rich depth and productivity of the second half of her life. Her grandfather was a converted Jew who climbed his way into the aristocracy by marrying well; so did her own father. Motherless at age 14 and spoiled by a doting father, she was a vain, vivacious, exquisitely stylish young lady who was the centre of attention of any social function. She was known to be an excellent singer and dancer, and held everyone enthralled by her smart conversation. As she herself admitted in her later writings, she also liked to flirt with the young men who paid her court, so much so that she became so infatuated with a handsome cousin at age 16, prompting her father to pack her off to an Augustinian convent where she had limited access to male company.

Teresa was certainly unlike most privileged young ladies of her time. Raised at par with her male siblings, she was given basic education and was allowed to think for herself. Early on, she was able to make life choices that determined her future – a concession not available to the average sixteenth century woman. She knew she did not want to enter into an arranged marriage (as was the custom then) but neither did she wish to become a sorry spinster. So at age 21, against her father’s wishes, she professed vows as a Carmelite at the Convent of the Incarnation in Avila.

The convent was known for its leniency, permitting close personal relationships with those outside the convent and allowing worldly possessions within. Being overpopulated but penniless, the convent encouraged contact with the outside world, so as to bring in donations and alms for the nuns. At its parlour the lively aristocrat from Avila was, of course, one of those often called to amuse guests or to console capricious matrons.

Even inside the Incarnation, she used her noble title ‘Dona Teresa de Ahumada’. Enjoying the convent’s indulgences, she waned in her Christian devotion. Then she was forced by a serious, prolonged illness (worsened by partial paralysis from an attempted cure) to spend three years in relative quiet. She read books on the spiritual life. When she recovered and returned to the convent she resumed what to her later seemed only a half-hearted spirituality. Of these years, she wrote in her autobiography, “I voyaged on this tempestuous sea for almost twenty years with these fallings and risings”.[1]

When she was nearly 40, Teresa – who had found it hard to pray for the last two decades – had a profound religious experience. One day, while walking down a hallway in the convent, her glance fell on an image of Christ being scourged at the pillar. Almost instantly, her heart was pierced by the vision of his constant love throughout her desert period of infidelity.

As she said later, Jesus gently but powerfully revealed the cause of her spiritual collapse: her daily exposure to the trivial yet burdensome delights of sin. She wept all night and immediately broke with her past, undergoing a final conversion. After this, she began experiencing the profound mystical raptures that would cause her so much pain and ridicule, but at the same time, would bring her unspeakable joy and ecstasy as her existence became increasingly difficult.

In the last 20 years of her life, Teresa gave herself completely to personal spiritual growth and the renewal of the Carmelite monasteries. She spent her last years traveling the countryside establishing reformed (or ‘discalced’, meaning ‘unshod’, that is, ‘more simple’) Carmelite convents. She founded fourteen monasteries and died, quite literally, in the line of duty. On yet another mission of service at Alba de Tormes, her body exhausted and worn out by a lingering illness that led to profuse bleeding, Madre Teresa de Jesus died reciting verses from the Song of Songs.

Teresa in relation to other saints and great thinkers          

In 1562, Teresa met Fray Pedro de Alcántara, a Franciscan reformer whose saintliness inspired her to confide in him as her spiritual guide. Inspired by his attempt to restore his Order to its original barefoot poverty, Teresa took it upon herself to reform the Carmelites along similar lines.

In Salamanca she chose Padre Domingo de Bañez, an eminent Dominican theologian and an exponent and defender of Thomistic doctrine, as her director and confessor, showing her acute intellect and confidence even in the company of learned men.

In 1567, she met the young John of the Cross, whom she enlisted to extend her reform into the male side of the Carmelite Order. Inspired by the Spirit, she immediately talked to him about her reformation projects even if he was then just newly ordained and almost three decades her junior. She asked him to give up his entry into the Carthusians.

Meanwhile, saints from future generations like Francis de Sales and Alphonsus Liguori, both Doctors of the Church, not only greatly admired Teresa, but turned to her works for enlightenment and inspiration.

Philosopher Edith Stein went from being born a Jew to becoming an atheist and eventually, to conversion to the Roman Catholic Church after reading Saint Teresa’s autobiography. Stein became a Carmelite nun but was murdered by Nazis for her Jewish heritage in the gas chambers of Auschwitz during World War II. We now know her as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

Teresa and the gift of ‘holy wit’

“From silly devotions and sour-faced saints, O Lord, deliver us!” This is probably one of the most popular quotes attributed to Teresa, one that tells us in one humorous yet evocative line her philosophy for life and faith.

Teresa mastered the art of living lightly and well; her devotion to Jesus Christ was matched only by her zest for life and her unbridled sense of humour. She prayed a lot, she laughed a lot.

Once when praying about her many trials and sufferings, she thought she heard God say, “But this is how I treat my friends.” With characteristic petulance, Teresa replied, “No wonder you have so few...”

A healthy sense of humour allows us to break but not shatter. Teresa had many outstanding qualities as a religious reformer and spiritual director, but for this lecture we narrow our focus in order to enjoy and profit from one of her most outstanding – though often overlooked – gifts: the ability to live by ‘holy wit’.

Teresa had her eyes focused on heaven while her feet remained firmly planted on the ground. She exhibited the twin qualities of humility and humour – a woman of many healthy contradictions that made her whole. She believed that finding the lighter side of things can also be holy if you are doing it to achieve God’s work.

Doing God’s work requires hard work and virtue: concern for others expressed in deeds and not mere talk; ego annihilation through a hardy obedience and detachment from self-satisfaction; trust and humility “in the presence of infinite Wisdom”. We must have a good sense of humour as well as a healthy dose of common sense.

     Indulgent yet austere, Teresa knew both pleasure and penance. She loved giving and receiving gifts, but also lived very simply in daily life. The story is told of her being invited to dinner at a patron’s house and of a guest making a snide remark about the nun enthusiastically devouring a partridge. She was said to have exclaimed: “When I fast, I fast; and when I eat partridge, I eat partridge!”

Yet Teresa was very vigilant against being selfish and self-indulgent, fussing about her health, her need for rest, her desire for tranquillity and order. She advised her young nuns to take care of their health but not to give in to every little malady, or else “the body grows fat and the soul weakens”.

She was idealistic, but also very practical, sensible and down to earth. “God deliver me from people so spiritual they want to turn everything into perfect contemplation,” she once said in relation to the extreme discipline and lack of mirth of a young friar.

Teresa, who dreamed big and always saw the positive side of any situation, also knew how to lighten the load by not taking everything seriously. As she quipped to a young nun who wanted to stifle any entertaining comments that occurred to her during recreation time: “It is bad enough… to be stupid by nature without trying to be stupid by grace.”

She had a romantic nature that was tempered by a clear and rational mind… and also a sharp tongue. To a prioress who complained of a nun’s love for books, her spiky reply was, “Better a bookworm than a fool!” On another occasion, when some of her contemplative nuns complained about doing manual work, she gave her now famous quotation: “Know that if it (the work) is in the kitchen, the Lord walks among the pots and pans.”

And in The Way of Perfection, she gives a clear example on why sensible action is just as important as pious contemplation:

“Saint Martha was holy, but we are not told that she was a contemplative. If she had been absorbed in devotion all the time, as Magdalene was, there would have been no one to prepare a meal for the Divine Guest.”

Teresa and prayer

Prayer, for Teresa, is a “solitary converse, with Him who we know loves us”. She was a renowned mystic, yet remained pragmatic.  She took supernatural occurrence with down-to-earth humour and slight scepticism of the ‘here and now’.

Teresa underlined the need to cultivate lofty thoughts, which are greatly helped by spiritual guidance from a suitable confessor, reading spiritual books, and the regular practice of prayer. She saw prayer not as a passive activity but as a rugged and robust exercise. And like any exercise, you have to do it religiously and without fail, whether you like it or not. For those times when we feel empty or unsure, she recommends a simple and highly personal method: “Look at Christ who is looking at you.”

Although she was the life of any conversation, Teresa was known to spend long hours in prayer and silence. On one occasion, she heard how some of her nuns were warned by hostile priests not to engage in deep contemplation as they may be “tricked by the enemy”. To this, the unfazed foundress retorted: “Prayer is the duty of the religious, God forbid that it should be dangerous. Cease troubling about these fears. This is not the time to believe everyone; believe only those whom you see modelling their lives on the life of Christ.”

For Teresa, prayer is the source of Christian life and the wellspring of all moral virtues. Prayer is not everything, but without prayer, nothing else is possible. Under this umbrella of prayer, God works in mysterious, often unpredictable, ways, and the soul works strongly.

Her understanding of disengagement from the world is not necessarily ascetic. On the contrary, her idea of genuine suffering comes from being fully present in the world and serving others. Spiritual progress is measured neither by self-imposed penance nor by the sweetest pleasures of mystical experiences but by growth in constant love for others and an increasing desire within for the will of God.[2]

As she wrote in Life:

“God and the soul understand each other… It’s like the experience of two persons here on earth who love each other deeply and understand each other well.”

Keeping our gaze on God

Like men and women of our generation, Teresa of Avila suffered from bouts of despair, especially as she was forced by age to weaken and slow down. “There come days in which one word alone distresses me, and I would want to leave the world because it seems everything is a bother to me,” she confesses in her memoirs.

Despite the eminent stature she occupies in the Church today, we have to remember that while she was founding her reformed convents, Teresa was actually a sickly old woman who travelled great lengths on rough roads and bad weather, often with little food and even less sleep.

In her writings Teresa openly talked about her failing health, her memory loss, her inability to do what she was instructed, even her shortcomings as an author. As she narrates and itemizes her own weakness, she calls herself “gloomy” and “ill-tempered” and admits that she often gets so angry she wants to “eat everyone up, without being able to help it”. As her disillusionment grows, she describes herself as a “helpless little bird with broken wings” or “a stupid little donkey grazing”.

Whether lay or religious, we are likely to reach a stage in our lives and in our work when we no longer feel as capable or as effective as we were years back. Or, we begin to question why we are doing these things in the first place – what have we accomplished that is of any relevance to the world?

Discouragement quickly follows, as we no longer understand ourselves and our real motivations. We become weak and cowardly on the moral level and see that “our natural bent is toward the worst rather than the best”. We find ourselves so physically limited and incapable of greatness that we are even greatly affected by “changes in the weather and the rotating of the bodily humours”.

All around us and in ourselves we see deception, duplicity, and lies. As Teresa notes, the world is a mockery, a joke, “as good as a play”. We are stunned by our experience of impermanence, instability and insecurity. We try to protect ourselves because we are afraid of the truth that haunts our sleeping and sometimes even our waking hours, the truth that the Buddhist and Hindu traditions call samsara: Everything changes, passes, and dies—and so will we. But as Teresa wrote in her famous bookmark prayer: “Todo se pasa” – all things are passing. “Solo Dios basta” – God alone suffices!

Teresa continues to inspire us even four centuries after her death. Her teaching has the power to see us through a lifetime and will endure hundreds of years after us, because the wisdom she shares is timeless and perennial.

Wherever you find yourself today, whether you are delighted or disillusioned, filled with wonder or wounded, shining or shattered in this modern world that is constantly changing and moving rapidly towards its own destruction, Teresa has a word of wisdom just for you: “All our troubles come from not keeping our eyes on Christ!”

References

Auclair, M.: Teresa of Avila. New York: Pantheon Books. 2004.

Hutchison, G.: Teresa of Avila: Living by Holy Wit. Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger Press. 1999.

Smith, J.V.: The Way of Perfection: A Simplified Version. Manila: National Book Store Publishers. 1977.

ChristianHistory.net: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/innertravelers/avila.html?start=2

[1]        http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/innertravelers/

         avila.html

[2]        http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/innertravelers/

         avila.html?start=2

On the 15th of October, the feast of St. Teresa, a solemn Eucharist was celebrated in Avila to mark the closing of the 5th Centenary of the birth of the Carmelite saint. The Archbishop of Valladolid and President of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, Ricardo Blásquez, led the celebration, with many bishops and priests concelebrating. The concelebrants included the Prior General, Fr. Fernando Millán Romeral, O.Carm., and the Superior General of the Discalced Carmelites, Fr. Saverio Cannistrà, O.C.D., Following the Eucharist, the participants walked in procession with the statue of St.Teresa to the church on the site where she was born. 

Among the many participants there was a group of pilgrims from Australia, led by Dennis Andrews, O.Carm, the Provincial of Australia and Timor Leste, Fr. Greg Burke. O.C.D. and Paul Sireh, O.Carm.

While the Prior General was in Avila he took time out to visit the Monastery of Fontiveros (John of the Cross’ birthplace) and the interprovincial novitiate community in Salamanca, where he gave a talk on what is happening in the Order, to a very sizeable group of novices.  The previous evening the novices led a prayer vigil in the church of the Discalced Carmelites in Salamanca.

As well as that, in the monastery of the Discalced nuns in Alba de Tormes, on the 14th of October a solemn novena began to mark the closing of the Centenary. Fr. Alejandro López-Lapuente, O.Carm., from the community in Salamanca, led the celebration of the Eucharist and preached on the 14th and 16th of October. 

The Elective Chapter of the Carmelite Monastery of Paranavaí, Brazil, was held 10 October 2015. The following were elected:

• Prioress:  Sr. Derly de Paula Moreira, O.Carm.
• 1st Councilor:   Sr. Edna Maria Lopes de Sousa, O.Carm.
• 2nd Councilor:  Sr. Maria do Carmo da Conceição , O.Carm.
• Director of Novices:  Sr. Edna Maria Lopes de Sousa, O.Carm.
• Treasurer:  Sr. Edna Maria Lopes de Sousa, O.Carm.
• Sacristan:  Sr. Derly de Paula Moreira, O.Carm.

From July 23 to August 9 in Lima, Peru, a formation course was carried out for students and young formators in the Americas. The meeting covered issues in the field of academics, spirituality and psychology, as well as workshops on leadership, several pastoral experiences in poor areas of Lima and some cultural visits. Keynote speakers were John Welch, O. Carm., USA; and Carlos Mesters, O.Carm., Brazil, who spoke of the great Carmelite saints and the great figures of Mary, Elijah and Elisha. This first course was organized by Raul Maraví, O. Carm., General Councilor of the Americas, at the request of superiors, commissaries and delegates from the Americas. This meeting was attended by 23 friars from 10 different nations in the hemisphere, who enjoyed the internationality of the Order and a great fraternal atmosphere.

Also, from 26 to 31 October, the IV ALACAR Congress will be held in San Salvador, El Salvador (Central America), bringing together representatives of the O.Carm. and OCD families of Latin America: friars, nuns, religious and laity. The conference will focus in Saint Teresa of  Jesus on the occasion of the V centenary of her birth. Both Fr. Fernando Millán Romeral, O.Carm., Prior General of the Carmelite Order, and Fr. Saverio Cannistrà, OCD, Superior General of the Discalced Carmelites, will be speakers at this important gathering.