Giles writes

Dear Friends,

As we try to get deeper into our prayer life and grow as Christians I would like to share the story of this Saint with you.

                              Teresa of Avilla

The anniversary of Teresa is on the 15th of October. Teresa was born in Spain in 1515, became a nun in the Carmelite tradition and founded many other religious houses for men and women throughout Spain during her lifetime. She is especially remembered for her writings about her own spiritual life and progress in prayer towards union with God. The Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle can still be bought as Penguin Classics and are still used by people exploring their own relationship with God, today. Teresa also worked with the mystic, John of the Cross teaching about the spiritual life. Teresa's great gifts to Christians were her profound insights into the life of prayer and relationship with God (or Spirituality, which is the technical term).

We can pray aloud, in private or in church (or say prayers in our heads) like the Lord's prayer and the liturgies and we can read the Bible. These are the beginnings for Teresa. She thought of people being like a castle surrounded by a moat. There are lots of rooms inside, and at the centre is God. Our spiritual journey is from the outside, through six rooms until we find God, in the seventh central room (seven is also the perfect number in Jewish theology).

The outer rooms are that surface-life of prayer, as we become Christians and start to follow Jesus. Peop1e are committed to Christ, but not deeply. We can get stuck in the first three rooms and not progress. It is only by letting God start to take over our lives that we cease to grow as Christians, purely by our own efforts, and start to grow according to God's direction and strength.

From the fourth room we begin prayer that has moved beyond words and where we start to simply contemplate God in silence, adoring him. Our greater closeness to God leads, by the time you arrive in the fifth room, to a greater love of our neighbour. Christians now start to realise that we must share Christ's sufferings as well as his joy.

By the sixth room there is desolation and pain as well as unexpected joy and delight. We start to fully share in Christ's life. This phase often sees great spiritual growth.

In the seventh room we reach peace and stability. We love God deeply and become a spiritual bride of Christ. The contemplative Mary and the busy bustling Martha (Luke 10:32-48) merge together as an apostolic life of contemplation and action that bears fruit in the world. This is all the subject of the Interior Castle, which is still very valuable guide book to prayer today. Teresa's work was developed further by John of the Cross, who spoke of the "Dark Night of the Soul".

As we remember Teresa we can say her prayer and give thanks for her life:

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
         no hands but yours,
         no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion to the world is to look out;
         Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;
         Yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now.

St Teresa of Avila

References: Exciting Holiness ed. Brother Tristan pub. Bath Press
The Story of Christan spirituaIity ed. Gordon Mursell pub. Lion



With love,
Giles