St. Teresa of Avila

I have a special devotion to St. Teresa of Avila whose feast it is today and one of the many things which I still haven't seen in Rome but the one that I wish to see the most is this sculpture of her ecstasy or transverberation in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. For me, the writings of the mystics are the most inspiring of all the saints and motivate me to love Christ more than any other written word. I first read the writings of St. Teresa when I was 18 in my first year of University and bought "The Way of Perfection". My 18th year was one for me of the greatest spiritual significance. It was the year when I first felt called to religious life and through the writings of St. Teresa and St. Therese of Lisieux, went from somebody who identified himself as a Christian to somebody who wanted to love God as much as he possibly could. I say wanted because I recognise of course my sinfulness and how little I do love God but the desire is there and that's the first and most important step. Two ideas of St. Teresa had a very profound impact on me. Firstly, something that she says on one of the first pages of the Way of Perfection and I paraphrase here:

Jesus has so few true friends that those he has must be good ones

Such a simple notion but so true, who upon reading those words would not want to be a good friend of Jesus? The second idea is that of detachment: the ancient Christian notion that to from everything but God we must be detached. This does not mean of course that we cannot have any friends, be married or have possessions but we must recognise in all these things that they are not our ultimate love and so we must not love them ultimately. We can discern when we are attached to a person or thing when we are hurt when they do not spend all their time with us or when we feel neglected by them, even if they have the best intentions. Discerning our attachments is one of the most important and one of the hardest objectives in the pursuit of the Way of Perfection.

Thus with this background knowledge of how important St. Teresa is to me you can imagine how I felt when in 2003 I had the great priviledge of visiting Avila and seeing the important sites in her life. Greatest among these was the singular honour of hearing mass in the very chapel where she experienced the ecstasy depicted in the sculpture by Bernini shown above. This was one of the most moving experiences of my life. The convent, built in the sixteenth century but lavishly decorated since was the home of Carmelite enclosed nuns. For those of you don't know they are the nuns with the strictest enclosure in the Catholic church, as the saying goes "At Carmel, there is just you and God". The convent thus has a congregation of apostolic sisters who look after it and let in visitors because the nuns cannot leave the enclosure. It was just as one would like it to be: when the priest who was taking us around knocked on the grand wooden door the sister who answered it opened a little panel set into the door to inspect the visitor before she opened the door, fantastic. We were let in and wandered through corridors littered with ecclesiastical treasures of the renaissance and baroque eras til we entered the chapel for mass. The chapel was of course unbelievably beautiful with a painting of the ecstasy above the altar and whilst father was saying mass we could hear the nuns singing the office (prayers said five times a day). I couldn't help tears from falling.

St. Teresa describes the ecstasy as follows:

...Beside me, on the left hand, appeared an angel in bodily form, such as I am not in the habit of seeing except very rarely. Though I often have visions of angels, I do not see them....But it was our Lord's will that I should see this angel in the following way. He was not tall but short, and very beautiful; and his face was so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest rank of angels, who seem to be all on fire. They must be of the kind called cherubim, but they do not tell me their names. I know very well that there is a great difference between some angels and others, and between these and others still, but I could not possibly explain it. In his hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he pulled it out, I felt that he took them with it, and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, nor is one's soul then content with anything but God. This is not a physical, but a spiritual pain, though the body has some share in it--even a considerable share. So gentle is this wooing which takes place between God and the soul that if anyone thinks I am lying, I pray God in his goodness, to grant him some experience of it.

The reason why this sculpture is such a good depiction for me is that it was sculpted by Bernini. Bernini ( who also created the Holy Spirit window with its bronze angels in St. Peter's basilica) was not just an artist but also a very devout Catholic who heard mass every day. For him this sculpture was a way to convey the faith that he loved so much.

St. Teresa of Avila,

Pray for Us,

Daniel