St. Teresa [of Avila] teaches...that all are called to the mystic union with God, even in this life.
The means to this end are the perfection in the virtues and the faithful and diligent practice of meditative prayer. Following her mentor St. Peter of Alcantara, she counsels a form of simple meditation consisting of reading devout literature, particularly the Holy Scripture, and that which speaks of Our Lord Jesus Christ, a little at a time, and pausing to meditate upon the words when they strike one, then proceeding with the reading in the same way. The person must persevere in this practice despite temptations and aridity, and the Lord will perhaps reward him with the prayer of recollection of simple affectionate vision of simplicity. This prayer is however not yet contemplative in the strict sense of passive, infused, contemplation, but only in the active, acquired sense.
To find God, St Teresa explains in the same Way of Perfection, 'the soul does not require wings to fly and seek Him, but she can compose herself in solitude and behold Him within herself: and let her not separate from so good a Guest, but with great humility speak to Him as a Father, entreat Him as a Father, relate her troubles to Him, and beg a remedy for them, knowing that she is not worthy to be His daughter....This kind of prayer, though it be vocal, recollects the understanding much sooner, and is a prayer that brings with it many benefits. It is called the prayer of recollection, because in it the soul recollects all the faculties, and enters within herself with her God; ... Those that can thus shut themselves up in this little Heaven of our soul, where He abides who created heaven and earth; and they who can also accustom themselves not to behold, or stay where these exterior senses distract them, let them believe that they walk in an excellent way, and that they shall not fail of being able to drink the living water from the fountain...'
At this stage in the ascent of the soul to God, there follows the 'Night of the Senses', with its pain, illnesses, aridity, violent temptations, and contradictions, which serves to detach the subject from creatures, pleasures, and self, to attach him to God in a state of passive recollection, at the beginnings of infused contemplation. In her 'Relation to Father Rodrigo Alvarez' the saint writes: 'The soul seems to desire to withdraw itself from the external tumults retreating into herself; and sensing that they sometimes come after her, feels the need to close the eyes and not see, nor hear, and not understand anything but that with which she is now occupied, that is to to be able alone to treat with God alone.'
Then it is that a deep and delightful peace inundate the soul in a sweet and supernatural sleep which dilates and enormously expands her love. This is the 'prayer of quiet'. It is most of all the will that participates in this joy, happy to be enslaved in this way by God and happy to enjoy this union with Him, like St. Mary Magdalen in the presence of Our Lord.
In the 'prayer of union', not only the will but all the other faculties - intelligence, memory, imagination - are suspended and immersed in God. The soul feels so united with God that it is impossible for her to doubt their interpenetration. She is inundated with an extreme loving tenderness and filled with courage. This is the time for heroic resolutions, and ardent desires, accompanied by a horror for the World and all worldly vanities. This prayer admits of various degrees and can assume an ecstatic quality. Despite the fact that God wounds the soul with arrows of love and inflames her with the most holy desires, He does not cease to purify her with great internal and external trials. This is the 'passive night of the spirit' in the words of St. John of the Cross. 'When I think of these pains', writes the saint in 'The Interior Castle', 'I fear that if we had foreseen them, it would have been very difficult for our natural weakness to have resolved to bear them.'
These trials prepare the soul to enter the 'Seventh Mansion', the state of 'transforming union', or 'spiritual marriage': the highest and most sublime degree of prayer possible on this earth. This prayer too has various phases or stages. the Divine Spouse communicates his invitations of a more and more intimate and delicate nature, and unites Himself to her to such an extent that she forgets all things and has only one thought: how to please Him. He immerses her in a calm and sweet state, usually without raptures and ecstasy, in which she sees the Three Divine Persons of the Most Holy Trinity communicate Themselves to her 'in a representation of the Truth', whereby it is especially the Second Person Who contracts an alliance of affection with her. The soul resolves zealously to pursue the interests of the Beloved, with an immense desire to suffer and to labour therein, while at the same time exclaims with St. Paul: 'Cupio dissolvi et esse cum Christo'.
This then is the mystical doctrine of St. Teresa, always combined with the ascetic doctrine (as we have already seen at the initial stage of the spiritual life): the perfection of the soul notably in the virtues of humility, detachment, abnegation of self, and of Charity.
P. S. Saint Teresa of Avila was born 28th March 1515, the same year as Saint Philip Neri (21st July), by whom she was outlived by thirteen years! She died 4th October 1582, he on 25th of May 1595 two months shy of his eightieth birthday.
P.S.S. Interesting to note how many saints God raised up in that century of the great modern heresy of Protestantism: Saint Ignatius, Saint Francis Xavier, Saint John of the Cross, Saint John of Avila, Saint Peter of Alcantara, Saint Vincent Ferrer, Saint Charles Borromeo, Saint Robert Bellarmine, Saint Peter Canasius, just to name a few that come to the top of my head! And all great names!
