Saint Theresa — Religious Enthusiasm (ii)

by John Lord, LL. D.  


        About this time the "Confessions of Saint Augus-  
     tine" were put into Theresa's hands,——one of the few  
     immortal books which are endeared to the heart of   
     Christians.  This book was a comfort and enlighten-  
     ment to her, she thinking that the Lord would forgive  
     her, as He did those saints who had been great sinners,  
     because He loved them.  When she meditated on the   
     conversion of Saint Augustine,——how he heard the  
     voice in the garden,——it seemed to her that the Lord  
     equally spoke to her, and thus she was filled with  
     gratitude and joy.  After this, her history is the  
     enumeration of the favors which God gave her, and of  
     the joys of prayer, which seemed to her to be the very  
     joys of heaven.  She longs more and more for her  
     divine Spouse, to whom she is spiritually wedded.  She  
     pants for Him as the hart pants for the water-brook.  
     She cannot be separated from Him; neither death nor  
     hell can separate her from His love.  He is infinitely   
     precious to her.——He is chief among ten thousand.  
     She blesses His holy name.  In her exceeding joy she  
     cries, "O Lord of my soul, O my eternal Good!"  In    
     her ecstasy she sings,——  

                "Absent from Thee, my Saviour dear!  
                 I call not life this living here.  
                 Ah, Lord! my light and living death!  
                 And burst the bars that sever me  
                    From my true life above!  
                 Think how I die Thy face to see,  
                 And cannot live away from Thee,  
                    O my eternal Love!"  

        Thus she composes canticles and dries her tears, feel-  
     ing that the love of God does not consist in these, but  
     in serving Him with fidelity and devotion.  She is filled  
     with the graces of humility, and praises God that she is  
     permitted to speak of things relating to Him.  She is  
     filled also with strength, since it is He who strengthens  
     her.  She is perpetually refreshed, since she drinks  
     from a divine fountain.  She is in a sort of trance of  
     delight from the enjoyment of divine blessings.  Her  
     soul is elevated to rapture.  She feels that her salva-  
     tion, through grace, is assured.  She no longer has fear   
     of devils or of hell, since with an everlasting love she  
     is beloved; and her lover is Christ.  She has broken  
     the bondage of the Middle Ages, and she has broken it  
     by prayer.  She is an emancipated woman, and can  
     now afford to devote herself to practical duties.  She  
     visits the sick, she dispenses charities, she gives wise  
     counsels; for with her visionary piety she has good  
     sense in the tidings of the world, and is as practical as  
     she is spiritual and transcendental.     
        And all this in the midst of visions.  I will not  
     dwell on these visions, the weak points in her religious  
     life, though they are visions of beauty, not of devils,  
     of celestial spirits who came to comfort her, and who  
     filled her soul with joy and peace.  

                "A little bird I am,  
                    Shut from the fields of air,  
                 And in my cage I sit and sing  
                    To Him who placed me there;  
                 Well pleased a prisoner to be,  
                 Because, my God, it pleases Thee."  

     She is bathed in the glory of her Lord, and her face  
     shines with the radiance of heaven, with the moral  
     beauty which the greatest of Spanish painters repre-  
     sents on his canvas.  And she is beloved by every-  
     body, is universally venerated for her virtues as well as   
     for her spiritual elevation.  The greatest ecclesiastical  
     dignitaries come to see her, and encourage her, and  
     hold converse with her, for her intellectual gifts were  
     as remarkable as her piety.  Her conversation, it ap-  
     pears, was charming.  Her influence over the highest  
     people was immense.  She pleased, she softened, and  
     she elevated all who knew her.  She reigned in her  
     convent as Madame de Staël reigned in her salon.  She  
     was supposed to have reached perfection; and yet she  
     never claimed perfection, but sadly felt her imperfec-  
     tions, and confessed them.  She was very fond of the  
     society of learned men, from first to last, but formed  
     no friendships except with those whom she believed  
     to be faithful servants of God.  
        At this period Theresa meditated the foundation of  
     a new convent of the Carmelite order, to be called St.  
     Joseph, after the name of her patron saint.  But here  
     she found great difficulty, as her plans were not gen-  
     erally approved by her superiors or the learned men  
     whom she consulted.  They were deemed impracticable,  
     for she insisted that the convent should not be endowed,  
     nor be allowed to possess property.  In all the monas-  
     teries if the Middle Ages, the monks, if individually  
     poor, might be collectively rich; and all the famous  
     monasteries came gradually to be as well endowed as  
     Oxford and Cambridge universities were.  They proved,  
     in the end, an evil, since the monks became lazy and  
     luxurious and proud.  They could afford to be idle;  
     and with idleness and luxury came corruption.  The  
     austere lives of the founders of these monasteries gave  
     them a reputation for sanctity and learning, and this  
     brought them wealth.  Rich people who had no near  
     relatives were almost certain to leave them something  
     in their wills.  And the richer the monasteries became,  
     the greedier their rulers were.  
        Theresa determined to set a new example.  She did  
     not institute any stricter rules; she was emancipated  
     from austerities; but she resolved to make her nuns  
     dependent on the Lord rather than on rich people.  
     Nor was she ambitious of founding a large convent.  
     She thought that thirteen women together were enough.  
     Gradually she brought the provincial of the order over  
     to her views, and also the celebrated friar, Peter of  
     Alcantara, the most eminent ecclesiastic in Spain.  But  
     the townspeople of Avila were full of opposition.  They  
     said it was better for Theresa to remain where she was;  
     that there was no necessity for another convent, and  
     that it was a very foolish thing.  So great was the  
     outcry, that the provincial finally withdrew his con-  
     sent; he also deemed the revenue to be too uncertain.  
     Then the advice of a celebrated Dominican was sought,  
     who took eight days to consider the matter, and was at  
     first inclined to recommend the abandonment of the  
     project, but on further reflection he could see no harm  
     in it, and encouraged it.  So a small house was bought,  
     for the nuns must have some shelter over their heads.  
     The provincial changed his opinion again, and now fa-  
     vored the enterprise.  It was a small affair, but a great  
     thing to Theresa.  Her friend the Dominican wrote   
     letters to Rome, and the provincial offered no further  
     objection.  Moreover, she had bright visions of celestial  
     comforters.  
        But the superior of her convent, not wishing the  
     enterprise to succeed, and desiring to get her out of  
     the way, sent Theresa to Toledo, to visit and comfort a  
     sick lady of rank, with whom she remained six months.  
     Here she met many eminent men, chiefly ecclesiastics  
     of the Dominican and Jesuit orders; and here she in-  
     spired other ladies to follow her example among others  
     a noble nun of her own order, who sold all she had and   
     walked to Rome barefooted in order to obtain leave   
     to establish a religious house like that proposed by  
     Theresa.  At last there came letters and a brief from  
     Rome for the establishment of the convent, and Theresa  
     was elected prioress, in the year 1562.   
        But the opposition still continued, and the most  
     learned and influential were resolved on disestablish-  
     ing the house.  The matter at last reached the ears of  
     the King and council, and an order came requiring a  
     statement as to how the monastery was to be founded.  
     Everything was discouraging.  Theresa, as usual, took  
     refuge in prayer, and went to the Lord and said, "This  
     house is not mine; it is established for Thee; and since  
     there is no one to conduct the case, do Thou undertake  
     it."  From that time she considered the matter settled.  
     Nevertheless the opposition continued, much to the  
     astonishment of Theresa, who could not see how a  
     prioress and twelve nuns could be injurious to the  
     city.  Finally, opposition so far ceased that it was   
     agreed that the house should be unmolested, provided  
     it were endowed.  On this point, however, Theresa was   
     firm, feeling that if she once began to admit revenue  
     the people would not afterwards allow her to refuse it.  
     So amid great opposition she at last took up her abode  
     in the convent she had founded, and wanted for noth-  
     ing, since alms, all unsolicited, poured in sufficient for  
     all necessities; and the attention of the nuns was given  
     to their duties without anxieties or obstruction, in all  
     the dignity of voluntary poverty.  
        I look upon this reformation of the Carmelite order   
     as very remarkable.  The nuns did not go around among  
     rich people supplicating their aid as was generally cus-  
     tomary, for no convent or monastery was ever rich   
     enough in its own opinion.  Still less did they say to  
     rich people, "Ye are the lords and masters of mankind.  
     We recognize your greatness and your power.  Deign  
     to give us from your abundance, not that we may live  
     comfortably while serving the Lord, but live in luxury  
     like you, and compete with you in the sumptuousness   
     of our banquets and in the costliness of our furniture  
     and our works of art, and be your companions and  
     equals in social distinctions, and be enrolled with you  
     as leaders of society."  On the contrary they said, "We  
     ask nothing from you.  We would not be encumbered  
     with useless impediments——too much camp equipage  
     ——while marching to do battle with the forces of the  
     Devil.  Christ is our Captain.  He can take care of  
     his own troops.  He will not let us starve.  And if  
     we do suffer, what of that?  He suffered for our sake,  
     shall we not suffer for his cause?"  
        The Convent of St. Joseph was founded in 1562,  
     after Theresa had passed twenty-nine years in the Con-  
     vent of the Incarnation.  She died, in 1582, at the age of  
     sixty-seven, after twenty years of successful labors in  
     the convent she had founded; revered by everybody;  
     the friend of some of the most eminent men in Spain,  
     including the celebrated Borgia, ex-Duke of Candia,    
     and General of the Jesuits, who took the same interest  
     in Theresa that Fénelon did in Madame Guyon.  She  
     lived to see established sixteen convents of nuns, all  
     obeying her reformed rule, and most of them founded  
     by her amid great difficulties and opposition.  When  
     she founded the Carmelite Convent of Toledo she had  
     only four ducats to begin with.  Some one objected to   
     the smallness of the sum, when she replied, "Theresa  
     and this money are indeed nothing; but God and  
     Theresa and four ducats can accomplish anything."  
     It was amid the fatigues incident to the founding a   
     convent in Burgos that she sickened and died.  
        It was not, however, merely from her labors as a re-  
     former and nun that Saint Theresa won her fame, but  
     also for her writings, which blaze with genius, although   
     chiefly confined to her own religious experience.  These  
     consist of an account of her own life, and various letters  
     and mystic treatises, some description of her spiritual   
     conflicts and ecstasies, others giving accounts of her  
     religious labors in the founding of reformed orders and  
     convents; while the most famous is a rapt portrayal  
     of the progress of the soul to the highest heaven.  Her  
     own Memoirs remind one of the "Confessions of Saint  
     Augustine," and of the Imitation of Christ," by Thomas  
     à Kempis.  People do not read such books in these times  
     to any extent, at least in this country, but they have  
     ever been highly valued on the continent of Europe.  
     The biographies of Saint Theresa have been numerous,  
     some of them very distinguished, like Ribera, Yepez, and  
     Sainte Marie.  Bossuet, while he condemned Madame  
     Guyon for the same mystical piety which marked Saint  
     Theresa, still bowed down to the authority of the wri-   
     tings of the saints, while Fleury quotes them with the  
     decrees of the Council of Trent.  
        But Saint Theresa ever was submissive to the au-  
     thority of the Pope and of her spiritual directors.  She  
     would not have been canonized by Gregory XV. had  
     she not been.  So long as priests and nuns have been  
     submissive to the authority of the Church, the Church  
     has been lenient to their opinions.  Until the Refor-  
     mation, there was great practical freedom of opinion  
     in the Catholic Church.  Nor was the Church of the  
     sixteenth century able to see the logical tendency of  
     the mysticism of Saint Theresa, since it was not coupled  
     with rebellion against spiritual despotism.  It was not  
     until the logical and dogmatic intellect of Bossuet dis-  
     cerned the spiritual independence of the Jansenists and   
     Quietists, that persecution began against them.  Had  
     Saint Theresa lived a century later, she would prob-  
     ably have shared the fate of Madame Guyon, whom she  
     resembled more closely than any other woman that I  
     have read of,——in her social position, in her practical  
     intellect, despite the visions of a dreamy piety, in  
     her passionate love of the Saviour, in her method of  
     prayer, in her spiritual conflicts, in the benevolence  
     which marked all her relations with the world, in the  
     divine charity which breathed through all her words,  
     and in the triumph of over over all the fears inspired  
     by a gloomy theology and a superstitious priesthood.  
     Both of these eminent women were poets of no ordinary  
     merit; both enjoyed the friendship of the most eminent  
     men of their age; both craved the society of the learned;  
     both were of high birth and beautiful in their youth, and   
     fitted to adorn society by their brilliant talk as well as  
     graceful manners; both were amiable and sought to  
     please, and loved distinction and appreciation; both  
     were Catholics, yet permeated with the spirit of Prot-  
     estantism, so far as religion is made a matter between  
     God and the individual soul, and marked by internal  
     communion with the Deity rather than by outward acts   
     of prescribed forms; both had confessors, and yet both  
     maintained the freedom of their minds and souls, and   
     knew no binding authority but that divine voice which  
     appealed to their conscience and heart, and that divine  
     word which is written in the Scriptures.  After the love  
     of God had subdued their hearts, we read but little of  
     penances, or self-expiations, or forms of worship, or  
     church ceremonies, or priestly rigors, or any of the  
     slaveries and formalities which bound ordinary people.  
     Their piety was mystical, sometimes visionary, and not  
     always intelligible, but deep, sincere, and lofty.  Of  
     the two women, I think Saint Theresa was the more  
     remarkable, and had the most originality.  Madame  
     Guyon seems to have borrowed much from her, espe-  
     cially in her methods of prayer.  
        The influence of Saint Theresa's life and writings has  
     been eminent and marked not only in the Catholic   
     but in the Protestant Church.  If not direct, it has been  
     indirect.  She had that active, ardent nature which sets  
     at defiance a formal piety, and became an example to  
     noble women in a more enlightened, if less poetic, age.  
     She was the precursor of a Madame de Chantal, of a  
     Francis de Sales, of a Mère Angelique.  The learned  
     and saintly Port Royalists, in many respects, were her  
     disciples.  We even see a resemblance to her spiritual  
     exercises in the "Thoughts" of Pascal.  We see her  
     mystical love of the Saviour in the poetry of Cowper  
     and Watts and Wesley.  The same sentiments she  
     uttered appear even in the devotional works of Jeremy  
     Taylor and Jonathan Edwards.  The Protestant theology  
     of the last century was in harmony with hers in it es-  
     sential features.  In the "Pilgrim's Progress" of Bunyan  
     we have no more graphic pictures of the sense of sin,  
     the justice of its punishment, and the power by which   
     it is broken, that are to be found in the writings of  
     this saintly woman.  In no Protestant hymnals do we  
     find a warmer desire for a spiritual union with the  
     Author of our salvation; in none do we see the aspiring  
     soul seek to climb to the regions of eternal love  
     more than in her exultant melodies.  

                "For uncreated charms I burn,  
                    Oppressed by slavish fears no more;  
                 For One in whom I may discern,  
                    E'en when He frowns, a sweetness I adore."   

        That remarkable work of Fénelon in which he de-  
     fends Madame Guyon, called "Maxims of the Saints,"  
     who have been distinguished for an inward life, from  
     Saint Augustine to Richard Baxter,——for unselfish love,  
     resignation to divine will, self-renunciation, medita-  
     tion too deep for words, and union with Christ, as  
     represented by the figure of the bride and bridegroom.  
     This is Christianity, as it has appeared in all ages,  
     both among Catholic and Protestant saints.  It may  
     seem to some visionary, to others unreasonable, and to  
     others again repulsive.  But this has been the life    
     and joy of those whom the Church has honored and   
     commended.  It has raised them above the despair of  
     Paganism and the superstitions of the Middle Ages.  
     It is the love which casteth out fear, producing in the  
     harassed soul repose and rest amid the doubts and  
     disappointments of life.  It is not inspired by duty;  
     it does not rest on philanthropy; it is not the religion   
     of humanity.  It is a gift bestowed by the Father of  
     Lights, and will be, to remotest ages, the most precious  
     boon which He bestows on those who seek His  
     guidance.   
     
     
     
     
                                AUTHORITIES  
                       
        Vie de Sainte Thérèse, écrite par ell-même; Lettres de Sainte Thérèse,  
     Les Ouvrages de Sainte Thérèse; Biographie Universelle; Fraser's Magazine,  
     lxv. 59; Butler's Lives of the Saints; Digby's Ages of Faith; the Catho-  
     ic Histories of the Church, especially Fleury's "Maxims of the Saints."  
     Lives of Saint Theresa by Ribera, Yepez, and Sainte Marie.   

from Beacon Lights of History, by John Lord, LL. D.,
Volume IV, Part I: Great Women, pp. 130 - 142
Copyright 1883, 1885, 1888, by John Lord.
Copyright 1921, By Wm. H. Wise & Co., New York

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