Contemplative Haven

The growing love and deepening union which occurs in the Sixth Mansions does not preclude the soul from fearing and weeping over its sins. This, says St. Teresa, is because the more a soul receives from the Lord, the more it realizes its sin, and sorrows over it.

The soul experiences perfect contrition, no longer thinking, “of the pain which it is bound to suffer on account of its sins, but only of how ungrateful it has been to Him Whom it owes so much, and Who so greatly merits our service.” There is no fear of hell, only the fear that if God does not hold it up, it may fall into sin again.

The soul has received, “a much deeper knowledge of the greatness of God” and grieves now, over its past sins in particular: its boldness in doing its own will, its lack of reverence, its foolish mistakes which seem to grow in the remembrance of them, and its forsaking of the Lord. “A heavy cross”, St. Teresa tells us.

The depth of infused contemplation, the manifestations of His greatness and the ‘sublime’ favours received by the soul do not preclude meditation on “the most sacred Humanity of Our Lord Jesus Christ” either, St. Teresa informs us. She remains adamant about this, despite having been contradicted by those who insist that at this stage, “we shall do better to occupy ourselves with matters concerning the Godhead and to flee from corporeal things”. St. Teresa’s stance is based on her belief that while we are in the body, we cannot, “remain permanently enkindled in love”, as are angelic spirits, and so must, in order to bring ourselves profit and encouragement, continue to meditate and reflect on the Humanity of Christ, His Passion, the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the angels and saints.

St. Teresa admits, however, that there are souls on whom the Lord has bestowed ‘perfect contemplation’, and although they cannot remain in this state of perfect contemplation perpetually while in the body, they find that they, “can no longer meditate upon the mysteries of the Passion and the life of Christ, as they could before.” If, when they begin to meditate on these things, they are almost immediately swept up into perfect contemplation, this is understandable, she says, for by meditation she means, “prolonged reasoning with the understanding”, and many people who have been raised to perfect contemplation are not able to practise this type of meditation any longer. However, St. Teresa tells us, they can certainly still, “dwell upon these mysteries…especially when they are being celebrated by the Catholic Church”.

For all others, St. Teresa insists that meditation on the Humanity of Christ, His Passion, the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the angels and saints is no hindrance to the soul but brings it great benefit. She fears that if a soul abandons this type of meditation, “the devil might end by causing us to lose our devotion to the Most Holy Sacrament.” St. Teresa advises us to avoid the mistake she herself once made, of “going about in [a] state of absorption, expecting to receive spiritual consolation”, for as she learned:

“…life is long and there are many trials in it and we have need to look at Christ our Pattern, and also at His Apostles and Saints, and to reflect how they bore these trials, so that we, too, may bear them perfectly. The good Jesus is too good company for us to forsake Him and His most sacred Mother. He is very glad when we grieve for His afflictions although sometimes we may be forsaking our own pleasures and consolations in order to do so – though for that matter, daughters, consolations in prayer are not so frequent that there is not time for everything.”

There are many gifts bestowed upon souls in the Sixth Mansions, two more of which are the gift of tears and spiritual inebriation.

Although St. Teresa describes herself as, “not in the least emotional”, she tells us that there were times when the tears would flow. She writes, “when the fire within my soul is strong, however hard my heart may be, it distils as if in an alembic.” Let’s take a look at this imagery. An alembic was an apparatus formerly used in distillation, the process whereby gas or vapours are driven from liquids or solids by heat, ultimately causing them to condense into a liquid product. What a wonderful image, St. Teresa’s ‘hard’ heart in the fiery alembic of her soul in infused contemplation, being transformed, distilled, the resulting liquid being her flowing tears. She states that tears which come forth in this manner are “comforting and tranquillizing”, not disturbing, but that one should not strive to bring these tears about. Allow God to give them as He sees fit, she tells us, for these tears are, “water which comes from heaven.” St. Teresa warns us that these tears, though, must be distinguished from the tears of overly emotional people who, “weep for the slightest thing; again and again they will think they are weeping for reasons which have to do with God but this will not be so in reality.”

The second gift of which we speak is described by St. Teresa as, “a jubilation and a strange kind of prayer.” She feels the nature of the gift is that the Lord brings the soul into close union while allowing the faculties and the senses to ‘enjoy’ this blissful state. The soul cannot remain silent in this happiness, but is compelled to shout out its joy and to praise the Lord so that all will know of His greatness. The person may actually appear to be intoxicated. In, Fire Within, Father Thomas Dubay writes that St. Teresa had mentioned in a letter to her brother that, “latterly I have been going about almost as if I were drunk”, and Father Dubay gives us a further explanation:

“Mystics speak of this experience as a sober inebriation: one remains with the use of reason and thus is “sober” but at the same time is quite overcome with delight after drinking deeply of the divine. The aftereffect of having tasted this potent cup of God’s goodness is something akin to reeling from drunkenness without having any of the demeaning defects of that disagreeable state.”

In The Spiritual Canticle, St. John of the Cross also describes this gift, referring to it as, ‘spiced wine’.

As far as St. Teresa is concerned, we should not look askance at souls in this state or desire to be more “sensible” than they, for the bottom line is that it is a state of prayer bestowed by God, in which the soul is incapable of speaking anything which does not arise out of its joy and desire to praise the Lord.

I am helping with a fundraiser this evening. As a lay contemplative, I am always conscious of striving for an appropriate balance between active and passive, between reaching out and going within. It is often a source of anxiety. But what, at pretty much the last moment, have they told me I may be doing tonight? Running a silent auction table. Ha ha. He does indeed have a marvellous sense of humour.

What is a soul in the Sixth Mansions really like? How does one feel, what are one’s desires, how does one relate to others, how does one function in the world? Well, the soul in the Sixth Mansions is finding it very difficult to accept its place in the world, desiring only complete fruition of union with God. The soul is unable, as yet, to comprehend that if it continues along this path to union and reaches the Seventh Mansions where the Spiritual Marriage will take place, all this unrest will dissipate, and it may desire to live on earth forever, praising and serving the Lord. St. Teresa paints us a picture of this restless soul in Chapter VI of the Sixth Mansions, so let us study her sketch:

- Desire for commencement of eternal life: “the soul is so anxious to have complete fruition of [the Lord] that its life becomes sheer, though delectable, torture. It has the keenest longings for death, and so it frequently and tearfully begs God to take it out of this exile.”

- Weariness with the world: “Everything in this life that it sees wearies it; when it finds itself alone it experiences great relief, but immediately this distress returns till it hardly knows itself when it is without it.”

- Increase in ecstatic prayer: “…her love is so full of tenderness that any occasion whatever which serves to increase the strength of this fire causes the soul to take flight; and thus in this Mansion raptures occur continually and there is no way of avoiding them, even in public.”

- Horror of sin: “…she feels that she would not intentionally commit so much as a venial sin, even were she to be cut in pieces; and thus she is greatly distressed to find that, without being aware of the fact, she cannot avoid committing a great many.”

- Conflicting desires: “…the soul would like to flee from other people, and greatly envies those who live, or have lived, in deserts. On the other hand it would like to plunge right into the heart of the world, to see if by doing this it could help one soul to praise God more…”

- Disheartened by impediments: “…a woman in this state will be distressed at being prevented from doing this [plunging right into the heart of the world] by the obstacle of sex and very envious of those who are free to cry aloud and proclaim abroad Who is this great God of Hosts.”

These, says St. Teresa, are the effects of ecstatic prayer, “without any kind of doubt.” One can understand then, when considering a soul who is this much in love with the Lord yet unable to go any further on its own, St. Teresa is moved to cry out:

“Have pity on her, my God; and dispose things so that she may be able to do something towards fulfilling her desires to Thy honour and glory.”

Another kind of rapture, different from what has already been described, is often referred to as, “flight of the spirit.” Let us look at what St. Teresa says about it:

“Sometimes the soul becomes conscious of such rapid motion that the spirit seems to be transported with a speed which, especially at first, fills it with fear…”. She also writes, “as quickly as a bullet leaves a gun when the trigger is pulled, there begins within the soul a flight…”

Referring back to the Fourth Mansions, St. Teresa recalls the metaphor she used, that of the soul as a basin, being gently filled with water (the beginnings of infused contemplation). Now, she says, it is as if God has loosed the source of the water, which comes rushing into the soul, “and with tremendous force there rises up so powerful a wave that this little ship – our soul – is lifted up on high.”

St. Teresa tells us that with this flight, or transport, of the spirit, “the soul really seems to have left the body; on the other hand, it is clear that the person is not dead, though for a few moments he cannot even himself be sure if the soul is in the body or no. He feels as if he has been in another world, very different from this in which we live, and has been shown a fresh light there…”

St. Teresa expresses some frustration at her inability to describe this phenomenon. She tells us, “If the soul is in the body or not while all this is happening I cannot say; I would not myself swear that the soul is in the body, nor that the body is bereft of the soul.” She goes on to say that she believes it is possible for the soul and the spirit to still be inside the body, but for some “higher part of them to rise above itself.”

Although St. Teresa does not use the word ‘levitation’ specifically, she tells us that sometimes, “the body is transported as well as the soul”. One can imagine the fear associated with this, for as St. Teresa says, the person does not know where he is going or who is taking him away, for at the outset there is no assurance that it is God.

One purpose of ‘flights of the spirit’, according to St. Teresa, appears to be that God desires to show the soul that He is all-powerful, and that, since the person has offered himself to the Lord unconditionally many times, the Lord decides to, so to speak, ‘take him up on the offer.’ St. Teresa reveals that no resistance is possible, and “only makes matters worse.” She describes these experiences as, “jewels which the Spouse is beginning to give to His bride”, but jewels which require great courage to accept: “Do you suppose it causes but little perturbation to a person in complete possession of his senses when he experiences these transports of the soul?”

St. Teresa warns us that not only great courage is required, but faith, confidence and great resignation, “so that Our Lord may do with the soul as He wills.”

Oh, excuse me. Welcome to the Haven. So happy you could make it to this little get-together to celebrate my six months of blogging. I can’t really express how much you have enriched my life since I started this blog, but I’m going to try, and what better way than with the very words (slightly but lovingly edited) with which you have brought me such joy? So here we are, at my first-ever, “Totally Out-of-Context Comment“ party. In other words, what a fly on the wall at the Haven might hear. So come on in, give your coats to the little lad,

The Mature One

and make yourselves at home. Eat, drink and be merry. And mingle. Don’t forget to mingle.

From forget me not’s vineyard to our lips!

And this, courtesy of brother lesser!

Desert Dreamer: “Sorry I’ve been away so long.”
forget me not: “If you don’t belong here, I certainly don’t.”
ccheryl: “Where am I now?”

Honora: “It’s taking forever to fill these water balloons.”
forget me not: “I want some brie and Bordeaux.”
Honora: “Let’s roast a chicken. She’s got some cool machines.”

Monica: “It’s really helpful to come here and jump right in.”
Honora: “Lead on!”
ccheryl: “I will end up in the Slough of Despond.”
kathryntherese: “I hope I can jump in…”
forget me not: “God willing, the weather will be good.”

Honora: “I tried to sing once.”
Terry: “I usually keep my mouth shut.”
ccheryl: “Personality type ‘A’.”
Terry: “So be it. ‘Nuff said.”

Honora: “Are you having surgery, Gabrielle?”
Gabrielle: “I knew I forgot something. Where did I put those knitting needles?”
Terry: “Yikes!”
Honora: “…some chutzpah, huh? We may have to up Gabrielle’s cheesecake dosage.”
Gabrielle: “Chocolate works for me, but we’ll need quite a bit.”
brother lesser: “What a great conversation!”

Deacon Dan: “During college I immersed myself…”
Monica: “Oh, that’s funny!”
forget me not: “Oh, gosh, how many times have I done that?”

Terry: “I did call the 800 number.”
Owen: “I am not at all surprised who it turned out to be.”
Monica: “If you can broker some kind of deal…”
Honora: “I dare not say anything to this.”

What the Conspiracy’s been waiting for…

truevyne: “Golly, I love that Merton quote.”
Terry: “I have a friend who…wouldn’t know a mystic from a fish stick.”
brother lesser: “We don’t have to worry about him.”
Desert Dreamer: “There are a myriad of writers out there.”

Terry: “Of course, I was not very disciplined.”
ccheryl: “Did anyone else get that first impression?”
Desert Dreamer: “I can tell Honora feels the same way.”
penni: “Go into detail.”

truevyne: “I practically drool thinking of eating a summer tomato.”
Honora: “I feel that as an old married lady, I maybe shouldn’t have one…”

brother lesser: “I thought I would share something concerning mist.”
Gabrielle: “Oh yuk.”

truevyne: “My boys drive their bikes into my flowerpots.”
Deacon Dan: “Considering the outcome, I’d say let them fly.”
Honora: “I can only fly by the seat of my pants.”
forget me not: “Now that’s not good.”

Gabrielle: “The picture is a bit distorted.”
Terry: “And that’s a good thing!”
ccheryl: “Could it be the focus?”
Gabrielle: “Quick, let’s blame Honora!”

penni: “Yikes, I am tired.”
Honora: “Oh, my aching category.”

forget me not: “I had less free time today to navigate.”
Terry: “Wow! Are you spying on me?”
brother lesser: “Boy can I relate to this!”
Monica: “Which goes to show…I don’t know what…but it’s interesting.”

Gabrielle: “Yes, of course, idols and attachments.”
Owen: “Can you e-mail me with the source, please?”
penni: “Give it up.”

kathryntherese: “I have struggled with these issues AD NAUSEUM.”
Gabrielle: “It’s only soccer.”
forget me not: “That too, takes experience.”
ccheryl: “I learned it’ll drive you nuts.”

I was up all night…

ccheryl: “Strong meat here, Gabrielle.”
Honora: “There is nothing worse on earth.”
ccheryl: “Looks good.”
Monica: “Avoid the worms at all costs!”
Gabrielle: “How gruesome!”
truevyne: “Love this, sister.”
kathryntherese: “I need to know if she’ll eat…”
Terry: “Gave me chills actually.”
kathryntherese: “Will we continue to say YES?”

Honora: “I am sitting here looking as uncomprehending as an eggplant.”
Monica: “That’s beautiful!”
kathryntherese: “I never thought of it like that, but it is a good visual.”

Monica: “A friend of mine made eyeballs out of some kind of feta cheese and olives.”
Terry: “Beautiful and inspirational.”
ccheryl: “Consider yourself blessed with a true bargain!”
penni: “Sounds like someone needs to hang out in a cave this weekend.”

Gabrielle: “Yes, such a relief when we find out we are not nuts.”
Monica: “I need to get this book.”
Honora: “Snugglepuss and Bert Lahr (of Wizard of Oz fame) both used it.”
Joanne: “I have received comfort from such readings.”
Owen: “[send] the link along to my Mom as well.”
penni: “Moi? Sender of things?”

ccheryl: “There is the sheer inability to explain the experience with mere words.”
kathryntherese: “I could go on and on.”
penni: “Don’t steal my blessing, girl.”
forget me not: “Exponential multiplication.”
ccheryl: “That’s a tough one for me.”

brother lesser: “I experienced this about a month ago as I was sitting on the front porch watching the cars drive by.”
Gabrielle: “It sounds like a disease.”
forget me not: “It’s made mashed potatoes out of me.”
Terry: “A couple more coincidences to enjoy.”

forget me not: “Starting to feel lightheaded. Buona notte!”
Honora: “Maranatha!”
Joanne: “God bless you.”
brother lesser: “Oh, mea culpa!”

Joanne: “Well I was thinking maybe I will stay.”
forget me not: “I may come back in disguise.”

St. Marguerite d’Youville (1701-1771) is the first Canadian-born saint. In 1737 she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity, known as the Grey Nuns, in Montréal, Québec.

Pope John XXIII beatified her in 1959, calling her the Mother of Universal Charity. Pope John Paul II canonized her in 1990, and gave her to the world as an example of an unconditionally loving person who helped all who needed her. She opened her heart and home to the poor, the sick, the elderly, wounded soldiers, abandoned infants, prostitutes, and the mentally ill. (Taken from a pamphlet published by the Marguerite d’Youville Centre, Montréal, Québec)

“Now I can die content, for the Sacred Heart of my Saviour is beginning to become known. Also because it seems to me that, through His mercy, I am nearly destroyed and annihilated as far as my reputation and the esteem of men is concerned. This consoles me more than I can say.”

(Taken from, The Letters of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Apostle of the Sacred Heart)

This woman with the lamp is pretty much my hero. I’m assuming wireless Internet, and the laptop battery appears to be actually functioning. Not a scrap of paper in sight, pastel walls, cheery smile. Yes, she certainly appears to have everything under control. Skin’s glowing, good haircut, and she looks well-rested. I bet all the children are asleep.

But just because I’m a little overwhelmed at the moment doesn’t mean I can’t throw a party, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. So you’re all invited to the haven on October 19th, to celebrate my six-month anniversary of blogging. I know people usually wait a year, but hey, just call me madcap. Casual cocktail attire, unless you wear religious clothing, in which case you may keep it on. Please. And I’ll have a surprise post. Maybe. Maybe not. It’s a surprise.

“O Life, You give life to all! Do not deny me this most sweet water that You have promised to those who love You. I want it, Lord, and I ask for it, and I come to You. Do not hide Yourself, Lord, from me, since You know my needs and that is the true medicine for this soul that has been wounded by You. O Lord, how many kinds of fires are there in this life? O what great reason there is for us to live in fear. Some fires consume the soul, others purify it so that it can joyfully live forever in You. O living Fountains of the Wounds of my God, how you always flow in great abundance for our support, and how secure he will go through the dangers of this miserable life who is nourished by the divine Blood.”

(Excerpt from “Lingering with my Lord. Post-Communion Experiences of St. Teresa of Avila”, Introduction and Translation by Michael D. Griffin, O.C.D.)

Through all of the dryness, heartache and yearning desires, we have been leading up to this: the spiritual betrothal. St. Teresa tells us that, “now you are going to see what His Majesty does to confirm this betrothal, for this, as I understand it, is what happens when He bestows raptures, which carry the soul out of its senses; for if, while still in possession of its senses, the soul saw that it was so near to such great majesty, it might perhaps be unable to remain alive.”

St. Teresa believes that rapture, ecstasy and trance are basically the same thing. This is supported in a footnote by E. Allison Peers, the translator of Interior Castle, who writes: “The mystics concur with St. Thomas in holding that ecstasy, rapture, transport, flight of the spirit, etc., are in substance one and the same, though there are accidental differences between them…”

What is the reason for ecstatic prayer? St. Teresa teaches that, because the soul desires “ever-increasing fruition of its Spouse”, the Lord grants it ecstatic prayer in order to strengthen it and give it courage to attain complete union.

Sometimes a rapture will occur because a soul is, “struck by some word, which it either remembers or hears spoken by God.” The Lord takes pity on the suffering soul, and the “spark”, which we learned of in an earlier Snippet, grows and “catches fire and springs into new life.” St. Teresa believes that a soul is forgiven of its sins at that moment, “assuming that it is in the proper disposition and has used the means of grace, as the Church teaches.” Then the Lord brings the soul into union with Himself, “in a way which none can understand save it and He, and even the soul itself does not understand this in such a way as to be able to speak of it afterwards…”

St. Teresa tells us that, even though the senses and the faculties, “are so completely absorbed that we might describe them as dead”, the soul itself, “has never before been so fully awake to the things of God or had such light or such knowledge of His Majesty.”

When the soul is in ecstatic prayer, imaginary and/or intellectual visions are sometimes granted. These will be dealt with in separate Snippets, but for the moment, let us just note that St. Teresa says imaginary visions are, “so deeply impressed upon the memory that they can never again be forgotten,” and that afterwards, one is able to describe them. Intellectual visions, however, are so “sublime” that they cannot be described afterwards, but they are “clearly imprinted in the very depths of the soul.”

According to St. Teresa, when a soul is enraptured, one temporarily loses the power of breathing, cannot speak and sometimes grows so cold in the hands and feet that it appears there is no soul left in the body. One can go in and out of this state, each time for short periods, but the ecstasy is giving, “fuller life to the soul.”

Even after coming out of ecstatic prayer, St. Teresa writes that the will is left completely absorbed and the understanding remains completely transported, sometimes for a day or even several days. The person is, during this time, completely incapable of grasping anything in its world that, “does not awaken the will to love.”

The ongoing effects of ecstatic prayer are significant. The soul desires to be used by God for any purpose, longs now to have “a thousand” lives to use for the Lord, and wishes only to praise Him. The soul desires to do penance, is never satisfied with the penance it performs, begins to understand how and why the martyrs were able to suffer, and complains to the Lord when, “He offers [it] no means of suffering.”

When ecstatic prayer occurs in public, as it sometimes does, St. Teresa is aware that it causes shame, confusion, distress and anxiety, but she teaches that this is really a lack of humility, and that the soul should be content whether it receives criticism or whether the Lord receives praise. She has her own opinion as to why the Lord would allow ecstatic prayer to be witnessed, and it should bring us much comfort:

“It seems that Our Lord wants everyone to realize that such a person’s soul is now His and that no one must touch it. People are welcome to attack her body, her honour, and her possessions, for any of these attacks will be to His Majesty’s honour. But her soul they may not attack, for unless, with most blameworthy presumption, it tears itself away from its Spouse, He will protect it from the whole world, and indeed from all hell.”