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Archive for November, 2006

Seventh Mansions (Part 3 of 3)

admin November 24th, 2006

Lord, What Wilt Thou Have Me To Do?

As with the stages of prayer throughout each of the Mansions, the benefit of attaining the Spiritual Marriage can only be seen by the effects and the fruits.

St. Teresa outlines eight main effects of the Spiritual Marriage: self-forgetfulness; a great desire to suffer, but only if it is God’s will; interior joy when persecuted along with a love for enemies; a great desire to live in order to serve Him; no desire for favours and consolations and no more raptures, transports or flights of the spirit; a marked detachment; no aridities or interior trials; and caution, through humility, concerning the possibility of slipping back into sin. St. Teresa wishes to make it clear that all of these effects are not necessarily present in the soul at all times, and for this reason she refers to them as being “habitually present”.

But why does the Lord give the soul so many favours and consolations along the journey, finally bringing it into the Transforming Union, the Spiritual Marriage? Is it simply to give a soul the glory and joy of being One with the Lord? No, says St. Teresa. She wants no one to believe that, “He does it simply to give these souls pleasure.” She tells us that she is certain that it is to strengthen the soul, so that one is able to imitate Christ’s sufferings: “For His Majesty can do nothing greater for us than grant us a life which is an imitation of that lived by His Beloved Son.” In the Transforming Union the soul is, “made one with the Strong”, and shall “gain strength through the most sovereign union of spirit with Spirit.”

St. Teresa refutes the notion that souls who have reached the heights of contemplation spend the rest of their lives simply enjoying the Lord for their own peace and personal fulfillment. She writes, “…the only repose that these souls enjoy is of an interior kind; of outward repose they get less and less, and they have no wish to get more.”

Why are they getting less and less outward repose? Here is perhaps the startling answer, the reason why the soul has undergone this steady stream of strengthening in contemplative prayer: not for our enjoyment, says St. Teresa, “but for the sake of acquiring this strength which fits us for service.”

St. Teresa tells us, “…if the Lord makes His special abode in the soul…its whole thought will be concentrated upon finding ways to please Him and upon showing Him how it loves Him. This, my daughters, is the aim of prayer: this is the purpose of the Spiritual Marriage, of which are born good works and good works alone.”

But has not the soul surpassed this requirement now, of performing service, since it has reached the heights of contemplation? Have we not been taught to imitate Mary rather than Martha – Mary, who is said to have chosen the better part?

Yes, says St. Teresa, we are to imitate Mary, but that is not the whole of it, for “…Martha and Mary must work together when they offer the Lord lodging, and must have Him ever with them, and they must not entertain Him badly and give Him nothing to eat. And how can Mary give Him anything, seated as she is at His feet, unless her sister helps her? His food consists in our bringing Him souls, in every possible way, so that they may be saved and may praise Him for ever.”

Martha’s service, although well intended, was not performed in full union with the Lord. Mary’s contemplation, her union with the Lord, had not yet born fruit. It is only after the Spiritual Marriage that both Martha and Mary will be brought to perfection. It is only after the Transforming Union that one’s personal contemplative Mary will bear fruit, a spiritualized Martha-like service. The better part will be elevated to the best.

Is it any wonder that the Catholic church believes there is a universal call to contemplation, for the result of the Transforming Union is nothing less than the fulfillment of the Great Commandment, perfect contemplation resulting in perfect service: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. The Lord brings the soul to the heights of contemplation for one purpose only, to make the soul One with the Lord, so that it can imitate Christ by pouring itself out for others.

St. Teresa asks how we know when people truly become spiritual. This is her answer:

“It is when they become the slaves of God and are branded with His sign, which is the sign of the Cross, in token that they have given Him their freedom. Then He can sell them as slaves to the whole world, as He Himself was sold.”

Seventh Mansions (Part 2 of 3)

admin November 21st, 2006

The Divine and Spiritual Marriage:

St. Teresa describes the Spiritual Marriage as a, “secret union [which] takes place in the deepest centre of the soul, which must be where God Himself dwells.” Through an intellectual vision, in an “instantaneous communication”, Jesus appears in the soul’s centre. The soul is filled with an indescribable delight, and Jesus shows the soul the glory of Heaven. Then:

“the soul (I mean the spirit of this soul) is made one with God, Who, being likewise a Spirit…has been pleased to unite Himself with His creature in such a way that they have become like two who cannot be separated from one another: even so He will not separate Himself from her.”

Although there had been a type of union earlier on, in the spiritual betrothal, at that time the divine companionship was intermittent, and when not in union (insofar as the soul could understand), the two parties could, “be separated and remain a thing by itself.” Not so after the Spiritual Marriage, where the soul, “remains all the time in that centre with its God.” God and the soul have become as one, and can be no more separated, says St. Teresa, than one could separate rain from a river into which it has fallen, or a stream that has entered the sea, or light that has entered a room from two different windows.

St. Teresa is reminded of St. Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians Ch. VI:17: “He who is joined to God becomes one spirit with Him.” She thinks perhaps he is referring to, “this sovereign Marriage, which presupposes the entrance of His Majesty into the soul by union.” It is at this point, St. Teresa tells us, that the little butterfly which has been flitting from Mansion to Mansion throughout this journey, finally dies, “and with the greatest joy, because Christ is now its life.”

St. Teresa speaks of the soul at this point as being, “in a state of pure spirituality, so that it might be joined with Uncreated Spirit in this celestial union.”

She reiterates the Martha/Mary analogy, explaining that the Spiritual Marriage does not mean that the faculties, senses and passions will always be in a state of peace, but only the soul itself. Conflicts, trials and weariness will undoubtedly continue, but will not disturb the peace of the soul.

St. Teresa realizes how difficult this is to understand – the fact that the soul can be in complete peace after the Spiritual Marriage no matter what chaos may be going on all around it - and admits that “this ‘centre’ of our soul, or ‘spirit’, is something so difficult to describe…”. Yet she is adamant, to the point where this ever-humble, always cautious woman is capable of saying: “Think what you will; what I have said is the truth.”

Here, in the Seventh Mansions, says St. Teresa, is where God grants the bride’s request of, “Let him kiss me with kisses of his mouth!”, the first line of “The Song of Songs”. Here is part of that beautiful song/poem, from the verse called, “Love’s Union” :

I belong to my lover
and for me he yearns.
Come, my lover, let us go forth
to the fields
and spend the night among
the villages.
Let us go early to the vineyards,
and see
if the vines are in bloom,
If the buds have opened
if the pomegranates have
blossomed;
There will I give you my love.

(Eva Cassidy, singer and artist, died in 1996 of melanoma, at the age of 33)

Seventh Mansions (Part 1 of 3)

admin November 18th, 2006

Although the soul will continue to advance in love once in the Seventh Mansions, and as St. Teresa says, “will be greatly assisted to go onward in perfection”, there is no higher spiritual state while on earth. It is also known as the Transforming Union, and can be surpassed only after death, with the Beatific Vision.

The Soul is Brought In:

“When our Lord is pleased to have pity upon this soul, which suffers and has suffered so much out of desire for Him, and which He has now taken spiritually to be His bride, He brings her into this Mansion of His, which is the seventh, before consummating the Spiritual Marriage.”

The soul is brought into this last mansion by “a representation of the truth”, by the granting of an intellectual vision of the Holy Trinity in which It reveals Itself in all three Persons. Saint Teresa tells us, “First of all the spirit becomes enkindled and is illumined, as it were, by a cloud of the greatest brightness. It sees these three Persons, individually, and yet, by a wonderful kind of knowledge which is given to it, the soul realizes that most certainly and truly all these three Persons are one Substance and one Power and one Knowledge and one God alone; so that what we hold by faith the soul may be said here to grasp by sight…” In this intellectual vision, all Three Persons, “communicate Themselves to the soul and speak to the soul…”

From this day forward, the soul “perceives quite clearly” that the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, “are in the interior of her heart – in the most interior place of all and in its greatest depths.” The soul now has complete confidence that God will never leave her, never allow her to fall out of His hand, but even so, says St. Teresa, the soul is, “walking more carefully than ever, so that she may displease Him in nothing.” St. Teresa believes that it is possible to lose this favour of having been brought into the Seventh Mansions, if the soul, “fails God”, and in this respect differs from St. John of the Cross, for example, who teaches that once a soul is in the Transforming Union there is no possibility of returning to a lower spiritual state, that it is confirmed in grace. Father Dubay notes that this is, “one of the rare differences between the two Carmelite Doctors.”

After this initial intellectual vision, this “Presence is not of course always realized so fully”, nor so clearly, admits St. Teresa, but the soul feels a constant Divine companionship nevertheless. Something else comes into being now, something which Father Thomas Dubay calls “dual awareness and operation”, and which St. Teresa describes by using a ‘Martha-Mary’ analogy. The person will be functioning quite normally in day-to-day life, even experiencing many trials and worries, yet, “the essential part of her soul [seems] never to move from that dwelling-place.”. The part of oneself that is busily undergoing trials and worries will actually wish to complain about the part of oneself that is experiencing the peaceful and quiet Divine companionship, just as Martha complained about Mary. St. Teresa attempts to explain this, saying that it almost seems as if the soul is divided, although it really is not; she goes on to say that she believes there is, “some kind of difference, and a very definite one, between the soul and the spirit, although they are both one.” She finds herself incapable of explaining this, nor the fact that she believes that, “the soul is a different thing from the faculties”. It is apparent that she has reflected deeply on these things, but does not dwell on what she calls the “subtle things in the interior life”. She writes:

“But we shall see everything in the life to come if the Lord, of His mercy, grants us the favour of bringing us to the place where we shall understand these secrets.”

Like Purgatory on Earth (A Snippet from the 6th)

admin November 15th, 2006

In the final chapter of the Sixth Mansions, St. Teresa gives an account of the state of the soul just prior to its being brought into the last of the Mansions.

The soul has generally received many favours by this time, usually over a number of years, although St. Teresa tells us that because God has no limitations, “He can raise a soul to the highest point here mentioned in a single moment.”

The favours bestowed on the soul cause more pain than joy at this point. The soul, continually learning more about God’s greatness, experiences longing, love and desire for Him to such a degree and with such intensity, that the unfulfillment of complete union is almost unbearable.

St. Teresa again describes the smouldering fire within the soul - how the soul is interiorly burning. It is hypersensitive to its inability to totally enjoy the Lord, and all it takes is a “mere fleeting thought” or a remark overheard about “death’s long tarrying” for the soul to feel as if it has been struck a blow, or wounded by an arrow of fire (as discussed in an earlier post). The wound is deep, but, “not, I think, in any region where physical pain can be felt, but in the soul’s most intimate depths.” St. Teresa describes how the senses and faculties are enraptured when this occurs, except in whatever way allows the soul to experience this pain and distress, a distress of the soul so powerful that one will cry aloud.

This suffering of the soul, says St. Teresa, “resembles that of souls in purgatory”. It involves “great peril of death”, leaving “the limbs quite disjointed, and, for as long as it continues, the pulse is as feeble as though the soul were about to render itself up to God.”

Although the soul may have spent nearly a lifetime in abandonment to God, that is not now the case. All the soul knows now is that, “she is absent from her Good”, and the only question becomes, “why should she wish to live?” The soul finds itself in a “strange solitude”, with no companions on earth, desiring only His companionship in heaven. One feels suspended, “unable either to come down and rest anywhere on earth or to ascend into Heaven.” The soul experiences an intolerable, unquenchable thirst.

What is really happening here, just prior to entering the Seventh Mansions? We must remember that what will occur in the Seventh Mansions, the Spiritual Marriage, is the highest possible spiritual state attainable while in the body. For a soul who has attained to this spiritual level, a purification similar to that which occurs in Purgatory must take place. St. Teresa tells us, “It is well that great things should cost a great deal, especially if the soul can be purified by suffering and enabled to enter the seventh Mansion, just as those who are to enter Heaven are cleansed in purgatory. If this is possible, its suffering is no more than a drop of water in the sea.”

This type of distress of the soul comes and goes, and as St. Teresa recounts, can last anywhere from fifteen minutes to three or four hours. There is no way of, “dispelling the distress until the Lord Himself dispels it for her. This He does, as a general rule, by granting her a deep rapture or some kind of vision, in which the true Comforter comforts and strengthens her so that she can wish to live for as long as He wills.”

At this point, souls have reached the heights of suffering but not the heights of joy, for they are about to be brought into the Seventh Mansions, where, “He repays them for everything at once.”