Ruminations of an Irascible Hermit.: St Teresa of Avila and the necessity of the Sacred Humanity of Jesus in the spiritual life

Saturday, October 15, 2022

St Teresa of Avila and the necessity of the Sacred Humanity of Jesus in the spiritual life

Today is the Feast of that wonderful, passionate saint who the Church calls the Doctor of Prayer - St Teresa of Avila.

For many of us we can over complicate prayer, we turn it into an abstract intellectual exercise and get caught up in our own thoughts or ideas. Or we fall pray to our own doubts, temptations, scrupulosity and fears. Other times we struggle so much with the effort required to pray that we just give up.

St Teresa is a fantastic teacher of prayer needed today, just as much as any other time in the Church. She teaches us that prayer is about loving union with God, it is a gaze, an act of the will, it is not just merely words but it is spending time alone with someone who loves us, it is a loving relationship of friendship with Jesus. As Catholics if we ever fall into the temptation of thinking of prayer as anything else other than this then we are falling into dangerous territory.

For St Teresa, contemplation is linked to asceticism, detachment, growth in virtue, humility, a groundedness in self knowledge, silence, participation in the Sacraments and a life of love with the Beloved, who loves us and knows us. Without knowledge of our own weaknesses and sins, then it is impossible to have true humility required to grow in grace and relationship with God.

St Teresa has many images of God that she uses, and often we each will dwell on different ones at different times in our life. She focuses on God as King and often refers to him as His Majesty. But she also speaks more importantly of God as our friend, companion, gardener of our soul, sweet hunter, Bridegroom and Beloved.

Jesus always needs to be our focus. Without him we are nothing. But this means Jesus as he really is - as he has revealed himself in the Gospels and not our false ideas of who he is. For St Teresa it is always very important for us to meditate on the Life of Jesus, to keep us focused on the truths of the faith that are live giving and transformative. Any concept of Jesus not based in scripture is a false idol that we need to be aware of.

This brings me to the importance of understanding, knowing and loving the Sacred Humanity of Jesus in the teaching of St Teresa. She is very emphatic that no matter how far we think we have progressed in the spiritual life, no matter how mystical we think we are, no matter if we are experiencing dryness and suffering or on the heights of spiritual delight - we must never depart from the Sacred Humanity of Jesus.

The person of a Jesus Christ is not an idea or concept or metaphor, but he is a living person who knows us, loves us and is constantly calling us into a relationship of Divine Intimacy with himself. St Teresa even goes so far as to warn the nuns that once they separate their spiritual life and prayer from the Sacred Humanity of Jesus, that it won’t be long before they lose devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. As Catholics we need to always beware of the temptation to think that the truths of our faith are just metaphors, that the sacraments are only symbols and that we can have any authentic spiritual life without a relationship of love with the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

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Disclaimer

Please note. I am a Catholic layman, not a qualified theologian or philosopher. What I say and write here are my own personal thoughts and ideas, although I always try to conform my writings to the Magisterium of the Church.

I- with firm faith believe and profess everything that is contained in the symbol of faith: namely,

I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: By the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in the one holy catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

With firm faith I believe as well everything contained in God's word, written or handed down in tradition and proposed by the church--whether in solemn judgment or in the ordinary and universal Magisterium--as divinely revealed and called for faith.

I also firmly accept and hold each and every thing that is proposed by that same church definitively with regard to teaching concerning faith or morals.

What is more, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the college of bishops enunciate when they exercise the authentic Magisterium even if they proclaim those teachings in an act that is not definitive.