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Saint Teresa of Avila Prayer
“Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
attributed to
Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
Carmelite nun, Doctor of the Church, monastic reformer, mystic, writer
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Julie, I have used this for years with students to get across the fact that Christ lives in us. I love it. Thanks for reminding us.
Coincidentally, I’m reading a book, Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, a set of reflections on the rosary by a Methodist minister. His point on the Crowning of the Blessed Virgin was (in different words) the same as the prayer.
Wow … that was so inspiring! Thank you for posting that.
Can you help me out??? I am trying to find the book or title to the book where this quote is from, thanks Marie
“Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
attributed to
Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
Carmelite nun, Doctor of the Church, monastic reformer, mystic, writer
Hi Marie … I’m not sure I can help with a book. When I first posted this, I had taken it from a list of Teresa of Avila quotes. Since then one of my colleagues at work said that no one has ever been able to find the original occurrence of that quote (hence I say “attributed to”). I’ve also seen it attributed to Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. You may want to contact a Carmelite community as they may have a better idea of whether or not it came from Teresa of Avila. Do let me know if you find anything of interest!
I checked with the Institute of Carmelite Studies, ICS Publications, in Washington DC. Their scholars have said that the above prayer does not come from St. Teresa of Avila, either in her writings or in oral tradition.
Thanks, Carmel Farmer. I appreciate that you checked it out. Not too much of a bummer to find that out since there is so much good stuff that Teresa has written.
Yesterday someone mentioned ‘this quote of St. Teresa’. I was a Carmelite for 21 years and have no recollection of seeing it among Teresa’s writings. I was always told it was a quotation affixed to a Statue of the Sacred Heart in Dresden, Germany, after the the church was bombed in WW II. The story I heard is that the locals saw the statue with hands (and feet) broken off and decided not to repair it. Rather, this quotation appeared to give meaning to the lack of repair.
Dear Carmel Farmer,
I have been an Avila in the Diocese of Cleveland for nine years now (a prayer support organization for Religious vocations) and we have sung the above quotation for decades (music written by Byrd, 1987). Our Patroness is St. Teresa of Avila, and I think most of us just assumed this was a quote in one of her writings. Who is the author of this, then?