Idon’t know if saints ever did stand-up comedy, or if the Scripture writers ever LOL’d at what they wrote. But they do show us that there’s a connection between faith, humor, happiness and transformation. It’s what Father James Martin writes about in his new book Between Heaven and Mirth.

Sister Julie and I are delighted that Father Martin will join us for a live podcast on All Saints Day! It’s part of our very first A Nun’s Life Fun!raiser. We’ll talk with him about saints and the role of humor in the spiritual life. Join us in the live chat room during the podcast, which begins at 2 pm Central, to ask questions and share your best spiritual humor! Check out the sidebar to the right for more info about events during the Fun!raiser!

In the meantime, if you need a spiritual boost, check out this video clip of Father Martin sharing a joke with journalist Sally Quinn.

We hope you can join us for the podcast with Father Martin and for other fun and one-of-a-kind events during our nine-day Fun!raiser. A Nun’s Life Ministry relies on gifts from readers and listeners like you, who make these podcasts and this ministry possible. We encourage you to support this ministry that strives to promote religious life and to encourage people in living their calling. Please consider a one-time gift or a monthly gift to support the ministry. Thank you!

Blackbelt of the Catholic News Scrum, Audra Turnbull guest blogs about her experience on the A Nun’s Life Media Team for World Youth Day in Madrid, Spain.

I have a confession to make: when I was invited to go to Spain with Sister Julie, Sister Max and Melba, I tried to read about Saint Teresa of Avila but I failed. I never found the time to read any of her books. I was just going to have to go into Avila with an open heart.

Convent Door at the Monastery of the Incarnation, Avila

Our plane touched down in Madrid, Spain at around 7 o’clock in the morning and we immediately drove to Avila. After checking into our hotel room we decided to go into town and take a look around. We ended up spending the entire day inside Avila’s famous medieval walls. As we walked around it became apparent to me that I would have no trouble learning about Teresa of Avila — her influence and spirit was everywhere. Over the next couple days we toured many “Teresa sites”.

We walked through the door of the first convent she entered. I sat outside that door and pondered at how nervous, scared, calm and excited she must have been that day. At that moment I was starting to become a little bit closer to her.

Saint Joseph the Tattletale at the Monastery of the Incarnation, Avila

As we walked through the museum we came upon a scary-looking-to-me statue of Saint Joseph. Legend had it that Saint Teresa told the statue to keep watch of the convent while she was away founding other convents. When she came back Saint Joseph would tell her if any of the nuns misbehaved. I really liked how this saint ran her convents.

We then toured a church that was built on the site where she was born. As I walked through I thought that she must have been a VERY holy person to have a church like this built in her honor. Then hit me- she was holy because of one thing: she loved God with all her heart. This love let her be open to whatever God was calling her to do. I think this is the greatest lesson Teresa taught me.

Countless times I thanked God for showing me this great saint in this way- walking in her footsteps while hearing stories from the people who loved her. That was exactly how the early Christians learned about God.

So I want to thank Saint Teresa for being so gracious in letting me walk in her shoes for a couple of days. I also want to thank Sister Julie and Sister Max for telling me her stories. And of course Melba, for teaching me how to get into a media scrum.

Audra is a professional weather girl for a radio station in western Illinois. She is also an avid polka fan and sometimes author of the blog theawkwardcatholic.blogspot.com.

AS049 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on November 19, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: no desire for a vocation, saints and symbols, Therese of Lisieux and Teresa of Avila, exercise habits, putting the holy in holiday, and more!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• Can you be called by God to a vocation that you don’t really want? NOTE: The article mentioned in the conversation is 4 Steps for Discernment and Decision-Making
• In art and on holy cards, why are saints pictured with symbols?
• Two Saint Theresa’s? How are they different?
• Can nuns go swimming with their habit on? Horseback riding?
• How do you put the “holy” in “holiday”?

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also send us an email or comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

The following homily on the Feast of Saint Teresa of Avila was written by Sister Margaret Brennan, one of our IHM sisters, a theologian, and wise spiritual director.

Teresa of Avila
Homily by Margaret Brennan, IHM
October 15, 2010 (print)

“To be a woman in the Church is enough to make my wings fall off …” so wrote the Carmelite nun Teresa of Avila, Teresa of Jesus, the Carmelite during the aftermath of the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century. Church officials in Spain in the attempts to enforce the teachings of the Council, and to stem the tide of the Protestant Reformation, forbade the reading of any spiritual books by current authors who advocated and taught the prayer of recollection … especially to women. The Index of 1559 also banned from them, all vernacular translations of the Scriptures “Let them stick to their spinning … lest they be deceived.” “Never mind,” retorted Teresa, “Hold fast daughters, they cannot take the Our Father and the Hail Mary away from us …”

In this misogynist climate of reform, Teresa Ahumada de Cepeda, now Teresa of Jesus, the reformer of the Carmelite Order, set out not only to restore the original fervor of the nuns, open new foundations of monasteries of men as well as women throughout the whole of Spain, but to encourage her sisters and the friars as well to seek the full heights of prayer, lead simple lives of joy in community, and above all, to pray for the Church which for her was the living Body of the Risen Christ.

And so it was that, while always walking in the shadow of the Inquisition, she wrote some of the most important spiritual literature in the Catholic Church. The Interior Castle, her masterpiece written during the time that she was confined by the Apostolic Delegate to remain in a single monastery, to make no new foundations and described her in his words as

“… a restless gadabout, a disobedient and contumacious woman who invented wicked doctrines and devotions, and … leaving her cloister against the mandate of the Council of Trent has gone about to teach others as though she were a ‘maestra’ in contradiction to the teaching of St. Paul who had forbidden women to teach.”

Teresa’s often quoted phrase, “I am a daughter of the Church,” rather than a statement of pride and even presumption were actually her dying words. Still under the shadow of the Inquisition but still not condemned, they were, in a way, a sigh of relief. “In the end, I am (still) a daughter of the Church.”

On October 14, 1614, Teresa the woman, became Teresa the beatified – the first step toward sanctification – 35 years after she had been the object of examination and scrutiny, and only 17 years after some theologians had recommended that all her writings be burned.

As IHM Sisters, devotion to Teresa came to us through our Redemptorist heritage and in particular through the written testimony of Saint Alphonsus whose first publication was a novena to Saint Teresa and who never tired of saying that she was his first and best teacher of prayer … and who he quotes more than any other Saint in his writings.

At the beginning of Redemptorist documents and all the letter of Alphonsus were the initials JMJT – Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Teresa. And for many, many years how often all IHMs wrote these same initials at the beginnings of letters, both personal and professional, only adding that of Alphonsus. JMJAT

From these two doctors of the Church, teachers of the spiritual life, may we continue to draw a love for the Church even in and perhaps all the more in its hours of challenge. St. Alphonsus was a great champion against the false doctrine and excessive rigor of Jansenism, a spiritual director of gentleness and compassion in the practice of the love of Jesus Christ committed to the poor and to the simple people of his time as well as today. Patron of Spiritual Directors.

Teresa, daughter of the Church, stern critic and ardent lover of its life and mission, offers us both inspiration and courage as we face scrutiny even as she did … and above all encourages us to trust our lives to God, to take seriously and to reverence the authority of the Church, but not always so seriously those who exercise it.

The texts of the liturgy on this, her feast, offer us a fruitful commentary on a life singularly blest by God and honored by the Church. They offer us as well the same promise of Jesus that Teresa knew.

In the thought of St. Paul expressed in his letter to the Romans, the hope for what she could not see, the waiting with endurance finds echo in our own lives.

In our own way and in our own time, with her and with St. Paul, we know and believe that the Spirit, who searches hearts, still intercedes for all of us, prays for us, shows us how to wait with endurance, and indeed, teaches us to pray.

The Gospel passage from Jesus’ gentle yet empassioned last discourse to his disciples reminds as, as it did so deeply in the life of Teresa, that to be rooted in Him as the vine in the branch … will mean times of pruning to bear fruit that will last. In many ways, the apostolic visitation of our lives rather than a source of anxiety has provided a deeper rooting, a strengthening of our ties to one another and to promoting the kind of Church that Teresa saw and served so well.

As IHM Sisters we are blessed indeed to have two doctors of the Church, renowned for their teaching on prayer, their practical sense, as patrons, models and advocates.

And finally … As we enter into this liturgy let us call to mind the words of Teresa on this her feast day … let us take them to heart … as we take up another day of life.

“Remember that you have only one soul, that you have only one death to die, that you have only one life, which is short and has to be lived by you alone; and that there is only one glory which is eternal. If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.“

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Join A Nun’s Life Community for prayer today via our live podcast “Praying with the Sisters” and chat room. Just before 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) join us at http://aNunsLife.org/LIVE … more info on that page.

Today we celebrate Saint Teresa of Avila, a saint that is near and dear to my heart. Here’s a short piece I wrote in honor of the feast for Take Five For Faith, a publication by our friends over at TrueQuest Communications.

With God you’re never alone

Prayer can be lonely at times as we struggle to feel the nearness of God’s presence. It’s a comfort to know that even the great saint and doctor of the church Teresa of Avila also struggled with loneliness. No matter how much or how intensely she prayed, she’d sometimes feel a distance between herself and God. Using the words of the psalms, Teresa wrote, “I have watched and become as a sparrow alone on the housetop” (Psalm 102). Though suffering the pain of loneliness, Teresa assures us that God is right there with us and can use even our emptiness as a vehicle of grace. When you are like a sparrow alone on the heights, crying out into the vastness of the sky, what calls you away from the edge?

TODAY’S READINGS: Ephesians 1:11-14; Luke 12:1-7
“Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

Listen to CP003 Community Podcast – Saints recorded live on January 15, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. In this show, the sisters and listeners tell stories about the saints include favorite prayers, Catholic practices, and recipes related to their saint.

Here’s a bit of what we discussed:

• Who are the saints?
• saint trivia (do you know who the patron saint of drug addicts is?)
• Saint Thérèse of Lisieux by Jeannie
• Saint Patrick video by Clare Leigh
• Saint Syncletica by Julia
• Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque by Kathleen
• Saint Teresa of Avila by Suze
• Saint Thecla by Beege

Listen to the podcast below and be sure to check out our previously recorded Community Podcasts!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to the A Nun’s Life Podcast:

This Friday, A Nun’s Life is hosting our third Community Podcast on Saints, Food, and Prayer.  Our community podcasts are free-for-all opportunities for you all to come up with a topic and the content for a podcast which Sister Maxine and I host. The first two we had were Thanksgiving rituals, food, and prayers and Advent and Christmas rituals, food, and prayers. Various readers and listeners of A Nun’s Life community joined us live on the air or sent things in ahead of time.

Here’s how you can participate in the Saints, Food, and Prayer community podcast. We invite you to join us for the live show this Friday at 6:45 p.m. Central Time (your timezone). All you have to do is show up here at our website http://aNunsLife.org and when we go live, the audio will start playing on any page of our website. If you’d like to read or participate in the simultaneous chat, go directly to http://anunslife.org/live.

We’d love for you to add your voice to the on-air discussion by telling us about your favorite saint. Here’s how that works: you pick a saint (e.g., Teresa of Avila) , tell us who she or he is (She’s from Avila, Spain … she was a Carmelite nun and Doctor of the Church … she wrote about prayer) and why the saint is important to you (e.g., she’s helped me in my life as a nun, she is a companion in prayer). Then you can offer an interesting tidbit about the person, a prayer or quote written by or about the saint, or (because we tend to chat about food after our evening podcasts as we are preparing for supper) a food item or recipe relevant to the saint or her/his native land (e.g., a recipe for Pan de Horno — Spanish bread — that you tried or would like to try)

A few folks have already tagged their saint (I know Suze claimed Teresa of Avila) … but alas my list has disappeared. So, for all, please let Sister Maxine and I know who you’d like to share about. We’d like to have you share on the air with us (about 5-7 minutes) so you can call us (will give number out at beginning of podcast) or you can send us a private email with your phone number and we’ll call you!

Sister Max and I haven’t decided who we are going to talk about yet so stay tuned!

Saints Painting by Fra Angelico (1430)

Happy feast of Saint John of the Cross! Here’s a bit of John’s story from Saints and Feast Days: A Resource and Activity Book by The Sisters of Notre Dame of Chardon, Ohio.

John of the Cross was locked in a cell six feet wide and ten feet long for nine months, with no light except that which filtered through a slit high up in the wall. He later forgave the men who had imprisoned him. How could he do that? He explained, “Where there is no love, put love, and you will find love.”

John’s father had been disowned by his wealthy Spanish family when he married a poor weaver rather than a woman of equal economic status. Living in poverty proved to be too much for him, and he died shortly after John was born. John spent much of his youth in an orphanage, where he was clothed, fed, and given an elementary education. At the age of 17, he found a job in a hospital and was accepted into a Jesuit college. In 1563 he entered the Carmelite Order. Eventually he enrolled in another university, where he did so well that he was asked to teach a class and to help settle disputes.

When he met Teresa of Ávila and learned from her about the reform of the Carmelite Order, John decided to help with it. As part of this decision, he wore sandals instead of shoes and lived very simply in prayer and solitude. In 1577 the attitude toward the reform shifted.

John was caught up in a misunderstanding and imprisoned at Toledo, Spain. During those months of darkness in that little cell, John could have become bitter, revengeful, or filled with despair. But instead, he kept himself open to God’s action, for no prison could separate him from God’s all-embracing love. During this time he had many beautiful experiences and encounters with God in prayer. Later he would describe these experiences in poetry. In 1578 John escaped to southern Spain to join the reformed Carmelites. There he held leadership positions and wrote reflections on his experiences, which showed his deep spirit of prayer. When he became ill, he chose to go to the city of Ubeda, where no one knew him. It was there that he died.

On this feast day, if you encounter a place of no love, put love, and you will find love.

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Join A Nun’s Life community for prayer at 6 p.m. CST (your time zone). This Friday is the Ask Sister Podcast. If you have questions for us, please email them to us.

Much can be said (and written) about seeking God’s blessings and seeking God’s ways. Countless questions about God and directed to God have been uttered — what is the meaning in life, my life? how can I give my life to God? what is God like? where is God? does God hear me, notice me?

Sometimes, when pursuing one of these Big Questions, we stumble upon blessings that we did not intentionally seek. For example, way back when, I spent time discerning how God was calling me to use my gifts in the world as a Catholic sister. I was happily committed in my life as a sister but was still trying to find my place in the world in regards to form or context of ministry. Through prayer, conversations with my sisters, retreat, and simply trying new things, I began moving toward a kind of “answer” to what I was seeking. In the midst of all that discernment, that “figuring out” where God was leading me, there were some unexpected blessings.

Like blogging.

I started a simple little blog more as a hobby and to learn more about Internet technologies. I had no expectations for the blog other than it would help me learn a few tricks. I certainly did not expect that I would be working full-time with the A Nun’s Life website and community some 3+ years later! The blog was one of those blessings I stumbled upon while I was trying to pursue this other question of what work I wanted to commit myself to as an IHM Sister. It seemed irrelevant at the time, a mere distraction, yet it was and continues to be a great blessing that has taken me, and my original question, to a new place.

What “blessing stumbled upon” have you had in life? In what ways is God calling you to not necessarily answer your original question but simply to live out of the new place in which you find yourself?

Footnote: Thoughts today inspired by Teresa of Avila (p. 62) and my nun Sister Maryfran Barber, IHM.

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Join Sister Maxine, the A Nun’s Life community, and me for Praying with the Sisters podcast at 6 p.m. Central Time tonight (your time zone).

Picture this: you’re going through a difficult time, you’ve got a lot on your mind, you just can’t seem to make sense of stuff. Then someone says it, that dreadful line: “Offer it up.”

If you are like me (admittedly, not my most admirable quality) you have to suppress an overwhelming desire to take a swing at the person.

To me, “offer it up” is not exactly the most compassionate thing a person can say when another is in a tough space. In fact, sometimes it rings of a kind of dismissal, an unwillingness to be with a person in their struggle, even if only in silent vigil.

Though not fond of this line, I found it was exactly the one that came to mind this morning as I read Saint Teresa of Avila. As mentioned before, I’m re-reading The Life as translated by Mirabai Starr in Teresa of Avila: The Book of My Life and am at a significant moment in Teresa’s life where she has a conversion. Teresa writes about how difficult prayer has been for her. “By now, my poor soul had grown weary. But no matter how much she wished she could rest, the bad habits I had developed would not let her” (p. 58). Teresa speaks of losing trust in herself, of being unable to imagine Christ in prayer, of having distracting thoughts that would torment her, of being plagued with doubts. “I slid back so many times that I was exhausted” (p. 59).

Teresa was indeed in a tough space. So what did she do?

She offered it up.

In this tough space Teresa gave to God all that she had — not successes or insights or any kind of “worthiness” — but the only things she felt she had left: her fears, her doubts, her temptations, her “deep soul-weariness”.

To God she offered them.

There is real wisdom in Teresa’s experience. Sometimes we feel like we don’t have a whole heck of a lot going for ourselves. We struggle, we deal with pain, we despair, we worry, we just don’t feel like engaging anymore. God does not ask us to give that which we don’t have. In these times, God doesn’t expect us to offer perfectly manicured prayers, devout thoughts, or deeds of righteousness. What God asks us for is who we are and what we do have. We can offer to God as a gift our pain, despair, worry, and struggle. Doing so is not abnegating responsibility or expecting that it will all magically go away. Rather, offering these our gifts is an opportunity to open the door to God, to God’s love and deep compassion. It is a chance to move beyond the impasse we experience in our life and become ourselves more fully.

“O God, help me! How a soul suffers when she loses the freedom to be who she truly is. What torment she endures. I am amazed to see that I survived such pain. Praise be to God, who gave me life when I was on the brink of such a deadly death.”

What comes to mind as you hear the words “offer it up” and as you hear Teresa’s experience? What’s the hardest part of “offering it up”? What’s happened for you when you’ve tried to offer up your own tough situations?

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Join us this evening for Praying with the Sisters podcast — 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) at http://anunslife.org/live. We’ll have a special reading in celebration of our IHM Founders Day.

I have a great fondness for the written word and treasure well-written books. I’m back reading The Book of My Life by Teresa of Avila. One can never experience Teresa’s writing too many times. It has a formative character which, to be biblical, is written over and over again on one’s soul, creating a well-worn path to God.

Teresa of course is a great teacher and wisdom figure on prayer, and one of the reasons she is so wise on matters of prayer is because she had such a difficult time with it during various periods of her life. Early in the book Teresa notes how certain forms of prayer did absolutely nothing for her.

“I would think about a scene in his life and then try to picture it with my mind’s eye. But … my imagination was so clumsy that no matter how hard I tried to meditate on the Lord’s humanity, I could never quite succeed.” (p 21)

When this happens, the temptation is to think then that one can’t pray or doesn’t know how to pray. But Teresa came to a different conclusion. She tried something different — in fact, she tried something that she was quite fond of: books! In the midst of describing her struggles with praying using the imagination and mental prayer, Teresa writes, “But what I liked best was to read good books.” She goes on to say how reading good books (not just any books) helped her to keep her on track and not spin out of control in prayer or end up discouraged. Such books, writes Teresa, can be an aid in prayer and can anchor us when our prayer is difficult or arid.

“During all that time [of not being able to meditate], I never dared to sit down to pray unless I had a book close at hand…. Books were my companions, my consolation, my shield against the explosion of thoughts. If I didn’t have a book, I would suffer from terrible aridity. The minute I found myself without something to read, my soul would become immediately agitated and my mind would start to wander. But as soon as I started reading, the words acted like bait to lure my soul and my thoughts began to collect themselves again. Sometimes it was enough just to know that I had a book beside me; I didn’t even have to open it. Sometimes I read just a little, sometimes a lot, depending on the mercy of God.” (p 22)

Good books are for Teresa, as they are for me, wonderful spiritual companions. I think you know what one of my favorites to take to prayer is! What about for you? What book is your spiritual companion and why? If not a book, what is your spiritual companion in the sense of what Teresa is saying here?

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Praying with the Sisters podcast is in experimentation mode! We’re trying out an evening time slot and a slightly new format. Join us today at 6 p.m. Central Time (time zone converter). Join us at at http://anunslife.org/live.

Blogging from my cell phone is a new experience for me! I’m hanging out in Wilmington with one of my nuns and dear friend Ginny and can only access the Internet by my phone. Fortunately there’s a handy WordPress app for my phone.

So I’m in transit via car, feet, train, shuttle bus, and airplane today back to Chicago. I’m looking forward to the adventure and ever so glad I packed lightly!

I’ve had prayer and contemplative life on my mind and heart … Intensely since the Feast of Teresa of Avila. I’ll share more soon. Prayer (like myself today!) is often in transit, moving and changing, pausing, and sometimes even getting lost or stopped along the way. I have found it so helpful to be able to share with my nuns the journey of prayer. And so I’d like to open the door to you too. What way(s) of praying do you find yourself drawn to? Any “techniques” that you find helpful too (e.g., praying at same time; going for a run first)?

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P.S. Sister Maxine is also in transit so we will not have a midday prayer podcast today. Back tomorrow at noon Central Time.

Happy Friday! I can hardly believe that we are already in the later part of October. You know what that means … Halloween is creeping up on us, slowly but surely and spookily. For A Nun’s Life that also means addressing the oft-asked question this time of year: Is it appropriate for me or my child to wear a nun’s habit as a Halloween costume? Sister Maxine and I will be taking this question head on during today’s “Ask Sister” portion of Nun News Roundup.

Here’s today’s lineup:

• 

  Newly-minted saint Sister Jeanne Jugan

  Pope Benedict XVI canonized Sister Jeanne Jugan

• Nuns swing hammers, hang wallboard to rebuild homes hit by Katrina
• Women religious take the podium at Africa synod of bishops
• U.S. women religious supported by sister sisters in Asia
• The Mysterious Sister X – an article in Commonweal Magazine
  Interviewing Mirabai Starr on the Feast of Saint Teresa of Avila

Join us for all the news that’s fit to broadcast this week about nuns!

Visit ANunsLife.org/live
Today
12 p.m. Central Time / UTC-5

Join in on the conversation during the live broadcast by listening and chatting in our chat room.

Happy Feast of Saint Teresa of Avila! I went to bed last night all giddy because of today’s feast. It honestly felt like Christmas Eve morning! I don’t exactly know why I have been feeling so excited about this feast day. As you know, Teresa of Avila is near and dear to my heart. She is one of the few saints that I feel so present to me. And it’s not just Teresa herself. It’s everything she stands for, the way she lived her life, and encouraged her sisters and everyone to seek God through both the contemplative moments of life and the active moments of life.

So I guess for me to celebrate her feast day is also a celebration of my relationship with her and my relationship with God! It’s not a bad way to spend a day!

As part of this day, I invite you to join Sister Maxine and I as we welcome another of Teresa of Avila’s friends, Mirabai Starr. Mirabai will be joining us for a live podcast today at 7:00 p.m. Central Time (time zone converter). Mirabai has spent long hours with Teresa, reading her and getting to know her as she worked on translating The Book of My Life and The Interior Castle. I can’t wait to talk with her about Teresa. More info in yesterday’s blog post. Also visit Mirabai’s website at http://www.mirabaistarr.com/.

This podcast is free and easy to access. All you need to do is visit http://anunslife.org/live any time from about 6:45 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. We’ll start officially at 7:00 p.m. Central Time (time zone converter). Follow the instructions at http://anunslife.org/live. Throughout the podcast we’ll take your comments and questions via the chat room. Use the chat room also to connect with other listeners and with us!

If you want to do a test run, join Sister Maxine and me for prayer at 12 noon Central Time. We pray the reading of the day and take your prayer requests every Monday through Thursday.

Blessings and happy Feast!

Post-show Update: Here’s the recording of the podcast:

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

A Nun’s Life is hosting a live podcast on Saint Teresa of Avila tomorrow evening — Thursday, October 15, at 7 p.m. Central Time (time zone converter). Sister Maxine and I are delighted to announce that we will be joined by Mirabai Starr, author of a fresh translation of Saint Teresa’s writings, Teresa of Avila: The Book of My Life and The Interior Castle.

Mirabai is a writer, translator, speaker, and teacher. She has also translated Dark Night of the Soul by Saint John of the Cross. You can learn more about Mirabai and her work at her website.

We’ll talk with Mirabai and with our listeners about who Saint Teresa is, her writings, her thoughts on prayer, and who she is for us today. Since this will be a live broadcast, we can take your questions and comments throughout the show. Join us and invite your friends!

Celebrate the Feast of Saint Teresa of Avila
Visit aNunsLife.org/live
October 15
7-8 p.m. Central Time

Information on how to listen to the podcast and how to participate can be found at aNunsLife.org/live. If you have any questions about logistics, please let me know.

To get us started, let us know what questions you’d like us to address. What would you like to know about Teresa or her writings?

This is the final in a series of three posts on Saint Teresa of Avila. The whole piece was originally published in VISION, the Catholic Religious Discernment Guide.

Read the first part My BFF is a 16th century nun, Teresa of Avila and the second part Teresa of Avila’s desire to give her life to God.

A leap of faith

Teresa spent a year and a half living with the nuns. Still, she resisted becoming a nun, saying, “I could not be persuaded to be one” (Life 3.2). Though obviously attracted to the life, Teresa needed time to adjust to the possibility of God calling her to religious life. Like Teresa we are often given the same challenge of imagining our life in a different way. Teresa says little about how or even if she resolved her questions, but we do know that she decided to become a nun anyway. She was able to set aside her doubts and fears and respond to God’s call.

This didn’t mean that Teresa’s life was easy once she made the decision to become a nun. Explaining her call to family and friends proved to be a challenge. Her father so loved her that he couldn’t imagine letting her leave for the convent until after he died. Nothing Teresa said or did could change his mind. But Teresa wished to remain true to the call from God. She knew herself well enough to know that if she didn’t pursue God’s call now, she might never do it. So early one morning, Teresa quietly left her father’s house for the convent: “I remember, clearly and truly, that when I left my father’s house I felt that separation so keenly that the feeling will not be greater, I think, when I die. For it seemed that every bone in my body was being sundered” (Life 4.1).

The pain which Teresa wrote about here is real. Whether it be family or friends, careers or possessions that we want to hold onto, God’s call is all-encompassing. It is a call to be open to radical change in our lives, if that’s what God asks of us.

Filled with a new joy

Teresa entered the Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation in 1533, took the habit, and eventually professed solemn vows as a Carmelite nun. Her initial struggle gave way to a lasting joy: “[God] gave me such great happiness at being in the religious state of life that it never left me up to this day, and God changed the dryness my soul experienced into the greatest tenderness. All the things of religious life delighted me, and it is true that sometimes while sweeping, during the hours I used to spend in self-indulgence and self-adornment, I realized that I was free of all that and experienced a new joy that amazed me.” (Life 4.2)

When I first began considering religious life, I never would have imagined I’d experience this “new joy” of which Teresa wrote. But the experience of responding to God’s call and eventually professing my vows as an IHM Sister was a joy that I’d never felt before. I felt like a new person, yet more myself than ever.

Trusting in God Always

All along the way, it helped to have Teresa by my side. Today she is still very much a companion. Sometimes I turn to her writings for encouragement, other times for help in a pastoral or theological quandary. Whenever I have questions about prayer or don’t quite understand how the Spirit is moving in my life, I pray and seek guidance from Teresa. Even Teresa’s own tangles with God (once, when complaining of her suffering, Teresa heard Jesus respond, “This is how I treat my friends” to which Teresa rejoined, “No wonder you have so few!”) give me assurance that my struggles are not out of the ordinary and that there is a way through the darkness.

Although I have known Teresa for many years now, I continue to discover new things about her. Recently, I read a book of her letters. The letters reveal a woman who was deeply committed to a contemplative life but who was, of necessity, engaged in what one commentator calls “a maelstrom of activities.” Sometimes this maelstrom got the best of her. Wrote Teresa, “With so many duties and troubles … I wonder how I’m able to bear them all” (Letter 39 in The Collected Letters of St. Teresa of Avila).

As a religious I can identify with this constant balancing of prayer, ministry, and community life. It is both a joy and a challenge to live this life. Religious life calls us to our best selves and often summons strengths and gifts that we didn’t even know we had. I’m sure on more than one occasion Teresa was surprised to see how things worked out or what paths opened up that she could have hardly imagined. Perhaps some of the best advice that Teresa has ever given to me is to trust always in God, even when things are tough or unclear. She reminds me that determination is indeed a virtue and a necessity in the life of faith.

“Have great confidence,” Teresa wrote, “for it is necessary not to hold back one’s desires, but to believe in God that if we try we shall little by little, even though it may not be soon, reach the state the saints did with his help. For if they had never determined to desire and seek this state little by little in practice they would never have mounted so high.” (Life 13.2)

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What struck you about Teresa’s life and her desire to trust always in God? If you could ask Teresa anything, what would it be?

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Join Sister Maxine and me for prayer today at noon Central Time at http://anunslife.org/live.

This is the second in a series of three posts on Saint Teresa of Avila. The whole piece was originally published in VISION, the Catholic Religious Discernment Guide.

Read yesterday’s post, which is part one in the series:  My BFF is a 16th century nun, Teresa of Avila

Doing Something Big for God

One of Teresa’s first mentions of wanting to give her life to God comes in a story from her childhood. Teresa, at the tender age of seven, was inspired to do something big for God. We’re not talking here about making crosses out of clothes pins. Teresa decided that she and her brother ought to become martyrs because that was the quickest way to heaven (Life 1.4). So Teresa and her brother set out in search of unbelievers so that they could “beg them, out of love of God, to cut off our heads.” But no sooner had the children started their journey than an uncle caught sight of them and promptly returned them to their mother. Teresa surrendered her dream of martyrdom, concluding that “having parents seemed to us the greatest obstacle.”

She resigned herself to an ordinary childhood. Still, she clung to the desire, however innocent and immaturely expressed, to do something big for God. She took consolation in pretending to be a nun: “When I played with other girls I enjoyed it when we pretended we were nuns in a monastery, and it seemed to me that I desired to be one, although not as much as I desired [becoming a martyr or a hermit]” (Life 1.6).

This episode in Teresa’s life reflects the difficulty of feeling called to something, but not knowing exactly what. When I felt called I thought maybe it meant joining the Jesuit Volunteer Corps or dedicating myself to marriage and raising a family. Not convinced that religious life was for me, I tested many alternatives. But no matter how good they were or how much I welcomed them, they didn’t seem to fit.

No substitute for real nuns

Just as Teresa had romantic notions about what it meant to be a martyr or a nun in the 16th century, so too I had some skewed ideas about religious life in this century. My ideas came from a number of sources; actual experiences with nuns as an adult wasn’t one of them. It occurred to me that I hadn’t considered religious life before because I didn’t know what it was about. My lack of accurate information left me with a superficial understanding of religious life and the women and men who lived it.

Teresa’s life shows the importance of first-hand experience with people in religious life. When Teresa was twelve, her mom died, and she was raised by her father and older sister. When her sister left the house to get married, Teresa’s father decided to send Teresa to the convent school to be taught by the nuns and live with them. Teresa wrote of her initial unhappiness with this, mostly because she was afraid the nuns knew that she didn’t always live an exemplary life. Within days, however, her unhappiness gave way to peace, and she began to feel at home.

“My soul,” she wrote, “began to return to the good habits of early childhood, and I saw the great favor God accords to anyone placed with good companions.” (Life 2.8) While living with the nuns, Teresa found one who became a mentor and friend. This nun talked to Teresa about the things of God and even shared with Teresa her own path to religious life. This personal experience lead Teresa to free herself “from the antagonism that I felt strongly within myself toward becoming a nun” (Life 3.1). Still, Teresa notes, “I had no desire to be a nun, and I asked God not to give me this vocation.” (Life 3.2)

Throughout my discernment about religious life, I took great comfort in Teresa’s words. How many times did I pray to let this vocation pass me by? Yet even then, I felt as attracted to the life as I was terrified by it. What kept me going were the IHM sisters around me who encouraged me and who, by their lives, showed me the great gift and adventure of religious life. Had I not had a direct experience with nuns, I might never have been open to the possibility of religious life.

* * *

In what ways have you tested out your desire to give your life to God or to a vocation like marriage or education or art or parenthood? What words of wisdom do you hear from Teresa in pursuing this desire?

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Join Sister Maxine and me for prayer today at noon Central Time at http://anunslife.org/live.

The feast of Saint Teresa of Avila is just around the corner on October 15. I am delighted because Teresa is such an important person in my life. I never had any idea that someone who lived in the 16th century could become a close companion in my own life today. It underscores the power and presence of the Communion of Saints.

In honor of Saint Teresa, I am devoting this week’s posts to her. What follows is a piece I wrote last year for VISION, the Catholic Religious Discernment Guide sponsored by the National Religious Vocation Conference and published by TrueQuest Communications.

Introduction

As a 21st century nun ministering in the digital world, I try to stay on top of the latest technology so that I can best serve the people who visit my website, aNunsLife.org. But when it comes to living religious life, I’m old-school. One of my greatest mentors is Teresa of Avila, a 16th century Carmelite nun from a small town in Spain. Teresa is best known for her writings on prayer and reforming the Carmelite order. She is venerated today as a great saint and Doctor of the Church.

Personal Connection to Teresa

My first encounter with Teresa was in grade school, when I needed to take a saint’s name for Confirmation. Teresa seemed as good a saint as any. I chose her name and then pretty much forgot about her.

But Teresa did not forget about me. Over the years Teresa remained with me, waiting, it seemed, for me to come by her convent cell and chat awhile.

That day came one Fall morning in a graduate theology class in which I was introduced to Teresa’s writing. I took an immediate liking to Teresa. She wrote of ordinary, everyday stuff and of profound theological truths. I discovered that Teresa was a wise woman from whom I could learn much about the spiritual life. At that time, I had no idea how important Teresa would be for me in the months and years ahead, when my world would be turned upside down by the possibility that maybe, just maybe, God was calling me.

I first read Teresa’s classics, Interior Castle and Way of Perfection, because I needed to write a paper for a class. But soon I began to realize that Teresa’s words were there not just for me to study. I felt a personal connection. Through her writing Teresa was alive to me. She gave me insights not only into our shared Catholic faith but into my own self and how I was living the Gospel.

Later in my studies, when I began considering religious life, I returned to Teresa. I wanted not to study her writings, but to see what she was like as a nun. I wondered if Teresa had any of the same questions as I now had. Did she know for certain that God was calling her to religious life? Did she resist or doubt or panic at the thought? Hoping to get a glimpse into how Teresa realized her call from God, I turned to her more autobiographical work, The Book of My Life.

To be continued tomorrow … Teresa of Avila’s desire to give her life to God

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How is Teresa of Avila present in your own life? What would you like to know about Teresa?

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Join Sister Maxine and me for prayer today at noon Central Time at http://anunslife.org/live.

A meditation today from Saint Teresa of Avila …

Let darkness be my light;
may my greatness lie in the lowest place.
Send me up the short, steep path;
make the cross my glory.

- from Life of Saint Teresa of Avila

What thoughts or images emerge as you ponder this quote?

At long last I am returning to a book about Saint Teresa of Avila that I picked up last year. It’s called Interior Castle Explored: St. Teresa’s Teaching on the Life of Deep Union With God by Sister Ruth Burrows, OCD, a Carmelite nun in Norfolk. I am a big fan of both Teresa’s and Sister Ruth’s writings. But I don’t always take the time that I need to do some spiritual reading. So I took out the book again and started reading it again from the beginning.

In Chapter One, Sister Ruth quotes a poem by Nikos Kazantzakis, a Cretan poet whose birthday, coincidentally, is today. Sister Ruth writes, “I do not know his beliefs but, as it stands, the poem wonderfully expresses what I believe.”

Blowing through the heaven and earth, and in our hearts and in the heart of every living thing, is a gigantic breath — a great Cry — which we call God. Plant life wished to continue its motionless sleep next to stagnant waters, but the Cry leaped up within it and violently shook its roots: ‘Away, let go of the earth, walk!’ Had the tree been able to think and judge, it would have cried, ‘I don’t want to. What are you urging me to do? You are demanding the impossible!’

But the Cry, without pity, kept shaking its roots and shouting, ‘Away! Let go of the earth, walk!’

It shouted in this way for thousands of eons; and lo, as a result of desire and struggle, life escaped the motionless tree and was liberated….

The poem continues, but my reflections remained with this first part. How timely it is in my own life as well as in the life of the Church as we approach the wonderful season of Lent!

Some thoughts …

• What is the great Cry that I hear in my own life?
• What might God be asking me to let go of?
• In what ways am I tethered by roots that keep me from letting go and walking free?
• Is there something that I’ve been putting off for “thousands of eons”, thinking it impossible, that actually is possible?

Give me, if you will, prayer;
Or let me know dryness,
An abundance of devotion,
Or if not, then barrenness.
In you alone, Sovereign Majesty,
I find my peace,
What do you want of me?

Yours I am, for You I was born:
What do you want of me?

- Saint Teresa of Avila

Question from Hayden …

Hi Sister Julie! First of all, I admire you so much! Nuns fascinate me so much. What an amazing spirit you have to lead a life totally for Christ. I am a Christian (Episcopal; raised Episcopal, Methodist, and went to a Church of Christ College), and desire to be closer to God every day! I do have a great relationship with Him, but sometimes think I have trouble hearing what He is telling me. Any advice? I want to learn how to really listen with an open heart and mind. I think it was fate that I even stumbled upon your blog! You are amazing!

Hayden, I’m so glad you came by for visit. Your question is an important one, one that many people including myself have wrestled with. Even Saint Teresa of Avila — a Doctor of the Church in the Roman Catholic tradition because of her teachings on prayer — struggled with prayer and listening to God.

The first thing I want to say is that your very desire to be closer to God is itself a clear indication that God is working within you, drawing you close. As Thomas Merton, the great spiritual writer and Cistercian monk, wrote in a prayer, “I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you and I hope that I have this desire in all that I am doing.” He continued, saying, “And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road although I may know nothing about it.” For me, that is one of the key things to listening to God and responding to God’s call — tapping into that God-inspired desire within yourself to please God, to respond to God in love, to reverence and stand in awe of God.

One of the best ways to do this is to spend time with God as much as you can. Practice Saint Paul’s injunction that we “pray without ceasing“. That means to have a spirit of prayer in all that you do, as you go about your daily life. It also means taking time just to be with God, alone and without distraction. This can be tough to do, and it is also a very intimate and vulnerable thing to do. But just as we would in a relationship with a loved one, we grow into these moments, we’re able to behold a sunset together without words or to gaze into one another’s eyes with great love. These experiences with God nurture us and help us be more in tuned with what God’s desire is for us, what God’s voice “sounds” or “feels” like.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola teaches that there are some other specific ways to get in tune with God’s call to you and to help you better listen to and respond to God. The overall term for this is “discernment”. Ignatius developed a simple method by which you can review each day in a way that will help you grow in self-understanding and free you to follow God’s will. This practice is called the Daily Examen.

Those are just a few of my thoughts as I pray with you, Hayden, and all of us who long to draw close to God.

What ideas or thoughts does this inspire in you? What helps you to listen to God’s call to you?

Good morning and happy feast day! Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Teresa of Avila. This is an especially important day in my IHM Congregation because Saint Teresa is one of our patron saints.

I write regularly about Teresa because she is awesome and has been an important person in my life and in the life of the Church. I wrote about her in the VISION 2009 Vocation Guide which you can read online.

Saint Teresa, church window, Convento de Sta Teresa
Ávila de los Caballeros, Spain

Today is Day 9 of the novena in honor of Saint Teresa of Avila. (Link to previous days and full text of the novena) Please keep these two intentions in your mind and heart as you pray this novena:

For all those who long to draw closer to God …

For all those who are poor and vulnerable …

You can pray via the audio (MP3) or the text or both.

Let us pray …

Audio - Novena in Honor of Saint Teresa of Avila – Day 9
(from Meditations from Carmel)

Opening Prayer
Lastly, O dearest Lord Jesus Christ! we thank Thee for the gift of the precious death which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa, making her sweetly to die of love; we pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most affectionate spouse, to grant us a good death; and if we do not die of love, yet, that we may at least die burning of love for Thee, that so dying, we may be able to go and love Thee for evermore with a more perfect love in heaven.

Our Father …

Hail Mary …

Glory Be …

Closing Prayer
Saint Teresa, pray for us: That we may become worthy of the promises of Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Graciously hear us, O God of our salvation! that as we rejoice in the commemoration of the blessed virgin Teresa, so we may be nourished by her heavenly doctrine, and draw from thence the fervour of a tender devotion; through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

Today is Day 8 of the novena in honor of Saint Teresa of Avila. (Link to previous days and full text of the novena) Please keep these two intentions in your mind and heart as you pray this novena:

For all those who long to draw closer to God …

For all those who are poor and vulnerable …

You can pray via the audio (MP3) or the text or both.

Let us pray …

Audio - Novena in Honor of Saint Teresa of Avila – Day 8
(from Meditations from Carmel)

Opening Prayer
O most beloved Lord Jesus Christ! we thank Thee for the eminent gift of the desire for death which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa; we pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most constant spouse, to grant us the grace of desiring death, in order to go and possess Thee eternally in the country of the blessed.

Our Father …

Hail Mary …

Glory Be …

Closing Prayer
Saint Teresa, pray for us: That we may become worthy of the promises of Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Graciously hear us, O God of our salvation! that as we rejoice in the commemoration of the blessed virgin Teresa, so we may be nourished by her heavenly doctrine, and draw from thence the fervour of a tender devotion; through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

Today is Day 7 of the novena in honor of Saint Teresa of Avila. (Link to previous days and full text of the novena) Please keep these two intentions in your mind and heart as you pray this novena:

For all those who long to draw closer to God …

For all those who are poor and vulnerable …

You can pray via the audio (MP3) or the text or both.

Let us pray …

Audio - Novena in Honor of Saint Teresa of Avila – Day 7
(from Meditations from Carmel)

Opening Prayer
O most loving Lord Jesus Christ! we thank Thee for the wonderful gift of the wound in the heart which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa; we pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy seraphic spouse, to grant us also a like wound of love, that, henceforth, we may love Thee and give our mind to the love of nothing but Thee.

Our Father …

Hail Mary …

Glory Be …

Closing Prayer
Saint Teresa, pray for us: That we may become worthy of the promises of Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Graciously hear us, O God of our salvation! that as we rejoice in the commemoration of the blessed virgin Teresa, so we may be nourished by her heavenly doctrine, and draw from thence the fervour of a tender devotion; through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

Today is Day 6 of the novena in honor of Saint Teresa of Avila. (Link to previous days and full text of the novena) Please keep these two intentions in your mind and heart as you pray this novena:

For all those who long to draw closer to God …

For all those who are poor and vulnerable …

You can pray via the audio (MP3) or the text or both.

Let us pray …

Audio - Novena in Honor of Saint Teresa of Avila – Day 6
(from Meditations from Carmel)

Opening Prayer

O most bountiful Lord Jesus Christ! we thank Thee for the gift of devotion towards Thy sweet mother, Mary and her holy spouse, Joseph, which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa; we pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most dear spouse, to give us the grace of a special and tender devotion towards Thy most holy mother, Mary, and towards Thy beloved foster-father, Joseph.

Our Father …

Hail Mary …

Glory Be …

Closing Prayer
Saint Teresa, pray for us: That we may become worthy of the promises of Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Graciously hear us, O God of our salvation! that as we rejoice in the commemoration of the blessed virgin Teresa, so we may be nourished by her heavenly doctrine, and draw from thence the fervour of a tender devotion; through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

Today is Day 5 of the novena in honor of Saint Teresa of Avila. (Link to previous days and full text of the novena) Please keep these two intentions in your mind and heart as you pray this novena:

For all those who long to draw closer to God …

For all those who are poor and vulnerable …

You can pray via the audio (MP3) or the text or both.

Let us pray …

Audio - Novena in Honor of Saint Teresa of Avila – Day 5
(from Meditations from Carmel)

Opening Prayer
O most kind Lord Jesus Christ! we thank Thee for the great gift of humility which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa; we pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most humble spouse, to grant us the grace of a true humility, which may make us ever find our joy in humiliation, and prefer contempt before every honour.

Our Father …

Hail Mary …

Glory Be …

Closing Prayer
Saint Teresa, pray for us: That we may become worthy of the promises of Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Graciously hear us, O God of our salvation! that as we rejoice in the commemoration of the blessed virgin Teresa, so we may be nourished by her heavenly doctrine, and draw from thence the fervour of a tender devotion; through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

Today is Day 4 of the novena in honor of Saint Teresa of Avila. (Link to previous days and full text of the novena) Please keep these two intentions in your mind and heart as you pray this novena:

For all those who long to draw closer to God …

For all those who are poor and vulnerable …

You can pray via the audio (MP3) or the text or both.

Let us pray …

Audio - Novena in Honor of Saint Teresa of Avila – Day 4
(from Meditations from Carmel)

Opening Prayer
O most sweet Lord Jesus Christ! we thank Thee for the gift of great desire and resolution which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa, that she might love Thee perfectly; we pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most generous spouse, to give us a true desire, and a true resolution of pleasing Thee the utmost of our power.

Our Father …

Hail Mary …

Glory Be …

Closing Prayer
Saint Teresa, pray for us: That we may become worthy of the promises of Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Graciously hear us, O God of our salvation! that as we rejoice in the commemoration of the blessed virgin Teresa, so we may be nourished by her heavenly doctrine, and draw from thence the fervour of a tender devotion; through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

Today is Day 3 of the novena in honor of Saint Teresa of Avila. (Link to previous days and full text of the novena) Please keep these two intentions in your mind and heart as you pray this novena:

For all those who long to draw closer to God …

For all those who are poor and vulnerable …

You can pray via the audio (MP3) or the text or both.

Let us pray …

Audio - Novena in Honor of Saint Teresa of Avila – Day 3
(from Meditations from Carmel)

Opening Prayer
O most loving Lord Jesus Christ! we thank Thee for the great gift of love which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa; we pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most loving spouse, to give us the great, the crowning gift of Thy perfect love.

Our Father …

Hail Mary …

Glory Be …

Closing Prayer
Saint Teresa, pray for us: That we may become worthy of the promises of Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Graciously hear us, O God of our salvation! that as we rejoice in the commemoration of the blessed virgin Teresa, so we may be nourished by her heavenly doctrine, and draw from thence the fervour of a tender devotion; through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

Today is Day 2 of the novena in honor of Saint Teresa of Avila.
(Link to Day 1 and full explanation and text of the novena) Please keep these two intentions in your mind and heart as you pray this novena:

For all those who long to draw closer to God …

For all those who are poor and vulnerable …

You can pray via the audio (MP3) or the text or both.

Let us pray …

Audio - Novena in Honor of Saint Teresa of Avila – Day 2
(from Meditations from Carmel)

Opening Prayer
O most merciful Lord Jesus Christ! we thank Thee for the great gift of hope which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa; we pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy holy spouse, to give us a great confidence in Thy goodness, by reason of Thy Precious Blood, which Thou hast shed to its last drop for our salvation.

Our Father …

Hail Mary …

Glory Be …

Closing Prayer
Saint Teresa, pray for us: That we may become worthy of the promises of Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Graciously hear us, O God of our salvation! that as we rejoice in the commemoration of the blessed virgin Teresa, so we may be nourished by her heavenly doctrine, and draw from thence the fervour of a tender devotion; through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

Today is Day 1 of the novena in honor of Saint Teresa of Avila. A novena is a prayer that is prayed for nine days. “The origin of the idea of praying for a special intention for nine days is very attractive and worth thinking about – it comes from the alleged length of time that Mary and the eleven remaining disciples spent praying together in the upper room, waiting for the Spirit to come upon them at Pentecost.” (source: Sacred Space)

Please pray with me this Novena in honor of Saint Teresa of Avila. The novena is in her honor because it ends on October 15, her feast day. Please keep these two intentions in your mind and heart as you pray this novena:

For all those who long to draw closer to God … we pray to God with Saint Teresa of Avila because of her own experience in prayer and her desire to help others grow in prayer.

For all those who are poor and vulnerable … October 15, Saint Teresa’s feast day, also marks Blog Action Day which focuses on poverty.

The novena that we will be praying was written by Saint Alphonsus of Liguori. Both saints are dear to me and are the patrons of my IHM Congregation. You can pray via the audio (MP3) or the text or both.

Let us pray …

Audio - Novena in Honor of Saint Teresa of Avila – Day 1
(from Meditations from Carmel)

Opening Prayer
O most amiable Lord Jesus Christ! We thank Thee for the great gift of faith and of devotion to the Holy Sacrament, which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa; we pray Thee, by Thy merits and by those of Thy faithful spouse, to grant us the gift of a lively faith, and of a fervent devotion toward the most Holy Sacrament of the altar; where Thou, O infinite Majesty! hast obliged Thyself to abide with us even to the end of the world, and wherein Thou didst so lovingly give Thy whole Self to us.

Our Father
Our Father, Who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Hail Mary
Hail Mary, full of grace.
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Glory Be
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Closing Prayer
Saint Teresa, pray for us: That we may become worthy of the promises of Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Graciously hear us, O God of our salvation! that as we rejoice in the commemoration of the blessed virgin Teresa, so we may be nourished by her heavenly doctrine, and draw from thence the fervour of a tender devotion; through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

Hi Sister Julie,

If I told you the complete story how I found this web site you would laugh! Let’s just say I was on Amazon looking for some books about the question below which lead me to St. Teresa of Avila, then here. God bless the internet!

To put my question in context, I will briefly explain its origin. I grew up Catholic (parochial school, altar boy, etc) and have had a persistent calling since early adolescence. Regardless, I shelved my spirituality during the teen years. Now 34, it’s growing again.

I am hoping you could recommend a source to help me have a deeper understanding of the Eucharist and what it means during mass. I have a Catechism and I think I understand the literal meaning-from a 30,000 foot view, but sense a huge gap in spiritual connection. I’ve been praying, begging, consulting, and have been attending mass stubbornly in spite of lack of “scope” in my understanding. I am not hoping for a mystical experience (I don’t think that highly of myself!), but a greater respect and awareness of what happens during mass. Hopefully my request isn’t laced w/unrealistic expectations of you, but I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t hidden from most people and that you may have encountered this search before-maybe personally? Am I approaching this incorrectly? Could it be a matter of 100% faith, regardless of depth of understanding or feeling? Sometimes I think God hides things from me so I don’t screw it up-you know, like heavenly Special ED. I’m not whining-just eager.

Thank you for sharing your time,
Dan

Dear Dan, I was delighted to read your comment, both because of how you found me and because of the way you explained your experience and desire. I also hear a bit of myself in you.

You well expressed that sense of being attracted, drawn in by something that is incomprehensible, something that doesn’t easily yield its secrets, yet is compelling nonetheless. I guess it’s no wonder why many of the truths of our religion are called “mysteries of faith”! But because it’s a mystery doesn’t mean we have to solve it or figure it out but to embrace it. Live into the mystery. Allow it to embrace us. (I’m a big fan of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Rahner’s theology of Holy Mystery, so I had to get a little of that in.)

That being said, there’s lots we can do to better understand things like the Eucharist and what’s happening at Mass. Though these are more intellectual exercises, they affect our spirit and faith and help us grow in our relationship with God and the people with whom we worship. One of my favorite books on the Mass is Joe Paprocki’s book Living the Mass. Another thing that I have personally found helpful is praying with the Scripture passages about the Last Supper. Sister Barbara Reid, OP, has a nice piece in “Scripture from Scratch” (2002) on the Last Supper.

Ultimately, the words of one of my IHM nuns keeps ringing in my ears as I think of how to respond to you: “Ride the saddle easy.” I know, not the most spiritual saying, but fitting I think. When you are at Mass, remember that the whole liturgy is a celebration of dying and rising, of bread and body broken, of wine and blood outpoured. It’s in the people praying around you, in the priest and liturgical ministers, in the wood of the pews and the glass of the windows. Give in to that sense of dying and rising, being broken and made whole. You are participating in the very life of Jesus the Christ!

Ride the saddle easy: don’t try to make a mystical moment happen or expect a clear understanding of what is going on. The experience of the Eucharist at Mass and in other incarnational moments in daily life will draw you into a fuller meaning. And, as I noted above, a little spiritual reading never hurts!

Blessings to you, Dan. My prayers are with you.

On October 15, 2008, Blog Action Day has invited bloggers to have a conversation about poverty on their blogs with you, our readers. This is a world-wide effort to raise awareness about, learn about, and find ways to end poverty.

I’m happy to announce that A Nun’s Life will be participating in this effort. On October 15 (feast of Saint Teresa of Avila), I’ll host a conversation around the theme of poverty with you and other readers. I’d like your help in this. I want to know what you’d like to do on this day. Is there a particular aspect that you’d like to discuss? or would you rather focus on fund-raising? or look at the Catholic Church’s social teaching on poverty? Please use the comment box below to offer your ideas and suggestions. If you’d like to help out in any way, let me know that too. I’m looking forward to the day and will write more about it closer to the day.

If you are a blogger, please consider hosting a conversation about poverty on your blog too.

An article I wrote was just published in VISION Vocation Guide 2009, an annual Catholic religious vocation discernment guide. It is a publication of the National Religious Vocation Conference.

The article is called “How a 16th-century nun guides me in religious life” … can you guess who that nun might be? Here’s a clue: I write about her regularly!

OK, it’s no secret that the 16th-century nun who guides me in all of my life is Saint Teresa of Avila. The article I wrote for VISION began with a few posts here at my blog when I was reading Teresa’s The Book of My Life, her more autobiographical writing. It was a great article to write because I do love Teresa and I believe that she is very present to us today and can be a wonderful guide for people discerning and wanting to grow in their relationship with God and their understanding of life lived in the Spirit.

Order a FREE copy of VISION Vocation Guide from the VISION Vocation Network website or view the digital version of VISION Vocation Guide. The website is the number one place that I recommend to people who are discerning a vocation to religious life and other vocations within the Catholic tradition.

We have many exciting features to help you discern your life’s calling. Whether you are interested in consecrated life—such as becoming a nun, brother, priest, or monk—or simply looking for ways to deepen your faith through volunteer and study opportunities, you’ve come to the right place!

As luck would have it, the Monroe IHM ad appeared just when I was taking this screen shot!

Meditation can mean many things and is variously defined. But basically it is any way that helps a person to center herself, become quiet and still within so as to be open. Meditation is creating a listening heart.

Within the Catholic tradition, meditation has it’s goal being open to God. We become quiet and still in order to be more aware of God who is always with us. We are always in God’s presence, we are not always present to God.

Meditation helps us to bring ourselves consciously into God’s presence. We don’t just think about God, we open ourselves to the experience of God who is right now relating personally with us. We ask God to help us as we draw closer to God, realizing that we do so only because God first called us and loves us dearly.

We use Scripture, our imagination, a mantra, an icon, a quiet space in the woods — whatever it may be — to draw us more closely to God and to be more open to hearing God. God becomes the focal point for whatever spiritual “tool” (for lack of a better word) we use. Sometimes God draws us away from these “tools” and pulls us into a space of just being. Being with God alone. No words, no images, just God. This space of just being alone with God is referred to as contemplation. It is sheer gift of God. Whereas with meditation, we are actively disposing ourselves to listening to God, to being in God’s presence; with contemplation, we are no longer doing anything because God has swept us up into Godself. Teresa of Avila writes at length about these different ways of experiencing God and is a good source if you want to spend more time learning about prayer — Interior Castle is a great place to start.

When you meditate on Scripture, you are allowing the Word of God to wash over you, to draw you into a place of quiet and stillness. It’s different from “reading” Scripture because when meditating, you might only read a few verses, maybe even a single phrase or word. You savor that word … the Word … like you might with repeating a mantra. When I meditate with Scripture I start with either a favorite passage or maybe something has struck me from the daily readings or from Mass. I take that Scripture to prayer with me almost like a doorway to the soul, knowing that God is attracting me, pulling me near through that particular passage. I meditate on it as a way to focus myself on God and God’s particular Word for me at that time.

In the Christian tradition we call this way of meditating/praying “Lectio Divina” or simply “Lectio”. It means “Divine Reading”, a way of drawing closer to God. Here are some more resources on Lectio.

• Spiritual GPS a post I wrote about Lectio Divina
• Too Deep for Words: Rediscovering Lectio Divina a great book with explanation of Lectio, lots of resources, and 500 scripture texts for prayer
• Lectio Divina from the Benedictines wonderful resources and links on Lectio
  

I’ve been reading Interior Castle Explored by Ruth Burrows, OCD. Sister Ruth, a Carmelite Nun from Quidenham in Norfolk, writes on Saint Teresa of Avila’s teaching on “the life of deep union with God.” She has also written a number of other books on prayer and the spiritual life, a favorite of which is Before the Living God.

As you know from previous posts on Teresa of Avila, I do love Saint Teresa and have read and reread her writings through the years. Yet in the very first chapter on the very first page, I read something in Teresa that I’d never really thought about — so obvious to me now, but had escaped me before.

In chapter one, Sister Ruth discusses the First Mansion of the Interior Castle. (Teresa’s book Interior Castle is about prayer. The “Interior Castle” is a metaphor Teresa uses to talk about the soul. Each mansion with the castle represents a deeper encounter with God, the innermost chamber being the one in which God dwells.) Sister Ruth discusses this beauty of the Interior Castle, that is, the soul, and says that Teresa felt that it made perfect sense that the dwelling place of God (“so mighty, so pure and so full of all that is good”) be “beautiful and resplendent,” “lovely beyond compare”. Writes Sister Ruth,

What we have to do is see what Teresa is really saying about the soul. She is saying that it is for God; it is a capacity for God; he is its centre and all its beauty is because of him. This soul, this castle of immeasureable beauty and capacity is ourselves.” (page 6)

Wow! I’ve always read the Interior Castle as this discreet space within a person — admittedly, a kind of  dualist thinking (soul and body are separate) as if the soul (and therefore relationship with God) exists somehow separate from the “rest” of a person (body, imagination, memory, feelings, etc.). I always felt uncomfortable about this thinking because it is not true to my experience nor to my theological studies. But when I read that one selection above from Sister Ruth, it just shattered that dualism and made Teresa’s words come alive to me in a new way. The beautiful Interior Castle — our soul — is not some little place tucked deep within us … it IS us. We ourselves are the “capacity for God” (this image a classical theological expression which I first learned through my favorite theologian Karl Rahner, SJ).

Sister Ruth writes that the human being comes into existence as a “for-Godness.” You, me, the cashier at the grocery store, the cell-phone-using driver who nearly crashes into you, your child — we are all a “for-Godness.” Again, WOW. This is something we may know intellectually, but when it penetrates our hearts, cuts deep like my experience reading Sister Ruth’s Interior Castle Explored, it feels like it changes everything.

What happens when we begin to look at our whole self as a “for-Godness”? Does it make a difference if we see our relationship with God as one part of us or as all of us? What are your thoughts on this?

Hope: Fr. Martin, are there specific personality traits or threads that one discerning religious life should be aware of within herself? Are there any characteristics, thoughts, desires within a person that might be specific to religious life?

Father Martin: To answer your first question, I think that the most important thread in one’s life is that thread of desire, or a simple attraction, to a religious community. Now that might manifest itself, to take one way, through a lifelong attraction to a particular religious community, for example, if you always found yourself attracted to the Carmelites, the Dominicans, the Franciscans. (Or to the lives some of their more famous members, or their founders–like St. Therese of Lisieux or St. Teresa of Avila for the Carmelites; St. Dominic or St. Thomas Aquinas for the Dominicans; or St. Francis of Assisi or St. Clare for the Franciscans and Poor Clares.) So pay attention to the kinds of orders you have been attracted to over the course of your life.

Also, I think the one unique characteristic of attraction to the religious life, which is a little different than attraction to the married life, is that in the case of the married life, you’re attracted to one person, whereas in the case of the religious life you are attracted to a whole group of persons, who may be quite different from one another but who share a common charism, or spirit.

In the end it simply comes down to trusting that your deepest desires are simply God’s desires for you planted deep within you.

I’m loving my new blog setup. I’ve added a new widget that allows me to post quotes. Since Saint Teresa of Avila is a spiritual mentor for me, patroness of this blog and my IHM Congregation, and someone whose writings I love to read and reflect on, I’ve started by entering some of her quotes.

As I was typing in this quote, it cut right to my heart ..

Remember:
if you want to make progress
on the path
and ascend to the places
you have longed for,
the important thing
is not to think much
but to love much,
and so to do
whatever
best awakens you to love.

This is my prayer for you, and I ask that you pray it for me and for all those in need.

I’m still meditating on Nancy’s question, how can I dedicate my whole self to God?, and some of the responses I’ve received. A couple moms wrote in and talked about the desire to be more contemplative in the midst of a very active life … and the desire sometimes to want to retreat from it all and head for the woods!

As an active religious sister, I can appreciate how that feels — and I’m wondering if contemplative nuns (the sisters who are monastic and/or cloistered) ever feel this way too. Even though my life is vowed to God and everything I do is through the lens of my love for and relationship with Jesus, and my mission and life as an IHM Sister, there are often times when I just need to step away from everything into solitude, into the wilderness of the woods. For me it’s a desire to tap into my spirit and be with God alone without any words, images, sights or sounds. That space might happen on a street corner in downtown Chicago for a split second (remember Thomas Merton’s experience in Louisville at the corner of 4th and Walnut?) or it might happen while I am alone and still in the darkness of a dense forest.

Such experiences of contemplation are not really things we can “make happen” ourselves but are true gifts from God. The saints (again, my dear friend Saint Teresa of Avila) write that we can dispose ourselves to be more open to receive this gift, but ultimately it comes from God, when and how and where God wills.

What are some ways that you find a contemplative space in your hectic day/week/month?

With all of our important responsibilities — raising children, making a living, ministering to others — how do we respond to that God-given longing for solitude?

Here’s a comment with good questions from my post “What motivates a person to become a nun?” …

I am a 39 year old woman, single mother to 3 beautiful children. I am also in the process of confirming my Catholic faith. I was not raised Catholic, nor have I lived the early part of my adult life in a Christian way. However, God has been drawing me deeper and deeper over the past 3+ years. I know I can’t be a nun, even though I am so very drawn to a religious life. I cannot and would not leave my children, now or when they grow up, but do you think there is a way I can truly dedicate my whole self to God? That is what fascinates me about being a nun. I want to live for Him alone–I do wish I could “marry” Him. Does that sound silly? Anyway-do you have any advice for me for ways to be closer to God? What do nuns study other than the Bible and the Catechism? Thank you.

Dear Nancy, Thank you for writing to me and sharing a bit of your story with me. God bless you and your beautiful children.

All Christians are to live their life for God — married, single, clergy and religious. It’s just that we each do it in a different kind of way. As a mom, you have an important vocation of helping your children to grow into God’s amazing dream for them, to love God, others, and all of God’s creation, and to learn how to reach out to the poorest and most abandoned of society. How you do this and how you make your own way through life is a gift to others as well for they can see another person like themselves who is prayerful, faithful, and compassionate. This is an extraordinary way to live for God.

I also hear in your words a desire to draw close to God personally, in a kind of solitude and intimacy. “Marrying” God doesn’t sound silly — it’s a great metaphor for communicating that deep desire to unite wholly with God. Each of us has to find the way that God is calling us to do that. Having regular times for prayer, celebrating the Eucharist, reaching out in service to others — these are very good ways of living into this union with God. You might also consider getting to know a religious community more deeply. Many communities like mine have associates who share in our prayer, ministry and community.

Nuns read quite a variety of things. I’d first recommend reading about the saints. Their lives are filled with insight into what it means to live wholly for God. Saint Teresa of Avila is one of my favorites. She wrote a lot about contemplative prayer and being united with God. “Interior Castle” and “Way of Perfection” are two good places to start. (I’ve written about Teresa a number of times on this blog — see my Teresa of Avila category.) Find saints that resonate with you. You might, for example, look into the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary and other saints like Saint Anne and Saint Monica who were moms.

There’s some good reading out there about living for God in the midst of everyday life. Check out My Monastery Is a Minivan by Denise Roy. There’s also a great book by Sister Melannie Svoboda, SND, coming out soon by Loyola Press — Gracious Goodness: Living Each Day in the Gifts of the Spirit.

I’ve got tons of suggestions as I’m sure others do. Let me know how you are doing. I’ll keep you in my prayers.

And for others reading this, do you have similar questions? What have you found helpful?

I’ve been reading The Collected Letters of St. Teresa of Avila (Vol. 1, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD) (Amazon).

I happened to read the Introduction of the book the other day — something I don’t usually do with books. I like to get right to it. I want to read Teresa, not someone writing about Teresa.

But in this case, I was wrong because the Introduction was actually quite compelling and taught me things I never knew about Teresa of Avila.

Writing from his monastery in Washington, DC, the Carmelite Father Kieran Kavanaugh does a great job at situating Teresa in her time and context.

Kavanaugh presents Teresa as an amazing woman, yes; but also as an ordinary person who had to balance community life, prayer, ministry, and the mundane things of life.

The extraordinary gifts of grace bestowed by God on this Spanish Madre fortified her for a demanding ministry of service which entailed heavy responsibilities that drew her contemplative soul into a maelstrom of activities. (page 13)

[Sidebar: That is an amazingly written sentence. "Maelstrom" is a word not often used in everyday parlance. I shall have to incorporate that into my vocabulary. And yes, I had to look it up. It means "a very powerful whirlpool; a large, swirling body of water." A fabulous image.]

Okay, back to the quote. It’s easy sometimes to think of Teresa as tucked away in her monastery cell writing and having ecstatic experiences of God. But she was a contemplative who was very active with ordinary monastery life not to mention writing books and letters and reforming and founding Carmelite monasteries. A monastery just doesn’t appear out of nowhere. Imagine the work that goes into mobilizing people, finding and obtaining a suitable building, caring for the spiritual and physical needs of a group in transition, etc.

Teresa didn’t always succeed at balancing all this stuff. She suffered from lack of sleep and was often sick because she was trying to get so much done and to keep up on her responsibilities. That’s one reason I love Teresa so much — she was just like us in so many ways.

Many of us can well relate to being caught up in “a maelstrom of activities”. How do we handle it all? How do we tend to that contemplative place within each one of us?

I’ve updated my sidebar and decided to post an image of Saint Teresa of Avila … only question is, what does J.M.J.A.T. stand for?? Any idea?

Well I’ve been on the road traveling yet again. I had the pleasure of presenting at the Archdiocese of New York’s Teacher Institute. I went as a representative of Loyola Press, my place of ministry. My topic was “Navigating the Wilderness of Prayer: Insights from Saint Teresa of Avila.” It was especially fitting since we just celebrated the Feast of Saint Teresa of Avila (does that explain why I’ve been blogging so much about Teresa?!). I hadn’t read Teresa in a while so it was like coming home when I picked up The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila again. The Life is Teresa’s account of her experiences of God and includes a teaching on prayer as well as the foundation of a Carmelite monastery. Reading Teresa of Avila is like being with one of my nuns and just chatting about life, God, and prayer. I think I’m going to read her other stuff again (Interior Castle and Way of Perfection). I also just ordered her Letters which I’ve not yet read. Looking forward to it.Right now I’m sitting in the airport writing this in Word because I can’t for the life of my stay connected to the wireless connection. So this’ll be uploaded when I get back. Due to the lovely tornado conditions in the Midwest, I’m stuck here for a little while. For fun I’m reading The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (1996). The San Francisco Chronicle says about this book:

“Powerful … Father Emilio Sandoz [is] the only survivor of a Jesuit mission to the planet Rakhat, ‘a soul … looking for God.’ We first meet him in Italy … sullen and bitter … But he was not always this way, as we learn through flashbacks that tell the story of the ill-fated trip … The Sparrow tackles a difficult subject with grace and intelligence.”

Should be interesting. Odd, yet interesting. I need something right now that is truly “out of this world”. Have you read the book? Don’t give anything away!What are you reading now?

Saint Teresa’s Bread / Pan De Santa Teresa

… a recipe from A Continual Feast by Evelyn Birge Vitz …

This dish, which makes a tasty breakfast or brunch, is a first cousin to French toast, but with a flavor and texture all its own.

• 2 cups milk
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 good piece of lemon peel
• 12 slices Italian/French bread (a little stale) 1/2-3/4 inch thick
• 3 eggs
• Pinch of salt
• Cinnamon-sugar for sprinkling on the toast
• Olive oil for frying

Combine the milk with the sugar, cinnamon, and lemon peel. Simmer gently for 5 to 10 minutes, until the milk has become well flavored. Place the bread in a large flat dish or pan, and strain the milk over it. Beat the eggs in a shallow bowl with a pinch of salt. With a spatula, lay the slices of bread in the egg, turning them to coat both sides. Beat additional eggs and salt together if necessary to finish coating bread slices. Fry the bread in the olive oil until it is browned and crusty on both sides. Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar.

Yield: 4-6 servings

A nice treat on the Feast of Saint Teresa of Avila!

According to the footnotes in The Life, Saint Teresa of Avila entered the Monastery of the Incarnation November 2, 1533, and made her profession November 3, 1534. Though scholars disagree about these dates,  Teresa undoubtedly entered the monastery and professed vows as a Carmelite nun.

When I took the habit, our Lord at once made me understand how He helps those who do violence to themselves in order to serve Him.  [Teresa seems to be referring to the terrible pain at entering the convent without her father's consent. See previous post.] No one observed this violence in me; they saw nothing but the greatest good will. At that moment, because I was entering on that state, I was filled with a joy so great, that it has never failed me to this day; and God converted the aridity of my soul into the greatest tenderness. Everything in religion was a delight unto me; and it is true that now and then I used to sweep the house during those hours of the day which I had formerly spent on my amusements and my dress; and, calling to mind that I was delivered from such follies, I was filled with a new joy that surprised me, nor could I understand whence it came.Whenever I remember this, there is nothing in the world, however hard it may be, that, if it were proposed to me, I would not undertake without any hesitation whatever; for I know now, by experience in many things, that if from the first I resolutely persevere in my purpose, even in this life His Majesty rewards it in a way which he only understands who has tried it. When the act is done for God only, it is His will before we begin it that the soul, in order to the increase of its merits, should be afraid; and the greater the fear, if we do but succeed, the greater the reward, and the sweetness thence afterwards resulting. I know this by experience, as I have just said, in many serious affairs; and so, if I were a person who had to advise anybody, I would never counsel any one, to whom good inspirations from time to time may come, to resist them through fear of the difficulty of carrying them into effect; for if a person lives detached for the love of God only, that is no reason for being afraid of failure, for He is omnipotent. May He be blessed for ever! Amen. (Life 4.2-3)

When I professed final vows, I did not expect to feel any different than I had because I’d been with the community for approximately 10 years already. I’d taken my first (“temporary”) vows 3 years earlier and figured that I’d already had the “vow experience”. I was looking forward to it and knew it’d be great, I just thought that it would be a confirmation of everything that had already happened.But surprisingly, the experience of professing final vows was different than anything else I had ever experienced. I felt ontologically (in my very being) changed, like my DNA was uncoded and re-coded with IHM. I felt like a new person, different, yet more myself than ever. The way I saw my sisters and my place in the community shifted too. This is one of those things that again is difficult to express but unmistakeable nonetheless.With Teresa I can say, “I was filled with a new joy that surprised me, nor could I understand whence it came. Whenever I remember this, there is nothing in the world, however hard it may be, that, if it were proposed to me, I would not undertake without any hesitation whatever.” Blessed be God forever!

Continuing my reflections on Saint Teresa of Avila … Finally, after all kinds of questioning, resistance, and prayer, Teresa happens to read the Epistles of Saint Jerome which must have truly edified her for she says she was filled with much courage. Courage was exactly what she needed for she knew that telling her father about her desire to enter the Carmelite monastery would be really, really tough. Teresa writes:

My father’s love for me was so great, that I could never obtain his consent; nor could the prayers of others, whom I persuaded to speak to him, be of any avail. The utmost I could get from him was that I might do as I pleased after his death. I now began to be afraid of myself, and of my own weakness—for I might go back. So, considering that such waiting was not safe for me, I obtained my end in another way, as I shall now relate. (Life 3.9)

In those days, when I was thus resolved, I had persuaded one of my brothers, by speaking to him of the vanity of the world, to become a friar; and we agreed together to set out one day very early in the morning for the monastery where that friend of mine lived for whom I had so great an affection: though I would have gone to any other monastery, if I thought I should serve God better in it, or to any one my father liked, so strong was my resolution now to become a nun—for I thought more of the salvation of my soul now, and made no account whatever of mine own ease. I remember perfectly well, and it is quite true, that the pain I felt when I left my father’s house was so great, that I do not believe the pain of dying will be greater—for it seemed to me as if every bone in my body were wrenched asunder; for, as I had no love of God to destroy my love of father and of kindred, this latter love came upon me with a violence so great that, if our Lord had not been my keeper, my own resolution to go on would have failed me. But He gave me courage to fight against myself, so that I executed my purpose. (Footnote:  The nuns sent word to the father of his child’s escape, and of her desire to become a nun, but without any expectation of obtaining his consent. He came to the monastery forthwith, and “offered up his Isaac on Mount Carmel” (Reforma, lib. i. ch. viii. § 5). (Life 4.1)

Teresa was determined to remain true to this call from God even though she was painfully aware of her father’s feelings on the matter. She knew herself well enough to know that if she didn’t pursue God’s call now, she just might let it fade away from her. As she writes, “waiting was not safe for me.”I’ve met other religious who have had similar experiences in that their family just couldn’t bear to be separated from them. In Teresa’s time, this separation was very clear as she was entering a monastery that observed enclosure. Certainly she would not be able to interact with her family as she had in the past. That is probably true for most religious, especially those who observe enclosure. It’s as if all our relationships are reordered … not cut off, but changed. It’s not unlike when someone gets married or has a baby. Your relationship with them naturally changes and shifts around a bit. Somehow we learn to give one another the space to grow and change while at the same time hanging on to that core of a relationship (love). With religious life, things are a little different, a little more mysterious perhaps because it’s not a choice that is widely made or understood especially in our society today. Understandably family and friends might have apprehensions. But it can be tough to explain how you feel when you’re still in the process of figuring it out yourself, let alone articulating to anyone!Thoughts, reflections, questions?

Continuing my reflections on Saint Teresa of Avila …Teresa was in the convent school with the Augustinian Nuns (see previous post) for about a year and a half. She says that although she grew closer to God, “I still had no desire to be a nun, and I asked God not to give me this vocation” (Life 3.2). But, she notes,

“By the end of this period of time in which I stayed there I was more favorable to the thought of being a nun, although not in that house, for there were things I was afterward to understand were most virtuous that seemed to me to be too extreme…. These good thoughts about being a nun sometimes came to me, and then would go away; and I could not be persuaded to be one.” (Life 3.2)

I love Teresa’s honesty here. I think many people struggle with their vocation (not just to religious life). For some, they know clearly what they are meant to do; but for others like Teresa (and myself), it’s not immediately clear. We have to test it, wrestle with it, ponder it, and ultimately live into it. No one way of discerning is better than another. Somehow or another we end up where God is calling us, though it may be a matter of moments or years. It is so important to hang in there and to continuing to pray and to serve others.Flash of light or cloud of unknowing? — which image fits your experience of finding your vocation? Or what other image fits for you?

Continuing my reflections on Saint Teresa of Avila …While Teresa was growing up, she was sent to be raised in a monastery (her mom having died when she was younger and an older sister recently moving out of the house to be married). Although Teresa “suffered much” in the first days of being in the monastery, she grew to like being with the nuns.

I was very uncomfortable; but within eight days, I think sooner, I was much more contented than I had been in my father’s house. All the nuns were pleased with me; for our Lord had given me the grace to please every one, wherever I might be. I was therefore made much of in the monastery. Though at this time I hated to be a nun, yet I was delighted at the sight of nuns so good; for they were very good in that house—very prudent, observant of the rule, and recollected. (Life 2.10)

Teresa was profoundly affected by one nun in particular through whom “it pleased our Lord to give me light” (Life 2.12).

I began gradually to like the good and holy conversation of this nun. How well she used to speak of God! for she was a person of great discretion and sanctity. I listened to her with delight. I think there never was a time when I was not glad to listen to her. She began by telling me how she came to be a nun through the mere reading of the words of the Gospel “Many are called, and few are chosen.” This good companionship began to root out the habits which bad companionship had formed, and to bring my thoughts back to the desire of eternal things, as well as to banish in some measure the great dislike I had to be a nun, which had been very great … (Life 3.1)

It is so comforting to me to read about how Teresa’s decision to become a nun wasn’t instantaneous or some life-long dream. She grew into it. I too never had a desire to become a nun (though perhaps a marytr or a hermit! … see earlier post). I knew nuns, grew up with nuns around me, but never felt the urge to become a nun. It’s not that I didn’t like them or wasn’t impressed with how they lived their life. I just didn’t even think of considering myself as a nun any more than a hamster would consider racing in the Kentucky Derby. Much later when I was in grad school, I met an IHM Sister who eventually became a mentor to me in the spiritual life as well as religious life (though that was the farthest thing from my mind when I first got to know her). I can’t tell you how important that relationship was and is to me because very truly “it pleased our Lord to give me light” through her. She helped me grow in my relationship with God and become more of myself.Through whom has God been pleased to give you light?

Coincidental to my reading of and blogging about Teresa of Avila, I discovered that today is the anniversary of Teresa of Avila‘s death in 1582. Her actual feast day, however, is October 15. (There was some business about moving from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar which skewed dates.)On this day we also recall the life and death of Francis of Assisi. (Isn’t this the coolest image of Francis and the wolf??)Blessings to all who call upon these saints.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been reading Saint Teresa of Avila … re-reading to be more accurate since I’ve returned again and again to her writing for many years. I’m reading The Book of Her Life (click here for the entire online book) in which Teresa (a Carmelite nun) writes about the interior life and the gifts of God. Throughout the book are wonderful little autobiographic details.In Chapter 1 Teresa writes of her childhood. She tells of a time when she was 7 and her brother was 11. After having read the lives of the saints, they decided that martyrdom was the quickest and easiest way to get to heaven.

We settled to go together to the country of the Moors, begging our way for the love of God, that we might be there beheaded; and our Lord, I believe, had given us courage enough, even at so tender an age, if we could have found the means to proceed; but our greatest difficulty seemed to be our father and mother.

The footnotes indicate that the two children set out on their journey but shortly after leaving they were met by one of their uncles who brought them back to their mother. Teresa herself says that she really wasn’t motivated by love of God but by the thought of quickly getting to heaven to enjoy the wonderful things she had read about!Teresa goes on:

As soon as I saw it was impossible to go to any place where people would put me to death for the sake of God, my brother and I set about becoming hermits; and in an orchard belonging to the house we contrived, as well as we could, to build hermitages, by piling up small stones one on the other, which fell down immediately; and so it came to pass that we found no means of accomplishing our wish. Even now, I have a feeling of devotion when I consider how God gave me in my early youth what I lost by my own fault. I gave alms as I could—and I could but little. I contrived to be alone, for the sake of saying my prayers—and they were many—especially the Rosary, to which my mother had a great devotion, and had made us also in this like herself. I used to delight exceedingly, when playing with other children, in the building of monasteries, as if we were nuns; and I think I wished to be a nun, though not so much as I did to be a martyr or a hermit.

What are some things you remember from your childhood? (like playing “priest” with Ritz crackers and grape juice) What little “devotions” or ideas did you have?

This past weekend I had the honor of being part of a gathering of the Oblate Sisters of Providence and the 3 Immaculate Heart of Mary congregations (Monroe, Scranton, Immaculata). We met at the Immaculata Motherhouse in Pennsylvania. From Chicago this should be a mere 2 hour flight. But due to mechanical problems, our plane was delayed 7 hours (yes, 7 hours). It was pretty bad, but I actually got along quite well as I had Teresa of Avila‘s Life with me. So aside from the increasingly irate grumblings of fellow passengers, I had a rather nice time. It was like spending the day with a dear friend. We conversed, shared our experiences of prayer and of God, and had nasty airport food. Good times! (Well, except for the last thing … and fyi, Teresa may be a Doctor of the Church, but not so great at helping me with Sudoku.)

When I finally made it into Philadelphia, my dear friend Mary Anne (Immaculata IHM) picked me up and we headed to the motherhouse. Most of the other nuns we were meeting with had already gone to bed after cheering on the Phillies to victory over the Nationals. But they saved dinner for us and we chatted with a couple sisters before heading to bed. In the morning I went for a walk. Our founder Mother Theresa Maxis Duchemin is buried at Immaculata, and so I went to the cemetery to spend some time at her grave and at the grave of a dear IHM. When I returned to the motherhouse, I got ready for Mass and was thrilled to see the sisters from my Monroe congregation and the other 3 congregations. This is a group that I met with last year (here’s my post about that gathering and the history that binds our 4 congregations together). As with the last gathering, this one was joyful, prayerful, and so thoughtful. These women are just amazing. I am in awe as I experience the Spirit moving among us.

After being out and about in the world and being involved in my ministry, it was so nice to be “home” among sisters. There is a certain energy, a certain spirit that exists “whenever two or more are gathered” (to be biblical). These women are truly family to me and just being with them lifts my spirit, encourages me on the journey, and helps me be present to God who is always with us. I wish I could better articulate what this experience is like but words ellude me.

Teresa of Avila seemed to be with us that weekend too. I ran into some beautiful paintings of her at the motherhouse. I’ll have to share with you some of her writing especially on religious life. Stay tuned!

Fall has definitely arrived here in Chicago. The temps are cooler and the air has that bit of crispness that can only mean the change of the season. I’m pleased about this. As much as I loved this summer, especially after learning how to swim in Lake Michigan and training for my triathlon, I am still very much of a winter kind of gal. It’s the season that seems to speak most to me spiritually.

This morning I’ve been thinking a lot about a comment I received on my previous post. Lil, who just discovered this blog, wrote a beautiful little reflection that has just stayed with me. I remember asking some of those same questions when I was young and had a few nuns teaching at my grammar school. That’s probably why I never thought of myself becoming a nun because I figured they were way holier than I was, more prayerful, and had a direct line to God. I was just an ordinary kid mixed up in the world like everyone else. Years later (in my early twenties) when I got to know sisters, I found people that were kind of like me. Mind you, these women were/are stellar women, wise and compassionate … characteristics I would hardly give to myself, yet nonetheless, they were human beings, real and down to earth. What Lil said about being “like the rest of us” rang true for me. And like those first nuns, I am “still asking the questions…getting it sometimes, or never…but still dedicated to living devoted.”

One of my favorite saints is Saint Teresa of Avila, the great mystic, writer, and Doctor of the Church. I was always wowed by her descriptions of her experiences with God and her teachings on prayer. It wasn’t until later that I learned that Teresa had many, many years of struggling with prayer. You’d think that she had all the answers, that she could just pop into the zone with God at will. Yet she had periods of darkness where she couldn’t feel God’s presence even though she knew God was with her. Somehow, she hung in there and has left an incredible wealth of writing and experiences for all of us.

I take great comfort in Saint Teresa and try always to hang in there even when I don’t have the answers (which is more often then I would like to admit) or can’t seem to connect with God even though I know that God is closer to me than my very next breath.

(a continuation of A Catalogue of My Favorites: Part I)

[M is for Mary, the Mother of God - your favorite term of endearment for her]: Ark of the Covenant

[N is for New Testament - your favorite passage]: “If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; you will come to know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32

[O is for Old Testament - your favorite book here]: Isaiah and the prophets

[P is for Psalms - your favorite]: Psalm 63.

[Q is for Quote - saint quote]: “It is better to illuminate than merely to shine.” Saint Thomas Aquinas

[R is for Rosary - your favorite mysteries]: The Luminous Mysteries

[S is for Saint - the one you turn to in time of need - not including the Blessed Virgin Mary]: Saint Teresa of Avila, Mother Theresa McGivney, IHM, Saint Ignatius of Loyola

[T is for Tradition - your favorite Catholic tradition]: The Liturgy of the Hours and anything with incense

[U is for University - Which Catholic university have you attended or are currently attending?]: I’ve got my bachelor’s degree from University of Saint Michael’s College (Basilian) at University of Toronto, my masters from Regis College (Jesuit), and some miscellaneous course work at Sacred Heart Major Seminary (diocesan) and Washington Theological Union (mix of religious communities). I also taught a few semesters at the University of Detroit Mercy.

[V is for Virtue - the one you wish you had]: Prudence … as in “Be not conformed to this world, but he reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:2)

[W is for Way of the Cross - Which station can you most relate to?]: The fourth: Jesus Meets His Mother. In the movie The Passion, when Jesus meets his mother on the road to Calgary, he says “Behold I make all things new.” (from Revelations 21:5) I was so struck by that when I saw the movie that the image continues to stay with me.

[X is for Xaverian Brothers - Do you know who they are?]: Their patron is Saint Francis Xavier.

[Y is for your favorite Catholic musician]: Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) — writer, composer, musician

[Z is for Zeal for the faith]: Absolutely!

Recently I was “tagged” by Lisa over at From Where I Write. After a few clicks I figured out what exactly that meant (it’s not a chain letter which is what I thought because normally I pitch those). I actually like this little meme — it gets me thinking … read on … the stuff in brackets is what gets passed on from person to person, and the rest after it is my personal response to it. Like Lisa, I’m going to do this in two parts so as not to O.D. on writing reflectively! When I’m done, I’m supposed to pass it on to someone else so stay tuned to Part II. (01/25/07 update — click here for Part II.)

[A is for apparitions - your favorite]: Saint Teresa of Avila‘s vision of Jesus …

I was in prayer one day,—it was the feast of the glorious St. Peter—when I saw Christ close by me, or, to speak more correctly, felt Him; for I saw nothing with the eyes of the body, nothing with the eyes of the soul. He seemed to me to be close beside me; and I saw, too, as I believe, that it was He who was speaking to me. As I was utterly ignorant that such a vision was possible, I was extremely afraid at first, and did nothing but weep; however, when He spoke to me but one word to reassure me, I recovered myself, and was, as usual, calm and comforted, without any fear whatever. Jesus Christ seemed to be by my side continually, and, as the vision was not imaginary, I saw no form; but I had a most distinct feeling that He was always on my right hand, a witness of all I did; and never at any time, if I was but slightly recollected, or not too much distracted, could I be ignorant of His near presence. (Life of Saint Teresa of Jesus, ch. 27, #3)

[B is for Bible- the one you read most often]: Hmmmm …. so many translations, so little time. Personally I am a fan of the New Revised Standard Version (Catholic edition) but I often use the New American Bible. On occasion I peruse the Vulgate to see if I remember any of my Latin.

[C is for Charism- the one you would most like to have]: Humility, simplicity, and zeal … the three virtues that we IHMs strive for … inherited from our Redemptorist beginnings.

[D is for Doctor of the Church- your favorite]: Each of the Doctors of the Church totally rocks. Who wouldn’t want to sit at any one of their feet?! That being said, I’d have to say Teresa of Avila, Alphonsus of Liguori, and Thomas Aquinas.

[E is for Essential Prayer - What’s yours?]: The Eucharist and morning prayer according to the Liturgy of the Hours.

[F is for Favorite Hymn]: My all-time favorite hymn is “For the Beauty of the Earth” … the John Rutter version. I first learned how to sing this song in full harmony when I was in college. Our music director Santo (now a Redemptorist in Canada) taught it to us and we sang it for the Easter vigil. It was one of the most moving musical experiences of my life (I’m not so much of a singer, but that night I was.). For my first profession of vows, my Dad played upright bass along with a clarinetist and pianist to this tune. Then again for my final profession our IHM music director played this for me at the Mass. It was beautiful.

[G is for Gospel - your favorite author?]: I dig them all … each speaks to me in a different way.

[H is for Holy Communion - How would you describe it, using one word?]: Intimacy

[I is for Inspiration - When do you feel most inspired by God?]: Well, most of that is up to God … but I feel most in tune with God when I am praying with my sisters and when I am surrounded by wilderness (literal and figurative).

[J is for Jesus - When did you first meet Him?]: When I was a youngster at Saint James parish, I remember waiting for my Dad to finish up with folk group practice. I was out in the pews, kind of draped over one on the left side of the altar. Behind the altar was a big banner. It read, “I asked Jesus how much he loved me. Jesus stretched out his arms … and died for me.” I was so struck by this banner because it sounded like the question kids ask adults — “how much do you love me?” — and the adult spreads out her arms and says “this much”. That’s what I thought Jesus meant, but then I realized it meant his arms were stretched out on the cross … for me! That blew me away. I was very young at the time, but I will never forget that.

[K is for Kindness- Which saint or person has most inspired you by their kindness?]: Maximilian Kolbe

[L is for liturgical year - your favorite time in the liturgical cycle?]: Again, so hard to choose …. I’d have to go with Ordinary Time. Isn’t it so cool that it is its own season? It reminds me that all time is God’s time … even mundane, ordinary time is sacred and precious.

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 19, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today before reciting the midday Angelus with the crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

The day after tomorrow, November 21, on the occasion of the liturgical memorial of the Presentation of Mary Most Holy in the Temple, we celebrate “pro Orantibus” Day [pro Orantibus is Latin for "for those who pray"], dedicated to remembering cloistered religious communities. It is a particularly appropriate occasion to thank the Lord for the gift of so many persons who, in monasteries and hermitages, are totally dedicated to God in prayer, silence and hiddenness.

Some wonder about the meaning and value of their presence in our time, in which many urgent situations of poverty and need must be addressed. Why “shut oneself” forever behind the walls of a monastery and deprive others of the contribution of one’s talents and experiences? What efficacy can prayer have to resolve the numerous concrete problems that continue to afflict humanity?

In fact, also today numerous persons often surprise friends and acquaintances when they abandon professional careers, often promising careers, to embrace the austere rule of a cloistered monastery. What leads them to take such a committed step if not their having understood, as the Gospel teaches, that the Kingdom of heaven is “a treasure” for which it is worth abandoning everything (cf. Matthew 13:44)?

These brothers and sisters silently witness that in the midst of daily vicissitudes, at times extremely convulsive, God is the only support that never falters, the unbreakable rock of fidelity and love. “Todo se pasa, Dios no se muda” [Everything passes, God is unchanging], wrote the great spiritual teacher Teresa of Avila in her famous text. And, given the widespread need that many experience to leave the daily routine of the great urban agglomerations in search of appropriate spaces for silence and meditation, monasteries of contemplative life appear as “oases” in which man, a pilgrim on earth, can go to the sources of the Spirit and slake his thirst along the way.

These places, apparently useless, are, on the contrary, indispensable, like the green “lungs” of a city: They are beneficial for all, including for those who do not visit them or perhaps do not know that they exist.

Dear brothers and sisters: Let us thank the Lord, who in his providence, has willed that there be cloistered communities, masculine and feminine. May they not lack our spiritual and also material support so that they will be able to fulfill their mission of keeping alive in the Church the ardent expectation of Christ’s return. Let us invoke, for this reason, the intercession of Mary, whom, in the memorial of the Presentation in the Temple, we will contemplate as mother and model of the Church, who unites in herself both vocations: to virginity and to marriage, to the contemplative and to the active life.

[Translation by ZENIT]

Today is the feast day of Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582). Teresa is a Doctor of the Church, a major Catholic reformer (particularly in the Carmelite order), a mystic and writer. She is also one of the patron saints of the IHM Congregation.

Teresa was a woman of prayer and continues to teach many people in and outside of the Church how to grow in prayer and one’s relationship with God.

Here is one of my favorite writings of Teresa (Poetry, 386).

Nada te turbe Let nothing trouble you,
Nada te espante, Let nothing scare you,
Toda se pasa, All is fleeting,
Dios no se muda, God alone is unchanging.
La Paciencia Patience
Todo la alcanza; Everything obtains.
Quien a Dios tiene Who possesses God
Nada le falta. Nothing wants.
Sólo Dios basta. God alone suffices.

“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