“The Way of Perfection” – Part 1 of 10
Let’s read St Teresa of Avila’s “The Way of Perfection”.
Translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD.
A Study Edition Prepared by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD.
ICS Publications, ISBN 978-0-935216-70-7
Introduction by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD
There are two textual sources: the Valladolid text and the expanded Escorial texts.
“We have indicated whatever is taken from Escorial and introduced into our main text from Valladolid by enclosing it in brackets. Where there are two versions of the same passage, yet with significant differences, we give a translation of the Escorial version in a note.”
The text is made up of a prologue and 42 short chapters. In this lecture I’ll go over the prologue and chapters 1 through 4.
Prologue
Why did St Teresa come to write “The Way of Perfection”? She tells us in the prologue that the Sisters at the monastery of St Joseph, which she founded, heard that she had written her Autobiography. But her censor did not feel that it was appropriate for the sisters because it contained her mystical experiences. But they pressed her to write a book on prayer and the result was “The Way of Perfection”. St Teresa wrote it as an act of obedience to them.
“The Sisters … have known that I received permission … to write some things about prayer. … The Sisters have urged me so persistently to tell them something about it that I have decided to obey them.”
Before we jump into the text, we should be aware that St Teresa can be hard to interpret at times, because, by her own admission, her writing is not systematic. One has to resist the temptation of over interpreting her in an effort to systematize her writing. My approach in these lectures will be to lift themes from each chapter and illustrate them with quotes.
“… since I don’t know what I’m going to say, I cannot say it in an orderly way. I believe this lack of order is best since writing this book is a thing already so out of order for me.”
Chapter 1
“The Way of Perfection” was written in the midst of the bitterness of the Protestant Reformation that she felt was betraying Christ. St Teresa was compelled to do something about it, so she resolved to do what she could: to strive for spiritual perfection, to pray for the Church, and to urge her Sisters to do the same.
“The news [of the Lutherans in France] distressed me greatly … I resolved to do the little that was in my power … to follow the evangelical counsels as perfectly as I could and strive that these few persons who live here do the same. … Since we would all be occupied in prayer for those who are the defenders of the Church …, we could help as much as possible this Lord of mine who is so roughly treated by those for whom He has done so much good; it seems these traitors would want Him to be crucified again and that He have no place to lay His head.”
The Reformation was painful for St Teresa and she lamented the souls lost to it. For her, the spiritual well-being of souls was of such importance that she felt it was central to prayers of her monastery, not the worldy goods than many came to ask prayers for. It might be surprising that St Teresa would start a book about praying on this topic, but before she even starts to discuss prayer, she locates its place in the economy of the soul and the Church.
“… my heart breaks to see how many souls are lost. … This is why He has gathered you [my Sisters] together here. This is your vocation. … these must be the objects of your petitions — not, my Sisters, the business matters of the world. For I laugh at and am even distressed about the things they come here to ask us to pray for: to ask His Majesty for wealth and money …”
Chapter 2
St Teresa returns to her discussion of the Reformation in the next chapter, and takes an aside to discuss poverty in this one. This is typical of her writing style: perhaps because her mind was on the “wealth and money” her patrons come to ask prayers for, or perhaps because she was discussing the evangelical counsels, her mind came to focus on poverty. Despite the disjoint style, her insights are valuable even abstracted from the body of the rest of the work.
To understand poverly rightly, St Teresa counsels her Sisters to center our lives on God as our greatest good, and not to worry further because everything will then necessarily fall into place. One might think that this is reckless and could lead to evils, like starvation, but any ill that comes of it is transient. We should never place any created good as first because any created good is always of lesser value than God who is our greatest good.
“Your eyes on your Spouse! He will sustain you. Once He is pleased, those least devoted to you will give you food even though they may not want to, as you have seen through experience. If in following this advice you should die of hunger, blessed be the nuns of St. Joseph’s! … Leave this worrying to the One who can move all … His words are true; they cannot fail; rather, heaven and earth will fail. Let us not fail Him; do not fear that He will fail you. And if some time He should fail you, it will be for a greater good. … It would be a good exchange to give up everything for the enjoyment of everlasting abundance.”
To achieve spiritual freedom, she cautions us that you can not only be attached to the worldly goods you have, but also to the goods you do not have. So its not just about being poor in an exterior way, but being detached inwardly. This is what it means to be “poor in spirit”.
“The less there is the more carefree I become. The Lord knows that, in my opinion, it distresses me more when we have a large surplus than when we are in need. … to worry about money would amount to … making ourselves poor in an exterior way but not being poor in spirit … where there are too many cares about whether others will give us alms, sooner or later these cares will become habitual.”
Paradoxically, poverty of spirit is precisely the detachment from worldly goods so that they don’t have power over you; rather, you have power over them. This is the spiritual freedom to please God exclusively.
“Poverty of spirit is a good that includes within itself all the good things of the world. … it gives once again to one who doesn’t care about the world’s good things dominion over them all. What do kings and lords matter to me if I don’t want their riches, or don’t care to please them if in order to do so I would have to displease God in even the smallest thing?”
St Teresa ties money to vainglory, a mark of success in the world to cultivate the admiration of others. This is yet another form of enslavement.
“In my opinion honor and money almost always go together; … Poverty that is chosen for God alone has no need of pleasing anyone but Him.”
Spiritual poverty can also be understood as humility, the awareness of our total dependence on God. Since God provides through others and we should not be negligent in thanking them, because in thanking them, we are showing our gratitude to God.
“The Lord also desires that, even though it comes from Him, we show gratitude to those persons through whose means He gives this food to us. Do not be negligent about showing gratitude.”
Chapter 3
St Teresa begins the chapter by picking up the theme of how to respond to the Protestant Reformation. Warfare cannot stop the heresy, so another approach is required. Using the metaphor of a lord who withdraws into a stronghold, she gives us her approach: begin first by growing spiritually yourself.
This is useful advise in our own times with the culture war that’s waging today. People will turn to activism when they should first put their own lives in order. Otherwise, not only will you spread your disorder to the world, but you won’t even know what to fix and where to begin!
“Human forces are not sufficient to stop the spread of this fire caused by these heretics, even though people have tried to see if with the force of arms they could remedy all the evil that is making such progress. It has seemed to me that what is necessary is a different approach, the approach of a lord when in time of war his land is overrun with enemies and he finds himself restricted on all sides. He withdraws to a city that he has well fortified and from there sometimes strikes his foe. Those who are in the city, being chosen people, are such that they can do more by themselves than many cowardly soldiers can. And often victory is won in this way. At least, even though victory is not won, these chosen people are not conquered. For since they have no traitor, they cannot be conquered — unless through starvation. In this example the starvation cannot be such as to force them to surrender — to die, yes; but not to surrender.”
Her choice of words here are critical: “Human forces are not sufficient”. Yes focus first on your spiritual growth, but realize that it will not ultimately come from yourself, but from God on whom we are totally dependent.
The entire chapter revolves around the theme of growth in spiritual perfection to combat the world. Here’s a couple of ways in which I paraphrased the metaphor:
1) The Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church, is always in spiritual warfare. So the Body must remain strong. The Body has many parts and we are its parts. You can best make the Body strong by making yourself strong.
2) The battle against the world begins in our own hearts, against our own vices and imperfections.
“Since in neither the ecclesiastical nor the secular arm can we be of any help to our King, let us strive to be the kind of persons whose prayers can be useful in helping those servants of God who through much toil have strengthened themselves with learning and a good life and have labored so as now to help the Lord.”
St Teresa’s words here are pertinent, “whose prayers can be useful in helping those servants”. Here she is specifying what her part of the Mystical Body she and her Sisters are occupying. Their prayers are for the preachers and theologians who are the front line defenders of the Church as we can see from the next quote:
“I don’t think that as yet you understand well how much you owe the Lord for bringing you here where you are so removed from business affairs, occasions of sin, and worldly occupations. … These persons [the preachers and theologians] must live among men, deal with men, live in palaces, and even sometimes outwardly behave as such men do. Do you think, my daughters, that little is required for them to deal with the world, live in the world, engage in its business, and, as I said, resemble it in its conversation, while interiorly remaining its strangers, its enemies; in sum, not being men but angels?”
St Teresa pushes connection between the necessity for the strength of spiritual perfection before doing battle with insight: those who defend the Church will have everything thrown at them. Not only will they need interior fortitude to withstand the onslaught, but also they cannot have any worldly attachments since they will not be able to conceal them and these imperfections will be used against them.
“And if they [the preachers and theologians] are not interiorly fortified through an understanding of the importance of trampling everything underfoot, of detachment from things that come to an end, and of attachment to eternal things, they will show some sign of this lack no matter how much they try to conceal it. … Now I wonder who it is that teaches people in the world about perfection, not so much that these people might seek perfection …, but that they might condemn others. … So, then, do not think that little help from God is necessary for this great battle these preachers and theologians are fighting; a very great deal is necessary.”
Chapter 4
St Teresa begins with a discussion of “prayer without ceasing”. She doesn’t really specify what she means here by “unceasing prayer”, but her focus in this chapter is on preparation for prayer rather than prayer itself. Fr Kavanaugh adds some comments in the Interpretative Notes to this chapter which are useful in understanding what St Teresa is getting at:
“Unceasing prayer (1 Thes 5:17), to which the nuns were called also by their Carmelite rule, could not be produced through mere human effort. Teresa felt it more as a gift along with Christ’s peace.” (Kavanaugh).
On this interpretation, “unceasing prayer” might not be the mere product of our effort, but we can make ourselves disposed to it by fasts, disciplines and silence:
“Our primitive rule states that we must pray without ceasing. If we do this with all the care possible — for unceasing prayer is the most important aspect of the rule — the fasts, the disciplines, and the silence the order commands will not be wanting. For you already know that if prayer is to be genuine, it must be helped by these other things; prayer and comfortable living are incompatible.”
St Teresa specifies three things necessary for prayer and to possess peace: love, detachment and humility. She continues:
“Before I say anything about interior matters, that is, about prayer, I shall mention some things that are necessary for those who seek to follow the way of prayer … if they do not possess them, it is impossible for them to be very contemplative … the practice of these three things helps us to possess inwardly and outwardly the peace our Lord recommended so highly to us. The first of these is love for one another; the second is detachment from all created things; the third is true humility, which, even though I speak of it last, is the main practice and embraces all the others.”
And Kavanaugh ties these three things to “unceasing prayer” in his notes:
“The peace that Christ offers, and is so necessary for unceasing prayer, comes through a complete remaking of those who pray: in their relationship with others (love-charity); in their attitude towards possesions (detachment-hope); and in their attitude towards self (humility-faith).” (Kavanaugh)
While St Teresa treats of all three throughout the work, in the remainder of this chapter, she focuses on love. Echoing 1 Peter 4:8 “Love covers a multitude of sins” she writes:
“About the first, love for one another, it is most important that we have this, for there is nothing annoying that is not suffered easily by those who love one another. … But, because of either excess or defect, we never reach the point of observing this commandment perfectly.”
It might be surprising that St Teresa warns against excess love — warning against a deficit of love makes sense — but she goes on to clarify that excess love for another person is just an attachment to a creature and not God, and though one falls short of observing the commandment perfectly:
“those who are interested in perfection have a deep understanding of this excessive love, because little by little it takes away the strength of will to be totally occupied in loving God. … For these great friendships are seldom directed toward helping one love God more.”
St Teresa gives some examples of what bad things can come of friendships based on inordinate love:
“It gives rise to the following: failing to love equally all the others; feeling sorry about any affront to the friend; desiring possessions so as to give her gifts; looking for time to speak with her, and often so as to tell her that you hold her dear and other trifling things rather than about your love for God. For these great friendships are seldom directed toward helping one love God more. On the contrary, I think the devil gets them started so as to promote factions in religious orders. For when love is in the service of His Majesty, the will does not proceed with passion but proceeds by seeking help to conquer other passions.”
I found St Teresa’s point about promoting factions interesting. Seeking the affection of others, somewhat like being attached to honor which St Teresa warns us about in Chapter 2, can be understood as either a desire to be loved (ie. included in the in-group) or fear of being excluded (ie. excluded from the in-group). This attachment is precisely the dynamics of factions.
The inordinte love is an attachment and enslaves our wills to creatures rather than to God. St Teresa counsels us to break these friendships off delicately.
“Let us not condescend, oh daughters, to allow our wills to be slaves to anyone, save to the One who bought it with His blood. Be aware that, without understanding how, you will find yourselves so attached that you will be unable to manage the attachment. … To break away from these friendships … great care is necessary at the outset of the friendship. This breaking away should be done delicately and lovingly rather than harshly.”
Here words here are interesting: “without understanding how”. Often times, our attachments sneak in unconsciously, without our even being aware of their being formed by repeated habit. We might become conscoius of them later when they rear their ugly heads, but because of their unconscious nature, we often don’t even know they are there! And may not even know when God removes them!
As indicated in a footnote to the text, St Teresa went through a couple of revisions as she struggled to differentiate “spiritual love” from one mixed with passion. The idea she was trying to express is best summarized by the following quote:
“I want to speak now about the love that is spiritual, that which is not affected by any passion; where passion is present the good order is thrown into complete disorder.”
She closes the chapter by advising that we take counsel with good confessors and make remedy as soon as possible, emphasizing again how dangerous such friendships can be:
“And if we deal with virtuous persons discreetly and moderately, especially confessors, we will benefit. But if you should become aware that the confessor is turning toward some vanity, be suspicious about everything and in no way carry on conversations with him even though they may seem to be good, but make your confession briefly and bring it to a conclusion. And it would be best to tell the prioress that your soul doesn’t get on well with him and change confessors. That would be the most proper thing to do — if you can do it without hurting his reputation.”
“In similar cases and others as well, in which the devil could ensnare one in many difficulties and in which one does not know what counsel to take, the best thing to do is try to speak with some learned person … Make your confession to him and do what he tells you to do about the matter … Failing to provide a remedy cannot be allowed; for unless the devil is quickly cut short, the effect will not be something of minor importance when he begins to interfere.”
“Keep in mind that this is a very important point, for such friendship is dangerous, harmful, and a hell for all the Sisters. I say that you must not wait until you recognize that serious evil is present, but you should in the beginning cut the relationship short by every possible and knowable means. In good conscience you can do so.”
Closing Remarks: St Teresa wrote “The Way of Perfection” for her sisters who asked her to teach them somthing about prayer. Surprisingly she starts by talking about the Protestant Reformation! Just like in our times, and throughout history, the world is broken. She takes this as her launching point to locate the place of prayer in her spirituality:
We tranform the world by allowing ourselves to be transformed by God. But you can’t do this on your own because as fallen creatures we’re broken and we wouldn’t even know where to start to fix ourselves or the world. If we just “act”, we will wind up spreading our disorder more and not fixing anything. Like Mary’s openness to God two thousand years ago allowed Him to enter the world and transform it, so now our openness to God in prayer will fix our broken world today.
Christmas Eve, 2020.