Father Greg

Book Review: The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Carlos Eire

The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Carlos Eire | Princeton University Press, 2019

This book, The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila, should be renamed The Life of the Life of Saint Teresa of Avila. Why? Because the book is a more about Saint Teresa’s autobiography, The Book of Her Life (oftentimes shortened to Vida in Spanish and Life in English), than it is about Saint Teresa herself. Carlos Eire is a history professor at Yale University and presents to us an extremely interesting history of, yes, Saint Teresa of Avila, but after her death (1582) the continued ‘life’ of her Life.

Professor Eire claims that The Book of Her Life really is Teresa’s magnum opus and that her other books (i.e., The Foundations, The Interior Castle, Soliloquies) are afterwords to her main work. He provides a solid interpretation of Teresa’s Life from a 21st-century perspective. He does not dismiss her extraordinary visions, locutions, or levitations but puts them as sidebars to the main point of Teresa’s book: an outline of the mystical journey to union with God. The extraordinary stuff all made sense from a 16th-century mindset, but from the 1700s (the Enlightenment) through today the extraordinary stuff comes across more as psychological disturbances than as actual events. But the main point – the mystical journey – has a timeless validity. Professor Eire does not go into all the political entanglements Teresa faced; instead, he concentrates on the entanglements that her Life caused with the Inquisition, her confessors, the Spanish aristocracy, and anyone who read her Life. Overall, in the first part of his book Professor Eire gives us a clear and easily-read biography of Saint Teresa. If nothing else, I recommend Eire’s book for this clarity.

BUT this book gets really interesting after the death of Teresa in 1582, and a lot of the history Professor Eire writes about will be new to even the ardent disciples of Teresa. Here are just a few of the things I learned:

After her death the Dominicans launched a major campaign with the Inquisition to discredit her and block her beatification and the publication of any of her works, but King Philip IV and the royal family silenced any opposition.
After her canonization, Philip IV declared her to be the co-patron of Spain (along with Saint James; i.e., Santiago) but the Pope squelched that.
Various picture-books (remember this was an illiterate age) of Teresa’s Life were published after her death. One of the engravings from a popular picture-book by Arnold van Westerhout became the template that Bernini used in his famous statue, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.
Sigmund Freud and his disciple, Jacques Lacan, pronounced her the patron saint of hysterics.
When given a reliquary containing Teresa’s left hand Generalissimo Francisco Franco pronounced her the patron saint of fascism (and the Superior General of the Discalced Carmelites wrote a treatise supporting this!). Franco even published a magazine for fascist women called Teresa (1936-1975).
Virgil Thomson wrote an opera, with the libretto by Gertrude Stein, called Four Saints in Three Actsabout Saint Teresa and Saint Ignatius of Loyola

Do I recommend this book? You bet! Whether you’re new to Saint Teresa and her works (especially her Life) or you’ve been a life-long disciple, you will learn a lot.

tranverberation of teresa — Arnold van Westerhout’s ‘The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa’

Or Everything is Doomed

Carmelite homily for Ash Wednesday, February 26, 2020 – Lectionary 219 (Matthew 6:1-6,16-18)

Humility doesn’t mean being smarmy and allow people to walk all over you or to treat you like a doormat. No! Humility means not being controlled by your ego. That’s what we see in today’s Gospel. When you pray, don’t pray in front of everybody so everyone says, ‘look how holy she is.’ Or when you give gifts or donations don’t blow a trumpet or call attention to it so everyone says, ‘look how, how generous he is.’ Or when you’re fasting don’t look all beaten up so everyone can say, ‘look how god-focused she is.’ No, that’s all ego. The idea is to not let ego control this, but to let love control this, God control this, the other control this, your heart control this. This is the call for Ash Wednesday. Saint Teresa of Avila writes, “If there is no progress in humility, everything is going to be doomed.” Let’s make that the focus for this Lent – progress in humility. Which means simply, don’t be controlled by your ego, be controlled by love.

What Are My Verticals?

Carmelite homily for Tuesday, February 25, 2020 – Lectionary 342 (Mark 9:30-34)

Those disciples, they’re at it again, arguing who is the greatest. So Jesus brings a child and places the child in the middle and says, “whoever receives a little one like this receives me” and “the last shall be first, the first shall be last.” What he’s getting at is all the things that keep us enslaved, like the disciples ‘who’s the greatest?’ It’s status, it’s power. Their culture was very vertical and Jesus is asking for very horizontal. But what about us? What are our verticals that we’re not willing to budge on? Money? or power? or status? or wealth? or the house? or my will? or my control? What are my verticals? And are they child-like? That’s the call of today’s Gospel. It’s not to be a child necessarily, but to check what are the verticals? What are the non-negotiables? What are the things I insist on having my way? And does that have to be so?

The Door to Favors

Carmelite homily for Monday, February 24, 2020 – Lectionary 341 (Mark 9:14-29)

In today’s Gospel the people bring to the disciples a boy who has convulsions. And the disciples can’t heal this boy, so they bring him to Jesus, and Jesus does heal him. And the disciples ask, “Why couldn’t we do that?” And he says, “Well, this one could only be healed by prayer.” But the call is not just for the difficult cases to pray, but to pray always, even for the easy cases. Here’s what Saint Teresa of Avila has to say, “I say only that prayer is the door to favors as great as those the Lord granted me. If this door is closed, I don’t know how he will grant them.” So let’s leave the miracles to the Lord, the answers to the Lord, let’s leave everything to the Lord – except prayer. Let’s do that, and see what happens.

Be Ye Perfect

Carmelite homily for Sunday, February 23, 2020 – Lectionary 79 (Matthew 5:38-48)

The last line of today’s Gospel says, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And sometimes we can hear this and say – oh, I’ve got to be perfect then; I can’t make any mistakes; I can’t make any failures; I cannot sin; I’ve got to be — ‘ahhhh’ – uptight. And that’s not what it means at all. Because if you take it in the whole context, the Father lets the sun shine on the good and the bad alike and the rain fall on the just and the unjust alike, means to treat everyone with love. Here’s what Saint Teresa of Avila has to write about this. This comes from her book, The Way of Perfection (it makes sense), “Zeal for perfection is in itself a good thing. But it could follow that every fault the sisters commit will seem to you a serious breach; and you are careful to observe when they commit them, where they commit them, and then go and inform the prioress. Often, you don’t see your own faults because of your intense zeal for the religious observance of everybody else. What the devil is hereby aiming at is no small thing; namely, the cooling of charity and love the sisters have for one another. So, let each one look to herself only. For perfection consists of love of God and love of neighbor; whereas, perfectionism comes from the devil.” So let’s not confuse ‘perfection’ and ‘perfectionism’ today.

Your Name is Spouse

Carmelite homily for Saturday, February 22, 2020 – Lectionary 535 (Matthew 16:13-19) – the Chair of Peter

In the Gospel for this Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, Jesus asks of his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they give a bunch of answers and finally Simon says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” And Jesus turns to him and says, “Your name is Peter.” He gives him a special name. But Jesus gives us a special name. Here’s what Saint Teresa of Avila has to write, “To always live in calm desire to rejoice solely in Christ, one’s spouse.” That’s the name Jesus, as we get closer and closer to him, gives us: spouse. So, yes, that’s what we celebrate on this Feast of the Chair of Peter – our espousal.

Why the Cross?

Carmelite homily for Friday, February 21, 2020 – Lectionary 339 (Mark 8:34-9:1)

On the cover of the most recent issue of the Sword, a Carmelite publication, there’s a picture of Jesus carrying the cross followed by a bunch of Carmelites all dressed in the white part of their habit, this part, carrying their cross. They’re all carrying the cross. And that seems to be what today’s Gospel is asking us – that we all need to carry the cross. But why? I think Teresa of Avila has a great answer. Here’s what she writes, “If the soil is well-cultivated by trials, persecutions, criticisms, and illnesses – for few there must be who reach this stage without them – and it is softened by living in great detachment from self-interest, the water soaks in so deep that one is never dry.” That’s why the cross. To sum up, to get us past our ego, our desire, me, I; and to get me to Jesus, to the other, to God. That’s why the cross.

Immensity of Christ

Carmelite homily for Thursday, February 20, 2020 – Lectionary 338 (Mark 8:27-33)

In today’s Gospel Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they give a bunch of answers and finally Peter says, “You are the Christ.” Then Jesus predicts his upcoming passion and death. And Peter says, ‘Oh, This must not happen to you.’ Jesus, “Oh, behind me Satan for you do not think as God thinks but as human beings think.” I think that’s the call of today’s Gospel: is to think beyond what human beings think; to think as God thinks. Edith Stein (Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) writes, “Living in a Eucharistic way means coming out of oneself, out of the narrowness of one’s life and growing into the immensity of life in Christ.” I think that’s why Jesus begins with the question, “Who do people say that I am?” Is your understanding big enough, immense enough, to understand Jesus? Because that’s what you’re called to grow into – that immensity. That’s what we called as Christians, as Eucharistic people, as disciples – to grow into the immensity of Christ.

Do Not Go Back

Carmelite homily for Wednesday, February 19, 2020 – Lectionary 337 (Mark 8:22-26)

In today’s Gospel we have a very interesting passage. The people from the village of Bethsaida bring to Jesus a blind man. And Jesus heals him – it takes two tries – and concludes with the line, “Do not even go back into the village.” Why? The purpose of all Jesus’ healings is to allow people back into the village, back to their families, back to society because the blind, the unclean, the lepers, the lame were all kept outside the village for health reasons. So why would Jesus tell this man to not go back? There must be something wrong with the village. That if he goes back, all the problems come back. So, I think, the call of today’s Gospel – are we part of the problem? – is to check out our own village. Are we adding to it or are we suffering from it? Let’s clean up the village. It’s really the call of today’s Gospel.

To Ponder Past Huh? to Aha!

Carmelite homily for Tuesday, February 18, 2020 – Lectionary 336 (Mark 8:14-21)

In today’s Gospel Jesus warns the disciples to be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, and they all go ‘huh?’ And so Jesus goes ‘huh?’ to them – you don’t understand? your don’t comprehend? you have eyes to see? ears to hear? Because, I think, life requires reflection, pondering – not just surviving or doing. But to reflect on life. John of the Cross writes, “Seek in reading and you will find in meditation; knock in prayer, and it will be opened to you in contemplation.” I think that’s the invitation, the call of today’s Gospel, is to pray, to reflect, to knock. And these things do become known and evident. Instead of going “huh?” we might go “aha!”