Carmelite homily for Lectionary 657 – Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Today we celebrate a great one! This is the Feast of Saint Teresa of Avila. My favorite quotation of hers comes from one of her letters. She writes (it’s a prayer), “Lord, I do not think I can give you everything that you ask of me; but I will allow you to take it, and I pray that I do not try and prevent you.” It’s a great prayer because it’s so real; it’s so human. We think we can give everything to God, but, ahhhh. Things that are too close to our ego, to our reputation, to our appetites; ahh, maybe not those Lord. She’s being really human here. But then she’s a great saint because she says, “but I will allow you to take it.” I don’t think we have to give that stuff up – the Lord will take it from us. And then she’s back to human and real when she says, “and I pray that I do not try and prevent you.”
In today’s Gospel we have the vine and the branches and Jesus says that he will prune those branches. What a great Gospel for this Feast of Saint Teresa of Avila!