{"id":529,"date":"2014-10-15T05:00:38","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T05:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sjcmetheology.wpengine.com\/?p=529"},"modified":"2014-10-15T05:00:38","modified_gmt":"2014-10-15T05:00:38","slug":"teresa-of-avila-500-years-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/teresa-of-avila-500-years-young\/","title":{"rendered":"Teresa of Avila: 500 Years Young"},"content":{"rendered":"

Browsing the spirituality section at any local book store is always interesting. Recently, selections included Spiritual Java<\/em>, Tattoos on the Heart<\/em>, Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/em> in an alarming number of volumes and yes, St. Augustine\u2019s Confessions, along with St. Teresa of Avila\u2019s\u00a0Interior Castle.<\/em> I think a few subcategories are in order! If I were asked to choose those categories I would name one \u201c500 years or older.\u201d I have a hunch that the ever growing Chicken Soup <\/em>series will not be sitting on the bookshelf 500 years from now. However, if the last 500 years are any indication, a 26th<\/sup> century reader may find the Confessions <\/em>and The Interior Castle <\/em>on the shelf. Spiritual classics have the power to speak across the ages because they explore the great mystery of God and God\u2019s love for his people and touch on aspects of it that resonate in every age. The church designates some of the greatest spiritual authors as \u201cdoctors\u201d because of the timeless value of their teaching, preaching and writing. Today, we celebrate the feast of one of the newest contributors to the \u201c500 shelf\u201d and that is St. Teresa of Avila.<\/p>\n

\"teresa\"<\/a>This year the Church, and particularly the Carmelite family of which Teresa was a member, will celebrate the 500th anniversary of her birth on March 28, 1515 in Avila, Spain. There is so much to like about Teresa. She is described as attractive, with a good sense of humor, loved to sing, deeply mystical and totally practical. When a sister asked her if she could remain behind in chapel because she couldn\u2019t bear to be separated from the Lord, Teresa asked what she would have to give up to remain in chapel. The sister replied preparing the potatoes for dinner. Teresa assured that she need not worry; The Lord could easily find her in the scullery! Teresa was a natural born leader. She entered the convent because she thought her life was going nowhere and that the distractions of the world did not bring out the best in her. She was quite disappointed to discover that life inside the convent looked an awful lot like life outside the convent. She found the sisters lackadaisical in the spiritual life and gossipy about their fellow sisters and life back in the world. She once remarked \u201cSpare me from a faith that is lukewarm!\u201d In this desire was the seed of her own conversion, the reform of the Carmelite way of life, and the birth of one of the Church\u2019s greatest teachers of prayer.<\/p>\n

Canonized in 1622 for the holiness of her life, it was Pope Paul VI who (himself to be beatified this week) named her the second woman doctor of the Church in 1970. Her greatest contribution is her ability to describe the practice of prayer; both the levels of prayer from simple to more mature forms of prayer and how a believer can move from a beginner in the life of prayer toward the prayer of the mystic. Her writing is the account of her own experience of realizing that faith becomes lukewarm when it is taken for granted or when one just moves through the motions.<\/p>\n

She writes of the experience that made her realize she never really thought seriously about what it meant that Jesus died for her, carrying her sins to his death. In another meditation, she talks about the challenge of paying attention and thinking about what we are praying when we are praying those prayers that are most familiar to us. Her writing, particularly The Way of Perfection<\/em>, is her teaching on how to make prayer the language of our relationship with Jesus and how to grow that relationship. Teresa is the perfect teacher if you want to learn how to take your prayer to the next level. Why not join the celebration by reading something by Teresa? Follow the celebration here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Susan Timoney<\/strong>\u00a0is the Assistant Secretary for Pastoral Ministry and Social Concerns for the Archdiocese of Washington and teaches spirituality for Saint Joseph\u2019s College Online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Browsing the spirituality section at any local book store is always interesting. Recently, selections included Spiritual Java, Tattoos on the Heart, Chicken Soup for the Soul in an alarming number of volumes and yes, St. Augustine\u2019s Confessions, along with St. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,23],"tags":[280],"class_list":["post-529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-saints","category-spirituality","tag-st-teresa-of-avila"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}