Beginning a Deeper Prayer Life with Saint Teresa of Avila - Prayer of Recollection - TOG EP 123

We're diving into Saint Teresa's fascinating treatise on prayer - The Interior Castle. As we wrap up the First Mansions chapters 1 and 2, we take a slight but necessary detour into Saint Teresa's other books, Life and Way of Perfection, to identify a method of prayer she calls recollection. The soul must understand and implement the prayer of recollection to progress from the First Mansions into the Second Mansions. 

Timeline:
00:00:00  Show Intro - Growing in Prayer to the Second Mansions
00:01:56  Recap on Prayer in the First Mansions
00:03:30  Prayer Life in the Second Mansions
00:06:55  Saint Teresa refers back to her earlier writings in Life and Way
00:09:43  What is the ascetical prayer of recollection?
00:21:08  Implementing the prayer of recollection
00:27:24 Spiritual Exercises I. Where’s Jesus?
00:31:10 Spiritual Exercises II. Meeting Jesus at the Fountain
00:35:40 Spiritual Exercises III. Meeting Jesus at the Breakroom Watercooler
00:37:51 Teresan Recollection Comments and Review
00:48:09 Conclusion

Listen to the Podcast on Anchor.fm

Watch the Podcast on Spotify

Listen to the Podcast on Apple Podcasts

Watch the Podcast on YouTube

Watch the Podcast on Rumble

Show Notes

Life of Saint Teresa - her first treatise on prayer

Way of Perfection - another treatise on she wrote on prayer

Paragraph 1 - Notes

Let us now come to consider who the souls are that enter the second Mansions and what they do there. I want to say very little to you about this, because elsewhere I have written of it at length,

Life Chapter XI

Life Chapter XII

Life Chapter XIII

Way of Perfection Chapter XX - XXIX

Recollection (Practicing His Presence) is discussed in detail in Way of Perfection XXIX.

Returning to what I was saying, I should like to be able to explain the nature of this holy companionship with our great Companion, the Holiest of the holy, in which there is nothing to hinder the soul and her Spouse from remaining alone together, when the soul desires to enter within herself, to shut the door behind her so as to keep out all that is worldly and to dwell in that Paradise with her God. I say “desires”, because you must understand that this is not a supernatural state but depends upon our volition, and that, by God’s favour, we can enter it of our own accord: this condition must be understood of everything that we say in this book can be done, for without it nothing can be accomplished and we have not the power to think a single good thought. For this is not a silence of the faculties: it is a shutting-up of the faculties within itself by the soul.

Till Next Time

I pray you are blessed by this content and you learn to incorporate Teresan recollection in your prayer time.

God Bless

Rev. Mike