Timeline:
00:00:00 Opening Scripture Hebrews V 7-10 ESV
00:01:40 Tales of Glory Episode 158 Intro
00:09:23 Sixth Mansions Chapter 7 Topic Outline
00:11:27 Outline I Reflection and grieving for our sins.
00:12:42 nos. 1. Sorrow for sin felt by souls in the Sixth Mansion.
00:15:44 nos. 2. How this sorrow is felt.
00:19:21 nos. 3. St. Teresa's grief for her past sins.
00:20:40 nos. 4. Such souls, centered in God, forget self-interest.
00:27:54 nos. 5. The remembrance of divine benefits increases contrition.
00:35:17 Outline II The importance of meditation.
00:35:30 nos. 6. Meditation on our Lord’s Humanity.
00:39:59 nos. 7. Warning against discontinuing it.
00:44:40 nos. 8. Christ and the saints our models.
00:50:08 Outline III Meditation and the faculties.
00:50:25 nos. 9. Meditation of contemplatives.
00:52:52 nos. 10. Meditation during aridity.
00:56:49 nos. 11. We must search for God when we do not feel His presence.
00:59:45 Outline IV Challenges in meditation.
00:59:57 nos. 12. Reasoning and mental prayer.
01:02:12 nos. 13. A form of meditation on our Lord’s Life and Passion.
01:05:03 nos. 14. Simplicity of contemplatives’ meditation.
01:09:24 Outline V Meditation Advice
01:09:42 nos. 15. Souls in every state of prayer should think of the Passion.
01:13:04 nos. 16. Need of the example of Christ and the saints.
01:18:22 nos. 17. Faith shows us our Lord as both God and Man.
01:19:13 Outline VI Teresa's closing thoughts on meditation.
01:19:23 nos.18. St. Teresa’s experience of meditation on the sacred Humanity.
01:20:09 nos.19. Evil of giving up such meditation.
01:20:56 Conclusion
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Show Notes
Commentary Notes
I. Reflection and grieving for our sins.
nos. 1. Sorrow for sin felt by souls in the Sixth Mansion.
Life, ch. vi. 7.
7. All these tokens of the fear of God came to me through prayer; and the greatest of them was this, that fear was swallowed up of love—for I never thought of chastisement. All the time I was so ill, my strict watch over my conscience reached to all that is mortal sin.
nos. 2. How this sorrow is felt.
nos. 3 St. Teresa's grief for her past sins.
nos. 4. Such souls, centered in God, forget self-interest.
nos. 5. The remembrance of divine benefits increases contrition.
Life, ch. xxi, 9.
9. Oh, if we were utterly detached,—if we never placed our happiness in anything of this world,—how the pain, caused by living always away from God, would temper the fear of death with the desire of enjoying the true life! Sometimes I consider, if a person like myself—because our Lord has given this light to me, whose love is so cold, and whose true rest is so uncertain, for I have not deserved it by my works—frequently feels her banishment so much, what the feelings of the Saints must have been. What must St. Paul and the Magdalene, and others like them, have suffered, in whom the fire of the love of God has grown so strong? Their life must have been a continual martyrdom. It seems to me that they who bring me any comfort, and whose conversation is any relief, are those persons in whom I find these desires—I mean, desires with acts. I say with acts, for there are people who think themselves detached, and who say so of themselves,—and it must be so, for their vocation demands it, as well as the many years that are passed since some of them began to walk in the way of perfection,—but my soul distinguishes clearly, and afar off, between those who are detached in words, and those who make good those words by deeds. The little progress of the former, and the great progress of the latter, make it plain. This is a matter which a person of any experience can see into most clearly.
II. The importance of meditation.
nos. 6. Meditation on our Lord’s Humanity.
Life, ch. xxii. 9-11
9. With so good a Friend and Captain ever present, Himself the first to suffer, everything can be borne. He helps, He strengthens, He never fails, He is the true Friend. I see clearly, and since then have always seen, that if we are to please God, and if He is to give us His great graces, everything must pass through the hands of His most Sacred Humanity, in whom His Majesty said that He is well pleased. I know this by repeated experience: our Lord has told it me. I have seen clearly that this is the door by which we are to enter, if we would have His supreme Majesty reveal to us His great secrets.
10. So, then, I would have your reverence seek no other way, even if you were arrived at the highest contemplation. This way is safe. Our Lord is He by whom all good things come to us; He will teach you. Consider His life; that is the best example. What more can we want than so good a Friend at our side, who will not forsake us when we are in trouble and distress, as they do who belong to this world! Blessed is he who truly loves Him, and who always has Him near him! Let us consider the glorious St. Paul, who seems as if Jesus was never absent from his lips, as if he had Him deep down in his heart. After I had heard this of some great Saints given to contemplation, I considered the matter carefully; and I see that they walked in no other way. St. Francis with the stigmata proves it, St. Antony of Padua with the Infant Jesus; St. Bernard rejoiced in the Sacred Humanity; so did St. Catherine of Siena, and many others, as your reverence knows better than I do.
11. This withdrawing from bodily objects must no doubt be good, seeing that it is recommended by persons who are so spiritual; but, in my opinion, it ought to be done only when the soul has made very great progress; for until then it is clear that the Creator must be sought for through His creatures. All this depends on the grace which our Lord distributes to every soul. I do not intermeddle here. What I would say is, that the most Sacred Humanity of Christ is not to be counted among the objects from which we have to withdraw. Let this be clearly understood. I wish I knew how to explain it.
nos. 7. Warning against discontinuing it.
Life ch. xxii. i
1. There is one thing I should like to say—I think it important: and if you, my father, approve, it will serve for a lesson that possibly may be necessary; for in some books on prayer the writers say that the soul, though it cannot in its own strength attain to this state,—because it is altogether a supernatural work wrought in it by our Lord,—may nevertheless succeed, by lifting up the spirit above all created things, and raising it upwards in humility, after some years spent in a purgative life, and advancing in the illuminative. I do not very well know what they mean by illuminative: I understand it to mean the life of those who are making progress. And they advise us much to withdraw from all bodily imagination, and draw near to the contemplation of the Divinity; for they say that those who have advanced so far would be embarrassed or hindered in their way to the highest contemplation, if they regarded even the Sacred Humanity itself. They defend their opinion by bringing forward the words of our Lord to the Apostles, concerning the coming of the Holy Ghost; I mean that Coming which was after the Ascension. If the Apostles had believed, as they believed after the Coming of the Holy Ghost, that He is both God and Man, His bodily Presence would, in my opinion, have been no hindrance; for those words were not said to the Mother of God, though she loved Him more than all. They think that, as this work of contemplation is wholly spiritual, any bodily object whatever can disturb or hinder it. They say that the contemplative should regard himself as being within a definite space, God everywhere around, and himself absorbed in Him. This is what we should aim at.
Life ch. xxiii. 18
18. I communicated the whole state of my soul to that servant of God and he was a great servant of His, and very prudent. He understood all I told him, explained it to me, and encouraged me greatly. He said that all was very evidently the work of the Spirit of God; only it was necessary for me to go back again to my prayer, because I was not well grounded, and had not begun to understand what mortification meant,—that was true, for I do not think I knew it even by name,—that I was by no means to give up prayer; on the contrary, I was to do violence to myself in order to practice it, because God had bestowed on me such special graces as made it impossible to say whether it was, or was not, the will of our Lord to do good to many through me. He went further, for he seems to have prophesied of that which our Lord afterwards did with me, and said that I should be very much to blame if I did not correspond with the graces which God bestowed upon me. It seems to me that the Holy Ghost was speaking by his mouth in order to heal my soul, so deep was the impression he made. He made me very much ashamed of myself, and directed me by a way which seemed to change me altogether. What a grand thing it is to understand a soul! He told me to make my prayer every day on some mystery of the Passion, and that I should profit by it, and to fix my thoughts on the Sacred Humanity only, resisting to the utmost of my power those recollections and delights, to which I was not to yield in any way till he gave me further directions in the matter.
John 8:12
12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
III. Meditation and the faculties.
nos. 9. Meditation of contemplatives.
nos. 10.
nos. 11. We must search for God when we do not feel His presence.
Canticles, iii. 3
3 The watchmen found me
as they went about in the city.
“Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”
IV. Challenges in meditation.
nos. 12. Reasoning and mental prayer.
nos. 13. A form of meditation on our Lord’s Life and Passion.
Life, ch. xiii. 19
19. Going back, then, to what I was saying. We set ourselves to meditate upon some mystery of the Passion: let us say, our Lord at the pillar. The understanding goeth about seeking for the sources out of which came the great dolors (suffering/distress) and the bitter anguish which His Majesty endured in that desolation. It considers that mystery in many lights, which the intellect, if it be skilled in its work, or furnished with learning, may there obtain. This is a method of prayer which should be to everyone the beginning, the middle, and the end: a most excellent and safe way, until our Lord shall guide them to other supernatural ways.
nos. 14. Simplicity of contemplatives’ meditation.
V. Meditation advice.
nos. 15. Souls in every state of prayer should think of the Passion.
nos. 16. Need of the example of Christ and the saints.
nos. 17. Faith shows us our Lord as both God and Man.
VI.Teresa's closing thoughts on meditation.
nos.18. St. Teresa’s experience of meditation on the sacred Humanity.
nos.19. Evil of giving up such meditation.
Supplemental References on the Interior Castle
Interior Castle: The Classic Text with Spiritual Commentary - My favorite reference.
Fire Within: Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and the Gospel on Prayer -excellent reference!
Into the Deep: Finding Peace Through Prayer - Dan Burke great book!
The Essential Teresa of Avila - Interior Castle, Life, Way of Perfection in Modern English!!!
Till Next Time
We're moving through the supernatural prayer experiences of the sixth
mansions. Next time, we will explore visions in the sixth mansion,
chapter 8.
God Bless,
Rev. Mike
