Today is the feast of the Great Teresa, St. Teresa of Avila. So much to say, but please allow me to use my favorite “volcanic” analogy for mystics like Teresa.
She, like all genuine mystics, is an unexpected epiphany of the divine Fire into our shadowlands, an eruption of the God who spoke creation into existence in the beginning. Her pyrotechnic encounters with God are dramatic signs of what every Christian bears within under the form of concealed mystery. Just as the earth’s homely and stable crust cloaks a burning cauldron of molten rock and iron beneath, so the Christian bears humbly within the secret mystery of the Eternal God.
On those occasions when the crust ruptures, the magma wells up and the Fire erupts, the Church, in the aftermath of these mystic flares, canonizes the divine-human site so future sojourners can wonder over the grandeur of the blazing mystery they bear quietly within.
Like sparks from the fire, let me share here my favorite Teresa quotes:
“It is love alone that gives worth to all things.”
“It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves.”
“Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours; yours are the eyes through which to look out Christ’s compassion to the world, yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.”
“You pay God a compliment by asking great things of Him.”
“Be gentle to all, and stern with yourself.”
“God save us from gloomy saints!”
“Mental prayer is nothing else than a close sharing between friends.”
“The important thing is not to think much but to love much; and so do that which best stirs you to love.”
“In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient inn.”
“The closer one approaches to God, the simpler one becomes.”
“God withholds Himself from no one who perseveres.”
“The devil frequently fills our thoughts with great schemes, so that instead of putting our hands to what work we can do to serve our Lord, we may rest satisfied with wishing to perform impossibilities.”
Amor saca amor, “Love begets love”
“In order that love be fully satisfied, it is necessary that it lower itself and that it lower itself to nothingness and transform this nothingness into fire.”
“It is of great importance, when we begin to practice prayer, not to let ourselves be frightened by our own thoughts.”
“All the way to heaven is heaven.”
“Love turns work into rest.”