Carmelite QuotesI tell you, daughters, that I have known persons who had ascended high and had reached this union, who were turned back and won over by the devil with his deep cunning and deceit.
All hell must join for such a purpose because, as I have often said, in losing one soul of this kind, not only one is lost but a multitude. The devil already has experience in this matter.
Look at the multitude of souls God draws to Himself by means of one. He is to be greatly praised for the thousands converted by the martyrs: for a young girl like St. Ursula; for those the devil must have lost through St. Dominic, St. Francis, and other founders of religious orders, and those he now loses through Father Ignatius, the one who founded the Society.
Clearly, all of these received, as we read, similar favors from God. How would this have come about if they hadn’t made the effort not to lose through their own fault so divine an espousal?
Oh, my daughters, how prepared this Lord is to grant us favors now just as He has granted them to others in the past. And, in part, He is even more in need that we desire to receive them, for there are fewer now who care about His honor, than there were then.
We love ourselves very much; there’s an extraordinary amount of prudence we use so as not to lose our rights. Oh, what great deception! May the Lord through His mercy enlighten us so that we do not fall into similar darknesses.
Saint Teresa of Avila
The Interior Castle, V, chap. 4, no. 6
Teresa of Avila, St. 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K; Rodriguez, O, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
Featured image: The story of the Devil’s appearance to St. Dominic in the form of a monkey derives from a medieval legend, according to which the saint seized his tormentor and forced him to hold a lighted candle while he studied. St. Dominic released him only after the candle burned down and singed his fingers. This candle-illuminated scene is inspired by a famous lost masterpiece of antiquity. Antiphilus of Alexandria’s Boy Blowing on a Fire was renowned for its beautifully rendered effects of firelight. In St. Dominic and the Devil, Pietro della Vecchia’s oil on canvas painting makes deliberate reference to it and to his own celebrated ability to imitate earlier masters. This artwork was completed ca. 1630 and is in the collections of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. Our thanks to the museum for sharing this marvelous story in their gallery label. Image credit: Indianapolis Museum of Art (Public domain)
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AndyHat
