Quote of the day, 4 October: St. Teresa of Avila

Being in prayer on the feastday of the glorious St. Peter, I saw or, to put it better, I felt Christ beside me; I saw nothing with my bodily eyes or with my soul, but it seemed to me that Christ was at my side—I saw that it was He, in my opinion, who was speaking to me.

I immediately went very anxiously to my confessor to tell him.

I could do nothing but draw comparisons in order to explain myself. And, indeed, there is no comparison that fits this kind of vision very well. Since this vision is among the most sublime (as I was afterward told by a very holy and spiritual man, whose name is Friar Peter of Alcántara and of whom I shall speak later and by other men of great learning) and the kind in which the devil can interfere the least of all, there are no means by which those of us who know little here below can explain it.

And what a good image of Christ God took from us now in the blessed Friar Peter of Alcántara! The world cannot at this time endure so much perfection. They say that our health is weaker and that these times are not like those of the past. Yet this holy man belonged to the present age.

But he was very old when I came to know him, and so extremely weak that it seemed he was made of nothing but tree roots.

Aware then of the little, or nothing at all, I could do to avoid these impulses [in prayer], which were so great, I also feared having them…. The Lord was pleased to remove a great part of my trial—and then all of it—by bringing to this city the blessed Friar Peter of Alcántara, whom I already mentioned….

He is the author of some small books in the vernacular on prayer that are now popular, for as one who practiced it well himself he wrote in a very helpful way for those who are given to prayer. He observed the first rule of the blessed St. Francis in all its rigor besides the other things mentioned to some extent above.

Afterward the Lord was pleased that I receive more help from him—through the counsel he gave me about many matters—than I did during his life. I have often seen him in the greatest glory.

Saint Teresa of Avila

The Book of Her Life, chap. 27, 30 (excerpts)

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: João de Deus Sepúlveda, Apparition of Saint Peter of Alcantara, 1760-61, oil on wood (with frame attached to the vault), Vault, Igreja de Santa Teresa, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, PI 2157B. Image credit: © Daniel Paza/PESSCA Archive.
Ojeda, Almerindo. Project for the Engraved Sources of Spanish Colonial Art (PESSCA). 2005-2025. Website located at colonialart.org. Date Accessed: 10/02/2025.

#apparition #mysticalExperience #penance #StPeterOfAlcantara #StTeresaOfAvila

Quote of the day, 31 December: Jessica Powers

Go alone, he says, to the land of the living,
barefooted, poor,
saluting no one. On this bleak way only
are your steps secure.
Enter in by the gate humility,
his word admonishes, and there embrace
the chill and sharpness of a lonely place.
What are you, nothingness before the All,
and you cling to self as to your good
and spurn your God to keep your creaturehood.
This is the season of the soul’s undoing,
the terrible gateway into the profound,
and it is less a penitent’s renewing
than entrance, birth and difficult beginning.
Lights focus on the years of waste and sinning,
and in God’s presence shame has depths to sound.
Take off your shoes here; it is holy ground.

Yet this is earth; to reach the pure white valley
a way must burn through continents unknown.
Drive yourself forth, O love so newly born,
by blandishment or scorn.
Set out, O soul, in darkness and alone.
You are too feeble yet to bear the leaning
of any other soul, too poor to feed
the smallest mouth of humanity in its need.
It is by flight alone that you are freed.
Go forth then without speech or salutation
and make your borders peace. Admit no ill
into your emptied heart, for in aloneness
God speaks; He names His way where all is still,
and what He hollows out His mercies fill.
Earth has no calm to parallel the soothing
of wanting only the eternal Will.

How glorious, O soul, is this your journey!
Love is its end and love its plan and prod.
Set out then in the riches of your nothing.
Enter into the solitudes of God.

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, o.c.d. (Jessica Powers)

On Reading Saint Peter of Alcantara (1946)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Photographer Greg Rakozy captured this image of a man inspired by the Milky Way at Tony Grove Lake in Utah’s Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Image credit: grakozy / Unsplash (Stock photo)

#God #humility #JessicaPowers #love #poetry #solitude #SrMiriamOfTheHolySpirit #StPeterOfAlcantara