Quote of the day, 5 December: St. Teresa of Avila

You should know that for more than three months, it seems, hosts of demons have joined against the discalced friars and nuns. They have stirred up so many persecutions and calumnies against us nuns as well as Padre Gracián, and these are so hard to stomach, that all we can do is take refuge in God.

As a result, I believe he has heard our prayer, for the nuns are, after all, good souls. Those who sent memoranda to the king have retracted their words about the lovely exploits they attributed to us.

The truth is a great thing and these sisters above all rejoice in it. As for me, it matters little. I’ve grown used to such things, and it’s not surprising that they leave me untouched.

Now, to top things off, the nuns at the Incarnation have agreed to vote for me for prioress, and though I received fourteen or fifteen more votes than needed, the friars so conspired that another nun who had fewer votes was elected and confirmed.[Ana de Toledo, 7 October 1577] And the friars would have done me a great favor, provided everything had proceeded peacefully.

Since the nuns did not want to obey the newly-confirmed prioress except as vicaress, they were all excommunicated—more than fifty of them.

Although in fact, according to learned men, they were not really excommunicated, they have nonetheless had to undergo two months without being able to attend Mass or speak to their confessors [including St. John of the Cross, abducted on 3 December 1577], and they are in anguish.

Although the nuncio [Felipe Sega] has now given orders for them to be absolved, they are still in the same situation. Just think, what a life it is, to see all of this going on!

Saint Teresa of Avila

Letter 219 to Padre Gaspar de Salazar
7 December 1577

Teresa of Avila, St 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: This image of Letter 148 from St. Teresa to the prioress in Seville comes from a rare book collection. Image credit: rrocio | Getty Images / iStockphoto.

#elections #monasteryOfTheIncarnation #obedience #stTeresaOfAvila #tribulation

Quote of the day, 6 October: St. Edith Stein

While the spiritual gardens of Mother Teresa were spreading their lovely fragrance over all of Spain, the Monastery of the Incarnation, her former home, was in a sad state. Income had not increased in proportion to the number of nuns, and since they were used to living comfortably and not (as in the reformed Carmel) to finding their greatest joy in holy poverty, discontent and slackening of spirit spread.

In the year 1570, Fr. Fernández of the Order of St. Dominic came to this house. He was the apostolic visitator entrusted by Pope Pius V with examining the disciplinary state of monasteries in Castile. Since he had already become thoroughly acquainted with some monasteries of the reform, the contrast must have shocked him.

He thought of a radical remedy. By the authority of his position, he named Mother Teresa as prioress of the Monastery of the Incarnation and ordered her to return to Avila at once to assume her position. In the midst of her work for the reform, she now had to undertake a task that for all intents and purposes appeared impossible.

Oh, daughter, daughter! These Sisters in the Incarnation are My Sisters, and you delay? Well, take courage; behold I want it, and it isn’t as difficult as it seems to you. And whereas you think some harm will come to your houses, both they and the Incarnation will benefit. Do not resist, for My power is great.
Our Lord to St. Teresa, 10 July 1571
Spiritual Testimonies, 16

Exhorted by the Lord himself, she declared her readiness. However, with the agreement of Fr. Fernández, she gave a written statement that she personally would continue to follow the primitive Rule. One can imagine the vehement indignation of the nuns who were to have a prioress sent to them — one not elected by them — a sister of theirs who had left them eight years earlier and whom they considered an adventuress, a mischief-maker.

The storm broke as the provincial led her into the house. The provincial, Fr. Angel de Salazar, could not make himself heard in the noisy gathering. The “Te Deum” that he intoned was drowned out by the sounds of indignation. Teresa’s goodness and humility finally brought about enough quiet for the sisters to go to their cells and to tolerate her presence in the house.

They were saving the decisive declarations for the first chapter meeting. But how amazed they were when they entered the chapter room at the sound of the bell to see in the prioress’ seat the statue of our dear Lady, the Queen of Carmel, with the keys to the monastery in her hands and the new prioress at her feet. Their hearts were conquered even before Teresa began to speak and in her indisputable loving manner presented to them how she conceived and intended to conduct her office.

In a short time, under her wise and temperate direction, above all by the influence of her character and conduct, the spirit of the house was renewed. Her greatest support in this was Fr. John of the Cross, whom she called to Avila as confessor for the monastery.

Saint Edith Stein

Love for Love: The Life and Works of St. Teresa of Jesus
14. Prioress at the Monastery of the Incarnation

Note: Saint Teresa took up her office as Prioress at the Monastery of the Incarnation on 6 October 1571

Stein, E. 2014, The Hidden Life: hagiographic essays, meditations, spiritual texts, translated from the German by Stein, W, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

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: This detail of a photographic artwork created by Elías Rodríguez Picón comes to us thanks to the Discalced Carmelite nuns of Alba de Tormes. The artist’s sister is the model for this scene, which is intended to show the beginning moment of the Transverberation. You can see and read more about his photographic technique in this article from La Hornacina (in Spanish). Image credit: Discalced Carmelites (By permission).

#Constitutions #MonasteryOfTheIncarnation #prioress #StEdithStein #StTeresaOfAvila

Quote of the day, 2 December: St. Teresa of Avila

To the King Don Philip II

The grace of the Holy Spirit be with your majesty, amen. I strongly believe that our Lady has chosen you to protect and help her order. So, I cannot fail to have recourse to you regarding her affairs. For the love of our Lord, I beg you to pardon me for so much boldness.

I am sure your majesty has received news of how the nuns at the Incarnation tried to have me go there, thinking they would have some means to free themselves from the friars, who are certainly a great hindrance to the recollection and religious observance of the nuns. And the friars are entirely at fault for the lack of observance previously present in that house. The nuns are very much mistaken in their desire that I go there, for as long as they are subject to the friars as confessors and visitators, I would be of no help—at least not of any lasting help. I always said this to the Dominican visitator, and he understood it well.

Since God allowed that situation to exist, I tried to provide a remedy and placed a discalced friar in a house next to them, along with a companion friar. He is so great a servant of our Lord that the nuns are truly edified, and this city is amazed by the remarkable amount of good he has done there, and so they consider him a saint, and in my opinion, he is one and has been one all his life.

When the previous nuncio through a long report sent him by the inhabitants of the city was informed of the things that were happening and of the harm that the friars of the cloth were doing, he gave orders under pain of ex-communication that the confessors be restored to their house (for the calced friars had driven them from the city heaping abuse on them and giving much scandal to everyone). And he also ordered that no friar of the cloth under pain of ex-communication go to the Incarnation for business purposes, to say Mass, or hear confessions, but only the discalced friars and secular clergy. As a result, the house was in a good state until the nuncio died. Then the calced friars returned—and so too the disturbance—without demonstrating the grounds on which they could do so.

And now a friar who came to absolve the nuns caused such a disturbance without any concern for what is reasonable and just that the nuns are deeply afflicted and still bound by the same penalties as before, according to what I have been told. And worst of all he has taken from them their confessors. They say that he has been made vicar provincial, and this must be true because he is more capable than the others of making martyrs. And he is holding these confessors captive in his monastery after having forced his way into their cells and confiscating their papers.

The whole city is truly scandalized. He is not a prelate nor did he show any evidence of the authority on which these things were done, for these confessors are subject to the apostolic commissary. Those friars dared so much, even though this city is so close to where your majesty resides, that it doesn’t seem they fear either justice or God. I feel very sad to see these confessors in the hands of those friars who for some days have been desiring to seize hold of them. I would consider the confessors better off if they were held by the Moors, who perhaps would show more compassion. And this one friar who is so great a servant of God is so weak from all that he has suffered that I fear for his life.

I beg your majesty for the love of our Lord to issue orders for them to set him free at once and that these poor discalced friars not be subjected to so much suffering by the friars of the cloth. The former do no more than suffer and keep silent and gain a great deal. But the people are scandalized by what is being done to them. This past summer in Toledo, without any reason, the same superior took as prisoner Fray Antonio de Jesús—a holy and blessed man, who was the first discalced friar. They go about saying that with orders from Tostado they will destroy them all. May God be blessed! Those who were to be the means of removing offenses against God have become the cause of so many sins. And each day matters will get worse if your majesty does not provide us with some help. Otherwise, I don’t know where things will end up, because we have no other help on earth.

May it please our Lord that for our sakes you live many years. I hope in him that he will grant us this favor. He is so alone, for there are few who look after his honor. All these servants of your majesty’s, and I ask this of him continually.

Dated in St. Joseph’s in Avila, 4 December 1577.

Your majesty’s unworthy servant and subject,

Teresa of Jesus, Carmelite

Saint Teresa of Avila

Letter 218 to King Philip II

We recall two important events on this date:

In early December 1577—some scholars say the exact date was 2 December—St. John of the Cross and fellow chaplain-confessor Fray Germán de San Matías were abducted from their chaplain’s residence at the Monastery of the Incarnation in Avila. In the general introduction to The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross, Father Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. describes the scene:

On the night of December 2, 1577, a group of Carmelites, lay people, and men-at-arms broke into the chaplain’s quarters, seized Fray John, and took him away. By a secret journey, with orders from Tostado, they carted him off, handcuffed and often blindfolded, to the monastery in Toledo, the order’s finest in Castile, where nearly 85 friars lived.

In her introduction to Science of the Cross, St. Edith Stein continues the story of John’s abduction:

He was interrogated, and because he refused to abandon the Reform he was treated as a rebel. His prison was a narrow room, about 10 feet long and 6 feet wide. Teresa later wrote: “small though he was in stature, he could hardly stand erect in it.” This cell had neither window nor air vent other than a slit high up on the wall. The prisoner had to “stand on the poor-sinner-stool and wait until the sun’s rays were reflected on the wall in order to be able to pray the breviary” [a very plain stool typically found in a monastic cell]. The door was secured by a bolt.

We also recall that on 2 December 1894, Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus (Henri Grialou) was born in Aubin (Aveyron) France. After his priestly ordination on February 4, 1922, he was captivated by the doctrine of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and St. John of the Cross and decided to join the Discalced Carmelites.

John of the Cross, St. 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, Revised Edition, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K and Rodriguez, O with revisions and introductions by Kavanaugh, K, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Stein, E 2002, The Science of the Cross, The Collected Works of Edith Stein, Book 6, translated from the German by Koeppel, J, ICS Publications, Washington D.C.

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 walls of Avila are featured in this nighttime winter scene. (Stock photo)

#abduction #BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #CarmeliteFriars #history #imprisonment #KingPhilipII #MonasteryOfTheIncarnation #Spain #StEdithStein #StJohnOfTheCross #StTeresaOfAvila

One day after the octave of the feast of the Visitation while I was in a hermitage of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel praying to God for one of my brothers, I said to the Lord (I don’t know, perhaps I may have just thought it): “Why is my brother in a place where his salvation is in danger? Were I, Lord, to see Your brother in this danger, what wouldn’t I do to help him!” It seemed to me that I would have left nothing undone in order to help.

The Lord answered me: “Oh, daughter, daughter! These Sisters in the Incarnation are My Sisters, and you delay? Well, take courage; behold I want it, and it isn’t as difficult as it seems to you. And whereas you think some harm will come to your houses, both they and the Incarnation will benefit. Do not resist, for My power is great.”

Saint Teresa of Avila

Spiritual Testimonies 16
St. Joseph’s Avila, 10 July 1571

Note: In obedience to the directive of the Apostolic Visitor appointed by Pope Pius V (Pedro Fernández, O.P.), St. Teresa assumed her new role as Prioress of the Carmel of the Incarnation on 14 October 1571, just one week after the Battle of Lepanto. Her brothers had already traveled to the Spanish colonies in South America to support King Philip II.

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: Saint Teresa “the Vagabond” is seen in this 20th c. statue by Spanish sculptor Fernando Cruz Solís (1923–2003) which graces the entry of the Discalced Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation in Avila. Image credit: Raquel / Adobe Stock (Stock photo)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/07/09/stj-10jul71/

#courage #difficult #familyLife #FrKieranKavanaughOCD #locution #MonasteryOfTheIncarnation #OurLadyOfMountCarmel #power #prayer #prioress

I was very much disliked throughout my monastery [Monastery of the Incarnation, Avila] because I had wanted to found a more enclosed monastery. They said I was insulting them; that in my own monastery, I could also serve God since there were others in it better than I; that I had no love for the house; that it would be better to procure income for this place than for some other.

Several of them said I should be thrown into the prison cell; others—very few—defended me somewhat. I saw clearly that in many matters my opponents were right, and sometimes I gave them explanations.

Yet since I couldn’t mention the main factor, which was that the Lord had commanded me to do this, I didn’t know how to act; so I remained silent about the other things. God granted me the very great favor that none of all this disturbed me; rather, I gave up the plan with as much ease and contentment as I would have if it hadn’t cost me anything.

One day, while I was greatly troubled with the thought that my confessor didn’t believe me, the Lord told me not to be anxious, that that affliction would soon end. I rejoiced deeply, thinking His words meant I was soon to die; and I became very happy when I thought about it.

Afterward, I saw clearly they referred to the arrival of this rector I mentioned because the occasion for that pain never presented itself again [Gaspar de Salazar, S.J. arrived in April 1562].

The new rector didn’t restrain my confessor but rather told him to console me; that there was no reason for fear, and not to lead me by so confining a path; that he should let the spirit of the Lord work, for at times it seemed with these great spiritual impulses that my soul couldn’t even breathe.

My confessor gave me permission again to dedicate myself entirely to this foundation. I saw clearly the toil it would bring upon me since I was very much alone and had hardly any means.

We agreed to carry on in total secrecy, and so I got one of my sisters [Juana de Ahumada] who lived outside this city [in Alba de Tormes] to buy the house and fix it up, as though it were for herself, with money the Lord provided, in certain ways, for its purchase.

It would take long to recount how the Lord was looking after it, for I took great care not to do anything against obedience. But I knew that if I said anything to my superiors, everything would be lost as happened the previous time, and things would even be worse.

In procuring the money, acquiring the house, signing the contract for it, and fixing it up, I went through so many trials of so many kinds that now I’m amazed I was able to suffer them. In some of them, I was completely alone; although my companion did what she could. But she could do little, and so little that it almost amounted to nothing more than to have everything done in her name and as her gift and all the rest of the trouble was mine.

Sometimes in distress, I said:

“My Lord, how is it You command things that seem impossible? For if I were at least free, even though I am a woman! But bound on so many sides, without money or the means to raise it or to obtain the brief or anything, what can I do, Lord?“

Saint Teresa of Avila

The Book of Her Life, chap. 33, nos. 2, 8, 11

Note: Born in Toledo, and while studying at Alcalá, Gaspar de Salazar (1529-1593) decided to enter the Jesuits, which he did in 1552. Translator and editor Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD notes that Salazar’s chronicler described him as being very devoted to the interior life with God, from whom he received many favors in prayer, and also as very intelligent and competent in business matters. In 1562 he was transferred to Avila to be rector there of the Jesuit college of San Gil. Because of difficulties that arose between the college and the bishop, Don Alvaro de Mendoza, Salazar was removed from that office after only nine months. But in that short time, he came to Teresa’s aid by putting her spiritual director, Baltasar Alvarez, at ease about her, assuring him that he had nothing to fear. And when Teresa spoke to him of her experiences, he consoled her greatly and seemed to her to have a special gift of discerning spirits (cf. Life, 33:8-9).

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: This is the cell St. Teresa occupied when she returned to the Monastery of the Incarnation in Avila as its prioress (1571-1574). Image credit: Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/05/01/stj-life33/

#Avila #confessor #construction #familyLife #foundation #Jesuits #MonasteryOfTheIncarnation #monasticLife #realEstate #StJosephMonastery #StTeresaOfAvila #trials