Quote of the day, 18 November: St. Teresa of Avila

This time of greatest expenditure of energy when Teresa, along with being prioress of the Monastery of the Incarnation, retained the spiritual direction of her eight reformed monasteries, was also a time of the greatest attestation of grace. At that time she had a vision that she herself described as a “spiritual marriage.”

On November 18, 1572, the Lord appeared to her during Holy Communion.

“He offered me his right hand and spoke, ‘See this nail. It is the sign of our union. From this day on you are my bride. Up to now you had not earned it. But now you will not only see me as your Creator, your King, your God, but from now on you will care for my honor as my true bride. My honor is yours; your glory is mine’” [Spiritual Testimonies, 31].

From that moment on, she found herself united blissfully with the Lord, a union that remained with her for the entire last decade of her life, her own life mortified, “full of the inexpressible joy of having found her true rest, and of the sense that Jesus Christ was living in her” [cf. Interior Castle, VII, ch. 3].

She characterized as the first result of this union “such a complete forgetfulness of self that it truly seems as if this soul had lost its own being. It no longer recognizes itself. It no longer thinks about heaven for itself, about life, about honor. The only thing she cares about any longer is the honor of God” [Castle VII, 3:2].

The second result is an inner desire for suffering, a desire, however, that no longer disturbs her soul as earlier. She desires with such fervor that God’s will be fulfilled in her that everything that pleases the divine Master seems good to her. If he wants her to suffer, she is happy; if he does not, his will be done.

Saint Edith Stein

Love for Love, 14

The Vision of the Nail
Cuzco School
Oil on canvas, 1609
Large format series on The Life of Saint Teresa
Convento del Carmen San José, Santiago, Chile

Stein, E 2014, The Hidden Life: hagiographic essays, meditations, spiritual texts, Stein, W (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

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