Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross

Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada (later known as Teresa de Jesus) was born in Avila, Spain, 28 March 1515, one of ten children whose mother died when she was fifteen. Her family was of partly Jewish ancestry. Teresa, having read the letters of Jerome, decided to become a nun, and when she was 20, she entered the Carmelite convent in Avila. There she fell seriously ill, was in a coma for a while, and partially paralyzed for three years. In her early years as a nun, she was, by her account, assiduous in prayer while sick but lax and lukewarm in her prayers and devotions when the sickness had passed. However, her prayer life eventually deepened, she began to have visions and a vivid sense of the presence of God, and was converted to a life of extreme devotion. In 1560 she resolved to reform the monastery that had, she thought, departed from the order's original intention and become insufficiently austere. Her proposed reforms included strict enclosure (the nuns were not to go to parties and social gatherings in town, or to have social visitors at the convent, but to stay in the convent and pray and study most of their waking hours) and discalcing (literally, taking off one's shoes, a symbol of poverty, humility, and the simple life, uncluttered by luxuries and other distractions). In 1562 she opened a new monastery in Avila, over much opposition in the town and from the older monastery. At length Teresa was given permission to proceed with her reforms, and she travelled throughout Spain establishing seventeen houses of Carmelites of the Strict (or Reformed) Observance (the others are called Carmelites of the Ancient Observance). The reformed houses were small, poor, disciplined, and strictly enclosed. Teresa died 4 October 1582. (She is commemorated on the 15th--why not the 14th, I wonder--because the Pope changed the calendar from the Julian to the Gregorian system, a difference of 10 days, on the day after her death.) Teresa is reported to have been very attractive in person, witty, candid, and affectionate. She is remembered both for her practical achievements and organizing skill and for her life of contemplative prayer. Her books are read as aids to the spiritual life by many Christians of all denominations. Her Life is her autobiography to 1562; the Way of Perfection is a treatise on the Christian walk, written primarily for her sisters but of help to others as well; The Book of Foundations deals with establishing, organizing and overseeing the daily functioning of religious communities; The Interior Castle (or The Castle of the Soul) deals with the life of Christ in the heart of the believer. Most of these are available in paperback. 31 of her poems and 458 of her letters survive. Her feast day in the Roman Catholic Church is 15 October. The Lutheran Church (ELCA) commemorates her on December 14 together with St. John of the Cross. Christ has no body now but yours No hands, no feet on earth but yours Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world Christ has no body now on earth but yours. Juan de Ypres y Alvarez was born in 1542. His father died soon after, and Juan was brought up in an orphanage. (His father was probably Jewish. It is remarkable how many of the most memorable Spanish Christians have been of Jewish background.) At seventeen, he enrolled as a student in a Jesuit college, and at twenty-one, he joined the Carmelite Friars. He was ordained in 1567, and almost immediately met Teresa of Avila, a Carmelite Nun who was undertaking to return the Order to its original strict rule, which had been gradually relaxed to the detriment, as she believed, of the spiritual lives of the members of the Order. Those who followed the strict rule as promulgated by Teresa went barefoot or wore sandals instead of shoes, and so became known as Discalced (unshod) Carmelites, or Carmelites of the Strict Observance. John undertook to adopt the stricter rule and encourage others to do so. Not all members of the order welcomed the change. In 1577 a group of Calced Carmelites, or Carmelites of the Ancient Observance, kidnapped John and demanded that he renounce the reform. When he refused, he was imprisoned in complete darkness and solitude in a Calced monastery in Toledo for about nine months. He then escaped and fled to a Calced monastery. While imprisoned at Toledo, he had begun to compose some poems, and now he wrote them down, with commentaries on their spiritual significance. He was given various positions of leadership among the reformed friars, but then dissension broke out among the reformers between "moderates" and "extremists." John supported the moderate party, and when the extremists gained control, they denounced him as a traitor to the reform. He was sent to a remote friary, and fell ill, and finally died at Ubeda during the night preceding 14 December 1591. His poems include: The Dark Night of the Soul (about the experience of spiritual desolation, of feeling abandoned and rejected by God, and why this is for some Christians a means by which God increases our faith in Him; about the Christian walk, the life of prayer and contemplation, and growing in love and grace) The Ascent of Mount Carmel (same poem as the preceding, but with a different commentary attached) The Spiritual Canticle (about the love between the Christian and Christ as symbolized by the love between bride and groom; draws heavily upon the imagery of the Song of Solomon) The Living Flame of Love (about the soul transformed by grace) His works have been translated into English by David Lewis (1906), and by E Allison Peers (1953). His poems have been translated by Roy Campbell and are available in Penguin paperback. The following extracts are quoted from the poetic translation by Peers. (Does anyone know where I can obtain a copy? Booksellers and librarians keep shoving the Peers prose translation of the poems with running commentary at me. I have that. I want the poems in the translation shown below. I picked up a copy in Oxford once, and promptly lost it.) From The Spiritual Canticle: Whither hast vanished Beloved, and hast left me full of woe, And like the hart hast sped, Wounding, ere thou didst go, Thy love, who follow'd, crying high and low? ... Oh that my griefs would end! Come, grant me thy fruition full and free! And henceforth do thou send No messenger to me, For none but thou my comforter can be. ... My love is as the hills, The lonely valleys clad with forest-trees, The rushing, sounding rills, Strange isles in distant seas, Lover-like whisperings, murmurs of the breeze. My love is hush-of-night, Is dawn's first breathings in the heav'n above, Still music veiled from sight, Calm that can echoes move, The feast that brings new strength--the feast of love ... Rare gifts he scattered As through these woods and groves he pass'd apace Turning, as on he sped, And clothing every place With loveliest reflection of his face. ... The creatures, all around, Speak of thy graces as I pass them by. Each deals a deeper wound And something in their cry Leaves me so raptur'd that I fain would die. From The Living Flame of Love: O Living flame of love That, burning, dost assail My inmost soul with tenderness untold, Since thou dost freely move, Deign to consume the veil Which sunders this sweet converse that we hold ... And O, ye lamps of fire, In whose resplendent light The deepest caverns where the senses meet, Erst steeped in darkness dire, Blaze with new glories bright And to the loved one give both light and heat!