compass quiet lovingcompassreview.org/summer10/10.pdfquiet of the godhead is at the source of who we...

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PRAY. BE PRESENT to the presence ofdivine love. ‘Pray’ is a cry of the yearn-ing heart. It is an expression of our deep-

est reality. We are human beings created in theecstatic and tranquil embrace of the Trinitarianlove that gives and receives love in an eternalmaking one. Created from the prayer of theTrinity, for prayer, we long to return to thissource of infinite peace. This longing for thequiet of the Godhead is at the source of whowe are. As our sacred scriptures identify, Je-sus longed to go to a quiet place to rest a whilewith his God, (Mk 6:31). His followers begged‘Lord teach us to pray’ (Lk11:1). Grounded inthis same source, we are restless until we learnto ‘pray without ceasing’ (1Thes5:17). Weyearn to be who we really are in ‘sighs toodeep for words’ (Rom 8:26). ‘Pray’ is an evo-cation, a demand to be true, to fulfill the de-sire of Jesus that we be ‘consecrated in truth’(Jn17:19), one (Jn17:21) in him as he is onein the infinite silence that spoke him into crea-tion. ‘To pray’ is to surrender in love into aquiet that makes all things one. In this articlewe will reflect on how Teresa of Avila teachesus to pray. 2

When You Pray Go to Your Room

The foundational teaching about prayer utteredby Jesus ‘when you pray go to your room’(Mt6:6) takes on a wonderful nuance in Teresaof Jesus, a doctor of the Church and one ofthe most celebrated guides for the spiritualjourney. She blends together this invitation ofJesus for us to go into our heart and encounterhim in the centre of the heart,3 and Jesus’words: ‘in my Father’s house there are manydwelling places’ (Jn14:2). In her first book,

The Book of Her Life4 Teresa describes prayeras‘an intimate sharing between friends…taking time frequently to be alone with Himwho we know loves us’ (L 8.5). This cherishedfriendship becomes more intimate as we arefaithful to entering into our heart, into the in-ner rooms of our soul.5 In her Interior Cas-tle,6 Teresa envisages the inner depths of ourheart or soul as like a glorious, many roomedcastle. She shows us how, through prayer, weenter the castle (C2.1.11), learn to turn our eyestowards the centre (C1.2.8) and take the greatpilgrimage into the centre of the castle whereJesus, the majestic king of the castle dwellswith the Trinity.7 Teresa stresses that all weneed to do is ‘go into solitude and look at Himwithin oneself, and not turn away from so gooda guest’ (P28.2). ‘I’m not asking you to do any-thing more than look at Him’ (P 26.3). In themeasure you desire him you will find him(P28.3).

Teresa speaks to us in conversational styleas she describes the castle as like ‘a diamondor very clear crystal’ (C1.1.1). It is ‘brilliantlyshining and beautiful…a pearl from the orient,a tree of life planted in the very living waters oflife—that is—in God’ (C1.2.1). Although in-side the castle are many dwelling places, Teresafocuses on seven, a symbol for perfection. Wejourney through each dwelling place throughcontemplation in the prayer of quiet, until wereach the seventh dwelling place of the castle,or the centre of our soul, our home. This innercentre is full of light and love, as it is the dwell-ing place of the Trinity. In this silent centre ofabsolute love we commune with God in quietin the secret silent language of love.

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QUIET LOVINGThe Prayer of Quiet in Teresa of Jesus

KERRIE HIDE‘I sat in the silence and prayed; … then a veil lifted and I could see’ (Ps 73)1

Compass #4 2010 text.indd 32 22/12/2010 2:52:22 PM

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The Interior Castle

Before we focus on the prayer of quiet thatprepares us to dwell in our deep inner centre,one in the quiet waters of Trinitarian love, it ishelpful to have an overview of the seven dwell-ing places of The Interior Castle that Teresaillustrates and the prayer that accompanieseach dwelling place. In the first three dwell-ing places of our soul that is like a manyroomed castle, Teresa expounds on the earlyphases of meditation that prepare us for theprayer of quiet. She vividly describes how,though we choose time for prayer, the outerworld has an alluring attraction. Because thecourtyards are dark and confusing, creepingwith the vermin of poisonous distractions, itcan look safer for us not to take this journeyto the centre and so remain busy with manythings. If we step into the second dwellingplace, however, there are chambers set apartfor prayer. As we learn how to stay in thesequiet places within, we hear the voice of Jesusinviting us to come. Desire increases. Prayerbecomes more silent.

Teresa then outlines how once we begin tohave a routine of prayer, and open the doorinto the third dwelling places, we cross athreshold. Though we may expect prayer tobecome more peaceful, because we must de-centre in order to re-centre in Jesus, prayerfeels dry. An inner disquiet undermines cer-tainties. Destabilized, there is a great tempta-tion to seek consolations of the past, but nomatter what we do, prayer no longer satisfies.In the confusion between a barren ache to haveour thirst quenched in waters of love, and thepull to remain active in the world, Teresa ad-vises compassion (C3:2.2). If, then, we com-passionately surrender ourselves for the sakeof our God, into the unknown way to the cen-tre, faithful to prayer no matter how searing,and risk entering the unfamiliar fourth dwell-ing place, we begin a new phase of contem-plation.

Midway to the centre of our soul, the fourthcycle of dwelling places, marks a major tran-sition into contemplative prayer. This occurs,

Teresa explains, because we are closer towhere Jesus in the Trinity dwells in the centre.These beautiful fourth dwelling places arefilled with things to see and understand, butthey are delicate, so gracious, that the intel-lect cannot find a way to explain them. Webegin to sense a loving presence far beyondthe limits of sensual knowing and intellectualcomprehension. Our desire to be one with thecentre becomes stronger than external desires.We seek solitude and our capacity for recol-lecting matures. Recollection, Teresa explains,is the turning within to the presence of Christin our soul’s depths, gathering together all dis-cursive thought, gently drawing inward. ‘I haveread where it is compared to a hedgehog curl-ing up or a turtle drawing into its shell,’(C4.3.3) she says. Recollection graduallydeepens into the prayer of quiet that is likewater gently flowing into our heart through aspring rising from our depths.

The extravagance of the treasures and de-lights of divine love saturate us in love in thefifth dwelling place, as we experience moreabsorption and union with God. We come toknow irrevocably that God is in the depths ofour soul and our soul is in God. There is acertitude remaining in the soul that only Godcan place there. Teresa uses the captivatingimage of the life cycle of a silk worm to de-scribe the metamorphosis we experience as weprepare for union. She outlines how the littleseed like eggs of the silk worm lie on the leavesof the mulberry tree. When warm weathercomes: ‘they go about spinning the silk andmaking some very thick little cocoons in whichthey enclose themselves. The silkworm which

Dr Kerrie Hide has abackground in mysticaltheology. Her bookGifted Origins toGraced Fulfilment wonfirst prize in theCatholic Press awards.She is a spiritualdirector at St Mary’sTowers, Douglas Park.

QUIET LOVING: TERESA OF JESUS


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is fat and ugly, then dies and a little white but-terfly, which is very pretty, comes forth fromthe cocoon.’ (C5.2.2) This transformation froma silk worm to a butterfly encapsulates forTeresa how, in order to reach the centre wemust draw opposites together, integrate ourmemories, weaving and cocoon. The cocoonthen transforms into Christ. ‘Once this silk-worm is grown …it begins to spin the silk andbuild the house wherein it will die. I wouldlike to point out that this house is Christ… ourlife is hidden in Christ or in God…, or…ourlife is Christ’ (C5.2.5). This being hidden inChrist, dying in Christ, makes us Christ-like.When the butterfly emerges we are ready toenter the sixth dwelling place, until the butter-fly dies again as we reach the centre. Prayerunfolds into a silent and still transforming un-ion.

Knowing that ultimately our life is inChrist, in God we become betrothed to Christas we enter the more silent atmosphere of sixthdwelling places that are very close to the cen-tre. Intoxicated by the love of Christ ourspouse, we now strive for more opportunitiesto be alone. We seek to rid ourselves of every-thing that is an obstacle to solitude. In Teresa’swords, ‘the beloved makes us desire vehe-mently by certain delicate means the soul it-self doesn’t understand…These are impulsesso delicate and refined, for they proceed fromthe very depth within the interior part of thesoul.’(C6.2.1). Teresa continues: ‘This actionof love is so powerful that the soul dissolveswith desire’ (C6.2.4). Teresa likens this to be-ing enkindled in a brazier of God where a sparksets the soul aflame. Nevertheless, althoughthis enflaming is delightful, because we arenot yet totally enflamed, we feel the pain ofthe wound, for the purifying work of love isnot complete. Teresa describes how ‘just asthe soul is about to start, the spark goes outand the soul is left with the desire to sufferagain the loving desire the sparkcauses.’(C6.2.4). The intensity of pain and joymagnifies, nourishes and inspires. Now es-poused, we are ready for the spiritual marriage.

Christ, then takes us to the centre into theseventh dwelling places, where the Holy Spiritenkindles us in the union of the spiritual mar-riage. In this oneness of all in all we becomeawakened to our capacity to live in the eternalnow. We see irrevocably that the Trinity dwellswithin us in our deepest centre. There is noneed to enter any more doors. We simply abide,surrendering into our beloved. Drawn into aninfinite becoming one we experience the sub-lime secret of love and know we are one in theTrinity as the Trinity is one in us. With all ourfaculties now absorbed in intimate union inChrist, we come to see how in our centre weare infused in the Trinitarian pattern of givingand receiving love. We long to live perma-nently grounded in this centre of love. Teresainvites us to realize a real living presence ofChrist in the Trinity in our soul and to livefrom this presence in the enkindling depths ofTrinitarian union.

With this overview of Christ in the Trin-ity as the centre of our soul and the dwellingplaces that surround this centre, we will nowconcentrate on what Teresa teaches about howwe may turn towards this presence and makeour home there through the prayer of recol-lection, the prayer of quiet and the prayer ofunion that stabilizes our gaze in this centre.First, we will enter into the garden of our ownsoul and draw on our deep inner wisdom ofour experience of the prayer of quiet. Then,we will focus on the waters of love thatquench our thirst in the prayer of recollec-tion and see how recollection unfolds into theover-flowing love of the prayer of quiet. Sub-sequently, we will concentrate on the tran-quil union we experience in contemplationwhen we come home to the centre of our soulone in the Trinity by looking at a person’sreflection on an experience of prayer. Finallywe will draw out implications for living lifefrom this centre of quiet love. We do this froma place of humility and gaze with Teresathrough the mirror of humility. She warns:‘Without it (humility) everything goes wrong’(CI.2.8).8


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Teresa’s Way of Prayer: Bathingin Waters of Love

In order to awaken the eye of the heart of herreaders, so that we, her readers, may identifywith the felt sense of what Teresa teaches aboutprayer, Teresa uses her much loved simile ofwater (C4:2.2), to signify the flowing love ofGod within our soul. Vividly, she evokes ourimagination to expand and hold together thearray of biblical allusions to water such as adeer thirsting for running streams (Ps62), cometo the water (Is55.1), the dark waters ofChrist’s baptism (Mk1:9-11), the living waterof the I am (Jn4:10), the healing waters ofBethzatha (Jn5:2), the river of life flowingfrom the throne of God (Rev22:1) and thebeauty of fountains, streams, gardens and poolsof the Spanish landscape. In the Way of Per-fection she describes the journey into the Trin-ity as the spiritual road we take ‘until Godengulfs the soul and gives it to drink abun-dantly of the fount of living water’ (P42.5).

We see how these waters of contemplationgive life and bring us to union in her first book,Life, where Teresa describes the soul as a gar-den with Christ the gardener. She outlines fourways in which the garden of our soul is wa-tered: ‘by taking the water from a well (SeeL11-13); or by a water-wheel and aquaducts(See L14-15), or by a stream or a brook (L16-17), or by heavy rain, when the Lord waters itwith no labor of ours’ (L18-19). Teresa de-lights in these sweet life giving waters as shesings in her Soliloquies:

O compassionate and loving Lord of my soul!You likewise say: Come to me all who thirst,for I will give you drink….(S9.1)O life who gives life to all!Do not deny me this sweetest waterThat you promise to those who want it.I want it Lord and I beg for it,and I come to you.Don’t hide yourself Lord, from me,since you know my needand that this water is the true medicinefor the soul wounded in love for you (S9.2).

Teresa awakens our desire to be quenched with

the waters of divine love through contempla-tion, where all words become absorbed intothe quiet waters of Trinitarian love.

Within this awareness of the waters of con-templation that flow through our soul draw-ing us to quiet, we will now focus more in-tently on what Teresa teaches us about thePrayer of Quiet and the phases of recollec-tion, quiet and union.

1. Being Quenched in Quiet Waters—ThePrayer of RecollectionTeresa’s way of prayer is one of presence, ofbeing fully present to God in our prayer, justas God is fully present to us.9 She teaches ushow to be present within, to gaze upon Christwho dwells in our heart. Her teaching aboutrecollection gives us a way of silencing ourbody, our mind, our soul, beginning with theouter world and moving within, from body tospirit to the inner depths of our soul. ForTeresa, recollection is a collecting together orknitting all our senses into a single thread, tofocus the gaze of our heart on Christ whodwells in our centre.10 At the beginning ofthis journey to the centre, recollection feelslike carrying water with a bucket. Teresa ex-plains how this involves a lot of work on ourpart, and we tire easily. It takes patience andtime to ‘get accustomed to caring nothingabout seeing or hearing, to practicing hours ofprayer and thus to solitude and withdrawl’(L11.9), she says. Act like a wise bee and en-ter the beehive to make honey and leave theintellect to wander aimlessly alone,(L15.6) sheadvises. As we have seen, in her Interior Cas-tle, Teresa also likens recollection to a hedge-hog curling up or a turtle drawing into its shell(C4.3.3). In the Way of Perfection, Teresa ex-plains how in recollection, ‘the soul collectsits faculties together and enters within itselfto be with its God’ (P 28.4).11 She qualifieshow this: ‘is not a silence of the faculties; it isan enclosure of the faculties in the soul’ (P29.4) It is a closing and enclosing. This clos-ing and enclosing awakens the spiritual sightof the eye of our soul, (See P 28) as in



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Ephesians (1:18) ‘may the eyes of your soulbe enlightened’. Through recollecting we cometo be comfortable and at home within our soul.

As time passes, the prayer of recollectionfeels more like Teresa’s second water of prayer,where we now turn the crank of a water wheelwith our arms to draw water up from the well.The water then flows through aqueducts intoour heart. Earlier in her Life, Teresa likens thisphase of the prayer of quiet to water beingdriven by a waterwheel, emphasizing how theprayer of quiet is a gift of infused grace andcannot be attained by our efforts alone. In thisprayer:

the water is higher and so labour is much lessthan that required in pulling it up from the well.I mean that the water is closer because grace ismore clearly manifest to the soul. In this prayerthe faculties are gathered within so as to enjoythe satisfaction with greater delight. But theyare not lost, nor do they sleep. Only the will isoccupied, in such a way that, without knowingit, it becomes captive; it merely consents to Godallowing him to imprison it as one who wellknows how to be the captive of its lover. OhJesus and my Lord! How valuable is your loveto us here! It holds our love so bound that itdoesn’t allow it the freedom during that time tolove anything else but You (L14.2 ).

The water flows gently with very little workon our part. And we obtain more water. It is asif our senses are acting like channels, wheregrace can flow gently and freely enabling thewater of contemplation to saturate the soul.As recollection becomes more organic, withsilence and stillness naturally flowing throughour sensual faculties of seeing, smelling, touch-ing, tasting and listening, into the spiritualsenses of our soul, we become centered inChrist and filled with his love. We are boundand captivated by his love. Once recollectionbecomes natural and we gather together ourfaculties and enclose them in our soul as amatter of course, very subtle changes begin totake place, until our mind and heart becomemore and more silent and still, infused in lov-ing presence. The prayer of recollection un-folds into the prayer of quiet.12

2. Over-flowing Love—The Prayer ofQuietThe waters of love overflowing and infusingour soul in love through commitment to theprayer of recollection, soften the soil in thegarden of our heart and prepare us to allowJesus the gardener to take full charge of oursoul. This prepares the way for the third wayof collecting water that Teresa portrays in Life,where our soul is watered by a river or spring.Here the waters of grace rise up to the throatof our soul because we are no longer moving(L16.1). She then mixes her images and sayshow this deeper more all encompassing quietis like ‘a person holding a candle and for whomlittle is left before dying the death that is de-sired’ (L16.1). The quiet is so quiet that wefeel dead to anything that would disturb us. Inher Interior Castle, Teresa likens the qualityof this quiet to being like a cistern being fillednoiselessly by a spring rising from its depths.The trough fills and overflows with water un-til it forms a large stream (C4.2.3). Prayer feelslike being quietly filled with waters of lovefrom the infinite source of the grace within us,without any effort on our behalf. This fillingto overflowing occurs when our senses andspirit are recollected over the divine dwellingplace within us. Teresa explains:

The water comes from its own source which isGod… And since his Majesty desires to do so...he produces this delight with the greatestpeace and quiet and sweetness in the very inte-rior part of ourselves. …the delight fills every-thing; this water overflows through all thedwelling places and faculties until reaching thebody. (C4.2.4)

This inflow of divine love imbues us in quiet.Soaked in these quiet waters of love we expe-rience peace, calm, and sweetness penetrat-ing within and without . These rising watersof encircling presence imbue us in quiet, astheir love captures our desire for God in sucha way that we long to be imprisoned in soli-tude with the one we love. As the quiet of infi-nite silence, stillness and rest of the CreativeOne intoxicates our will and breathes life,


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beauty and connection into the chaos ofdepthless abyss, we seek more time for prayer.In the quiet the soothing stirrings of the wa-ters of divine love, whose ecstatic loving cul-minates in rest, makes us tranquil and serene.These still waters fill and expand as they di-late our being and make us one with God.

Teresa gives a more formal definition ofthe prayer of quiet in the Way of Perfection:13

…the soul enters into peace or, better, the Lordputs it at peace by his presence…all the facul-ties are calmed. The soul understands in anotherway, very foreign to the way of the exteriorsenses, that it is now close to its God and thatnot much more would be required for it to be-come one with him in union. This is not be-cause it sees him with the eyes either of the bodyor of the soul… the soul fails to understand howit understands, but it sees that it is in the king-dom at least near the King who will give thekingdom to the soul…The state resembles aninterior and exterior swoon (P 31.2).

Notice how both descriptions stress that thisinflow of the grace of quiet contemplation is agift, bestowed by the presence of Christ. Thispresence floods us in waters of contemplationand we experience peace, a peace the worldcannot give. Teresa explains: ‘The faculties arestill. They wouldn’t want to be busy. …Thewill is the one who is captive here…. The in-tellect wouldn’t want to understand more thanone thing, nor would the memory want to beoccupied with anything else’ (P31.3). Whenwe are quiet for a long time our will i s unitedwith God. Our desire and the divine desirebecome fused, as one (P31.4). Very close toGod in quiet we are as we are. And this fusionof desire joins our active and contemplativedimensions, the Martha and Mary of ourselvesinto harmony (P31.5). The quiet overflows intoour life in all that we are and all that we do.The one thing necessary for us is simply to bepresent, as we surrender into the quiet watersof love. Our detachment from all that disturbs,scatters and separates as we surrender intolove, begins to blind the eye of our soul. Webecome intuitively aware in our spirit that thisinfinite source of quiet really is in the depths

of our own soul.In her Meditations on the Song of Songs

Teresa extols the silent music of this quiet: ‘Icall this prayer ‘quiet’ she says, because ‘ofthe calm caused in all the faculties…it’s asthough there were poured into the marrow ofone’s bones a sweet ointment with a powerfulfragrance…God enters the soul and does sowith the most wonderful sweetness. Godpleases it and makes it happy (MSg4.2). Thequiet seeps into the marrow of our bones andtransform us. Teresa continues to describe howwe feel left suspended in the divine arms, lean-ing on that sacred side of those divine breasts.(MSg4.4). We feel ‘completely drenched in thecountless grandeurs of God’ (MSg4.4).Calm,intoxicated by divine fragrance, drenchedthrough and through in quiet, our Beloved ispreparing us for union.

Teresa speaks of her third water of prayerwhich identifies later phases of the prayer ofquiet as like flowing water from a river orstream whereby:

the garden is irrigated, with much less labour,although some labour is required to direct theflow of the water. The Lord so desires to helpthe gardener that he himself practically becomesthe gardener and the one who does everything.This prayer is a sleep of the faculties: the facul-ties neither fail entirely to function nor under-stand how they function. The consolation, thesweetness, and the delight are incomparablygreater than that experienced in the previousprayer. The water of grace rises up to the throatof this soul since such a soul can no longer moveforward; nor does it know how, nor can it movebackward. It would desire to enjoy the greatestglory (L16.1).

This is a deep, wide all-encompassing quietwhere we are content to allow Christ to be thegardener and to respond to his intimate pres-ence as he tends our soul. In her Interior Cas-tle Teresa quotes: Dilatasti cor meum ‘Youhave expanded my heart’ (C4.2.5)14 to explain.These boundless waters of grace originate fromthe deepest inner centre of our heart, expandour heart and flood us in joy. Teresa empha-sizes how this spring is not outside our self



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but rises from somewhere, deeper than theheart, ‘from another part still more interior, asfrom something deep. I think this must be thecentre of the soul’ (C4.2.5), she says. Noticehow the placement of the spring is deep withinus not outside us. The sleeping of our facul-ties creates a stillness that opens and leavesthe spring free to flow. The centre is begin-ning to be firmly established in us.

This dilation occurs, Teresa explains: ‘be-cause the heavenly water begins to rise fromthe spring…that is deep within us, it swellsand expands our whole interior being, produc-ing ineffable blessings.’(C4.2.6). We do notunderstand how or why, but we experience afragrance ‘as though there were in our interiora brazier giving off sweet smelling perfumes.No light is seen, nor is the place seen wherethe brazier is; but the warmth and the fragrantfumes spread through the entire soul…andeven… the body shares in them’ (C4.2.6).Waters of grace flow in, and then out of oursoul, intoxicating us in the divine fragrance.Dark, fragrant, warm, love quietens. Teresa isspeaking metaphorically, of course, to impartto us the spiritual delight that we experiencewhen our will is completely absorbed in thespring of divine love.

This quiet affects our whole being andflows to the outer courtyards of our wholebodily demeanor. As our will becomes morecaptivated by Christ our memory and mindalso are inebriated until recollection infusesall that is scattered in us into union and wepassively allow the gardener of our soul to carefor the garden. If our mind becomes distractedlike doves flitting around a fountain we gentlyrecollect and draw it to the source of the foun-tain. Teresa observes how the soul no longerdesires to ‘undertake any labour, but only totake its delight in the first fragrance of the flow-ers. In any one of these visits, brief as its du-ration may be, the Gardener, being, as He is,the Creator of the water, gives the soul waterwithout limit’ (P27). All we are invited to dois receive the gift and dwell in the quiet.

The limitless waters of the ever lovingCreator transform, unite and expand our vi-

sion and become womb-like as they enabletransforming union. The quiet is more all con-suming, until it feels like our heart is awakebut we are asleep. Teresa explains in this un-ion our faculties:

… are asleep… - truly asleep - fast asleep, tothe things of the world and to ourselves. As amatter of fact, during the time that the unionlasts the soul is left as though without its senses,for it has no power to think even if it wants to.In loving, if it does love, it doesn’t understandhow or what it loves or what it would want. Insum it is one who in every respect has died tothe world so as to live more completely in God.Thus the death is a delightful one (C5.1.3).

This quiet of sleep, this delicious death, thisabsorption in God is so all encompassing thatit is as if we are not breathing. All our facul-ties are suspended feeling nothing but an in-fusion in God. Our seeing becomes naked,dark, blind spirit seeing. Dead in Christ webelong entirely to God. This is the death ofthe silkworm dying to old ways of relating inorder to form a cocoon. This death marks aturning point in shifting our vision and energyinto the centre.

3. Tranquil Waters—Union in the TrinityThe gradual surrendering of all that we are

into the total love of the gardener of our soulunfolds into the mystical marriage.15 In LifeTeresa elucidates: ‘It’s like the experience oftwo persons here on earth who love each otherdeeply and understand each other well; evenwithout signs, just by a glance, it seems, theyunderstand each other’ (L27.10). Notice howthis is a mutual glance between two lovers,not a one way glance. Well beyond the eyes ofour body, or soul, this glance unites and melts.It soaks through us to the core of who we are.It is like Teresa’s fourth water of prayer wherewe are saturated in rain from heaven:

This water from heaven often comes when thegardener is least expecting it. True, in the be-ginning it almost always occurs after a longperiod of mental prayer. The Lord comes to takethis tiny bird from one degree to another and toreplace it in the nest so it may have repose. Since


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he has seen it flying about for a long time, striv-ing with the intellect and the will and all itsstrength to see God and please Him, He desiresto reward it even in this life. And what a tre-mendous reward; one moment it is enough torepay all the trials that can be suffered in life!(L18.9).It is God’s pleasure to rain grace on us, to

saturate us in divine love. In response, we be-come God’s pleasure, God’s delight, God’s joy.The beauty and delight of this rain that cre-ates union ‘removes the scale from the soul’seyes and lets it see and understand, althoughin a strange way’ (C7.2.6), Teresa says. Thisway of seeing seems strange because it is be-yond images, beyond thought. It is being illu-minated in divine loving in a light, lighter thansunlight, in an enlightenment.16 We receive thegift of this way of seeing when our spirit isenkindled, set fire to by the living flame of theHoly Spirit This way of soul seeing with anenkindled spirit frees us to see the indwellingof the Trinity at home in the centre of our soul.Teresa’s words are eloquent:

First there comes an enkindling of the spirit inthe manner of a cloud of magnificent splendor;and these persons are distinct, and through anadmirable knowledge the soul understands as amost profound truth that all three persons areone substance and one power and one knowl-edge and one God alone. It knows in such away that what we know by faith, it understands,we can say, through sight – although the sightis not with the bodily eyes nor with the eyes ofthe soul, because we are not dealing with animaginative vision. Here all three persons com-municate themselves to it, speak to it, and ex-plain these words of the Lord in the Gospel:that Christ and God and the Holy Spirit willcome to dwell with the soul that loves and keepsthe commandments (7.1.6).

Notice the enkindling of our spirit that is si-lent, still and quiet and yet dynamic. Once ourfaculties know how to sleep, the Holy Spiritsets fire to our spirit, enkindling our vision. Inour spirit we know we are being ‘consecratedin truth’. This seeing Teresa qualifies is notwith our bodily eyes, nor the eyes of our soul,but with enkindled spiritual eyes. We are en-

lightened and see the truth of who we are. Ourvision is now lost in the vision of Holy Spirit,the one who enflames and enkindles love be-tween the Father and the Son. Teresa identi-fies the magnificent splendor of this vision ofoneness as an intellectual vision. An intellec-tual vision is not so much knowing, but thewisdom of unknowing. It is an experience oftranscendence beyond the limits of the mindthat imparts oneness. It is seeing with an ‘en-kindled spirit’ light beyond light. Her fourfoldrepetition of ‘one’ is significant. It echoes ofthe great prayer of Jesus ‘Father, may they beone as I am in you and you are in me’(Jn17:17). ‘One’ in this gracious enkindling,we realize we participate in this living flameof one love. The fruit of this oneness is an ir-revocable sense of being one in Christ, in away that we can never be separated, inTrinitarian love.

Hauntingly, Teresa illustrates how in thespiritual marriage, in the secret centre of thesoul, Christ appears, delicately without enter-ing any doors. With echoes of the resurrectedChrist appearing to the disciples throughlocked doors in John’s gospel, it is if he says‘peace be with you’. In Teresa’s words:

What God communicates here to the soul in aninstant is a secret so great and a favor so sub-lime—and the delight the soul experiences soextreme—that I don’t know what to compare itto. I can say only that the Lord wishes to revealfor that moment in a more sublime manner thanthrough any spiritual vision or taste, the gloryof heaven. One can say no more—in so far as itcan be understood—than that the soul, I meanthe spirit, is made one with God’ (C7.2.3).

This dark, secret love imparts oneness in thequiet centre of our soul where no disturbancescan reach. She further elaborates in some ofthe later writing of her Spiritual Testimoniesabout this enkindling union:

My soul began to enkindle, and it seemed tome I knew clearly in an intellectual vision thatthe entire Blessed Trinity was present. In thisstate my soul understood by a certain kind ofrepresentation (like an illustration of the truth),in such a way that my dullness could perceive,



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how God is three and one (ST13.1).Teresa’s enkindled soul knows that she is par-ticipating in Trinitarian presence. She contin-ues:

And so it seemed to me that all three Personswere represented distinctly in my soul and thatthey spoke to me, telling me that from this dayI would see an improvement in myself in re-spect to three things and that each one of thesePersons would grant me a favor: one, the favorof charity; another, the favor of being able tosuffer gladly; and the third, the favor of experi-encing this charity with an enkindling in thesoul (ST13.1).

Enkindled in Trinitarian oneness, Teresa hearssilent words in one love giving her the gift oflove, a capacity to suffer, and to experienceall things with an enkindling in her soul. Theseare not fleeting gifts but lasting patterns ofTrinitarian loving fixed, engraved, imprintedin her soul. Now she knows that we can neverbe separated from this quiet and yet dynamicinter-relationship of love. Teresa affirms thisongoing presence: ‘Each day this soul becomesmore amazed, for these persons never seem toleave it anymore, but it clearly beholds ‘thatthey are within it. In the extreme interior, insome place very deep within itself, the natureof which it doesn’t know how to explain’(IC7.1.8). Teresa is conclusive. The Trinitydwells within the inner depths of our soul.

The Trinity at home in the centre of oursoul is no passing vision, but the gift of anhabitual awareness of this loving Trinitarianpresence. Once we return to our quiet onesource of love, the enkindling of the spiritualmarriage imparts a new and distinctlyTrinitarian appreciation of God, humanity andcreation. Teresa uses a whole array of glori-ous metaphors to describe this one presence:

Let me say this union is like the joining of twowax candles to such an extent that the flamecoming from them is one, or that the wick, theflame, and the wax are all one. But after thatone candle can be easily separated from theother and there are two candles; the same holdsfor the wick (IC7.2.4).

Not two flames but one enkindled flame of

love, one in the Trinity. We belong in themand yet are truly ourselves. She mentions therain again: ‘In the spiritual marriage the unionis like what we have when the rain falls fromthe sky into the river or fount; all is water, forthe rain that fell from heaven cannot be di-vided or separated from the water of the river.Or it is like what we have when a little streamenters the sea, there is no means of separatingthe two’(C7.2.4). This Trinitarian life is likewater fusing into water. Furthermore, it is ‘likea bright light entering a room through differ-ent windows; although the streams of light areseparate when entering the room (C7.2.4 ). Inher Testimony she adds: ‘I have experiencedthis presence of the three Persons…They arevery habitually present in my soul.…It seemedto me there came the thought of how a spongeabsorbs and is saturated with water; so, Ithought, was my soul which was overflowingwith that divinity and in a certain way rejoic-ing within itself and possessing the three Per-sons’ (ST 14). Each colourful metaphor im-parts a maturing sense, of fusion and infusion,in one relational Trinitarian union. On in thismystical marriage, everything now takes placewith such quiet and so noiselessly that prayerseems as if we are building the temple of Solo-mon without a sound. We rejoice in the deep-est silence (C7.3.11), Teresa affirms.Trinitarian oneness creates the deepest of deepsilence. This pure quiet is cause for rejoicing.

Teresa emphasizes the habitual presenceof the Trinity, when in the past she was usu-ally accustomed only to the presence of Jesus.Wondering about the obstacles in her that pre-vented her living from this Trinitarian aware-ness, Teresa hears silent words of love re-sounding in her soul, ‘Don’t try to hold Mewithin yourself, but try to hold yourself withinMe’ (T14). Teresa is identifying an importanttransition time where mutual reciprocal lovecomes into our awareness. This shifts our vi-sion. We hold and behold ourselves held inthe being of the Godhead, we no longer havethe vision of the ego, the butterfly dies in Christand Christ holds us in the Trinity. Held in the


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Trinity our vision is one of alling, of union ofcommunion of all things in the Trinity. Teresasays: ‘It seemed to me that from within mysoul—where I saw these three Personspresent—these persons were communicatingthemselves to all creation without fail, nor didthey fail to be with me’ (ST 14). Teresa nowrealizes the mutuality of indwelling presence.Her great pilgrimage to the centre of her soulinto the dwelling place of the Trinity impartsan awareness of her soul in the Trinity. Sig-nificantly the infusing waters of divine loveare intimately part of her life and at the sametime are communicating with all creationceaselessly. This infusing, quiet, all embrac-ing enkindling love holds us personally andcommunally and cosmically eternally.

Living from the Centre of Quiet

Teresa’s teaching about union with God,through her ever revealing image of water hasso much to offer our world today, especiallywhen we are so aware of the precious com-modity of water. Although there are manywonderful implications for her way of prayerthat can quench the thirst of our contempo-rary culture to learn how to meditate and con-template, I wish to highlight four: the impli-cations of living a prayer of quiet, of takingthe journey to the centre, of living with an en-kindled soul and sharing in the fullness of un-ion with God.

• Living a Prayer of Quiet. Silence, seren-ity, calm, quiet are the gifts we receive as themystery of our intimacy with Christ who dwellsin the centre of our heart unfolds. A quiet thatis the quiet of God. And as we enter into thisquiet through our daily practice of prayer whatwe discover is that human beings are intrinsi-cally quiet and peaceful. We all have our exis-tential scream, the scream that has its sourcein our personal communal and cosmic rootsand so often we resist coming to quiet for fearof what this scream may mean. Contempla-tion takes us beyond the scream. It soothes andquietens the scream and transforms it into a

cry of love. Ultimately when we bring the gazeof our spirit to rest on the point of oneness inour centre we encounter intimately silent,unitive love. We awaken to the presence ofthe infinitely silent divine as the source of oursoul, that floods us in quiet waters of love.Contemplative prayer prepares, softens, opensand frees us to receive this contemplative gift.

• Taking the Journey to the Centre. Teresaenlightens us. She sparks our imagination andenables us to envisage the journey to the cen-tre of our soul as a glorious frolic through amysteriously dark, and illuminatingly light,many roomed crystal like palace. She takes uson this journey step by step and shows us howto recollect and become focused in our desire,our gaze, and our actions to contemplate andbe infused in the living waters of contempla-tion. She shows us how to follow the stirringsof love, to take the way of the cross, and like asilk worm who dies only to be reborn as a deli-cate white moth, to die to all that blinds andscatters so we may be permanently at home inour centre where our Beloved dwells. In thiscentre all is one. All is infused and fused inlove. Time and eternity, dark and light, maleand female become one. All that scatters andconflicts is unified in a harmonious oneness.We are one in a love that is pure, strong andserene. The centre then, by its very nature isperfectly silent, still, quiet and at the same timehas a centrifugal force that enables us to re-turn to the edges of life and be a point of quietin lonely, disturbed and wounded humanity.Only one who has journeyed to the centre anddwelt in the embrace of the Beloved in quiet,can truly be ‘active’ and activate awareness ofthe indwelling presence in human lives.

• Living with an Enkindled Soul. Teresashows us how, through our union in Christ whodwells in our centre, our soul is enkindled andtransformed to see from the perspective of theone enkindled vision of the Trinity. Teresashows us how to enkindle the eye of our soulthrough the prayer of recollection and quietthat organically imparts union in our bodilyeyes, the eyes of our soul, the eyes of our spirit.



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This enkindled vision is bound to the love ofthe Spirit that unites the three persons of theTrinity. This vision sees unity and oneness. Italways looks with eyes of love. An enkindledsoul lives in harmony with the loving of theTrinity. Our lives carry the perfume of the di-vine breath, our words flow from the centre ofquiet, our actions are in rhythm with the gen-tle inter-relating of divine loving. We do nottake breath to try to salvage our stressed ego,but rather enhance the life of each other. Welive full to overflowing with waters of grace,intoxicated in love, quiet in demeanor, impart-ing peace wherever we are.

• Sharing in the Fullness of Union withGod. Teresa shows us how we experience be-ing in the presence of the living God who trans-forms us into union. Every person has exist-ence within this divine life and reality. Shedraws us into the centre of our heart to en-counter the presence of Christ who in the inti-macy of mystical union awakens our inner eyeto the presence of the Trinity. Then she awak-ens us to the birth of an even more unifyingbreaking through awareness that we are heldin the divine life. We come to realize that Godnot only dwells within us but we dwell withinthe ever tranquil and ever dynamic life of theTrinity. We are held in that life and receivebreath from the intimacy of their loving. Heldin this oneness, it becomes violent to flip backinto an ego centre. Held and beheld in lovewe are quiet, stable and serene. We discoverthat God is a Trinity of relating, so intimately

present, we experience this presence in con-templation. Teresa emphasizes how the Trin-ity is ‘habitually’ present, reliably and consist-ently present. And this presence feels like herheart is a sponge absorbed and saturated withwater, so much so that she feels her soul over-flowing with divinity. This great overflow ofdivine love infusing her transforms her. It im-bibes her in eternal joy.

Teresa gives us permission to be infusedin these same saturating waters of love and tobecome an expression of the overflow of di-vine grace in our world. Our soul must beflooded in living water full and overflowingfrom the waters of contemplation of the Trin-ity. Only a full heart can share the truth of whowe are in God. We organically participate in aloving relationship that is one and three. Tobe one and at the same time relational is in-trinsic to what it means to be human. Aware-ness of oneness in being as the ground thathold us and the energy that gives life to us hasenormous implications for the ecological cri-sis and world peace. May we become a water-fall of divine peace. And in Teresa’s words:

Let nothing disturb you,Let nothing affright you,for everything passesAnd God is unchangingThrough Patienceall things are obtained,who holds fast to Godfinds nothing is lacking.God solely suffices.17

1. Psalm 73, translation Merrill, Nan C. Psalmsfor Praying. An Invitation to Wholeness. New York:Continuum, 2007, 140.2. Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada was born in 1515and died in 1582. She was canonized in 1622 andmade the first woman Doctor of the Church in1970. Teresa was a Christian of Jewish descentthrough her grandfather, who was a converso, aJewish convert to Catholicism. She joined theCarmelite convent of the Incarnation at Avila andafter 27 years when she was 47 began a reform,returning to the Primitive Rule of the Carmelites,the observances of the ancient Order of Our Lady

of Mount Carmel, which dated back to the 12thcentury. Her reform emphasized a return to sim-plicity, with time for contemplative prayer. The firstnew house, dedicated to St Joseph, was establishedin Avila in 1562. By the time of Teresa’s death inOctober 1582, she had founded fourteen morehouses.3. Teresa mainly uses the word ‘soul’ rather than‘heart’. ‘Heart’ in this context is our soul placewhere we are one with God.4. All translations are from The Collected Worksof St. Teresa of Avila, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh andOtilio Rodriguez, 3 vols. (Washington, DC: Insti-


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tute of Carmelite Studies, 1976-1985), with thefollowing abbreviations in the text: The Book ofHer Life (hereafter, L), Spiritual Testimonies (ST),The Way of Perfection (P), Meditations on the Songof Songs (MSg), Soliloquies (S), Poetry (P), TheInterior Castle (C). Chapter number followed byparagraph number, are given.5. Teresa uses the word ‘soul’ in many differentcontexts. It can mean person, or the self, or thewhole person, or the subject of religious experi-ence, or Teresa herself, or the reader. Technically,she refers to the soul as our inner depths which isGod’s dwelling place. She distinguishes the dif-ference between our soul and our spirit. Our spiritis the animating life of our soul, where we inhaleand exhale with the breath of the Holy Spirit.6. It is noteworthy that Teresa did not begin to writeuntil she was 47 years old, when she had spentmany years praying. She wrote: The Book of HerLife (1562-65), at the request of one of her spir-itual advisors. Spiritual Testimonies (1560-1581)complements The Book of Her Life. She composedThe Way of Perfection (1566-69?) as a book aboutcontemplation, for her sisters. Two of these manu-scripts are in Teresa’s own hand. ‘Escorial’ MS isvery intimate and conversational, written for hersisters. ‘Valladolid’ MS is revised after beingchecked by the Dominican censor. The Book ofHer Foundations (1573-4) records the first yearsof the reform of Carmel. Meditations on the Songof Songs (1566-75?) tells of the love between Christand the soul. She writes Interior Castle (1577),her last and her most celebrated work, when she is62.7. In the Way of Perfection Teresa gives weight toher emphasis on Christ’s presence within, by quot-ing Augustine: ’Remember how Saint Augustinetells us he sought Him (God) in many places, butfound Him ultimately within himself’ (P28.2).8. Teresa explains that ‘humility. . . is an importantaspect of prayer and indispensable for all personwho practice it’ (P 17.1). She stresses: ‘This is truehumility: to know what you can do and what I[God] can do’ (ST 24).9. Collected Works, vol 2, 32.10. Recollection has a long tradition describedin The Life of Anthony, Augustine’s Confessionand Gregory the Great’s Homilies on Ezekiel,where he identified recollection as the first stageof the contemplative ascent to God. Francisco

Osuna, a Spanish Franciscan, who gives one ofthe fullest treatment of recollection in his Spir-itual Alphabet, influenced Teresa in her devel-opment of recollection. He describes recollec-tion as the calming needed in our intellect,memory and will if we are to attend to the imageof Christ within. Teresa acknowledges her in-debtedness to de Osuna, (cf. L4). The Way ofPerfection, Chapters 28 and 29 deal mainly withrecollection.11. In the tradition of Augustine the higher facul-ties of the soul are memory, understanding and willwhere the image of the Trinity dwells in the soulCf. De Trinitate XIV.12. This invitation does not mean, however, thatwe give up meditating and reading scripture at othertimes in the day. Teresa would always have keptsaying the Liturgy of the Hours for example.13. Chapters 31 and 32 of the Way of Perfectiongive the most detailed description of the prayer ofquiet.14. This is a reference to Confessions of St Augus-tine, X.15. Teresa acknowledges the influence ofBernardino de Laredo, the author of The Ascent ofMount Zion, for her development of the prayer ofunion, (cf. L23). In Pt.111 ChXIX he speaks ofup-lifting our mind and remaining in pure lovewithout any thought, raised on the wings of loveunited with God. He encourages sleep in quiet con-templation in quiet silence.16. Teresa follows Augustine De Genesi adLitteram who distinguishes three kinds of visions:intellectual, imaginative and corporeal. Cf. L27.3for a summary of corporeal, seen with bodily eyes,imaginative, seen with the eyes of the soul, andintellectual visions. She says of an intellectualvision: ‘I see with the eyes of neither the body northe soul…. It is not like those who are blind or indark… the vision is represented through knowl-edge given to the soul that is clearer than sunlight.I don’t mean that you see the sun or brightness,…but that the light without your seeing light, illumesthe intellect so that the soul may enjoy such a greatgood. The vision bears with it wonderful bless-ings’ (L27.3).17. Flame of Love. Poems of the Spanish Mys-tics. San Juan De La Cruz Santa Teresa De Je-sus. Translated by Loren G. Smith. New York:Paulist Press, 93.



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