The Interior Castle (with Supplemental Reading: Catholic Prayers) [Illustrated] by St. Teresa of Avila

Author:St. Teresa of Avila [Avila, St. Teresa of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781618903587
Publisher: TAN Books
Published: 2013-08-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Speaks of the Manner in Which God Communicates with the Soul by Intellectual Vision and Gives Advice Upon the Subject. Of the Effects Produced by This Vision When Genuine. Secrecy About These Favors Is Enjoined.

1. Our Lord’s presence accompanying the soul. 2. St. Teresa’s experience of this. 3. Confidence and graces resulting from this vision. 4. Its effects. 5. It produces humility. 6. And prepares the soul for other graces. 7. Consciousness of the presence of the Saints. 8. Obligations resulting from this grace. 9. Signs that this favor is genuine. 10. A confessor should be consulted. 11. Our Lord will enlighten our advisers. 12. Cautions about this vision.

1. I HAVE been saying and to show that the more the soul advances, the closer does this good Jesus bear it company, it would be well for me to tell you how, when He so chooses, it cannot withdraw from His presence. This is clearly shown by the manners and ways in which His Majesty communicates Himself to us, manifesting His love by wonderful apparitions and visions which, if He is pleased to aid me, I will describe to you so that you may not be alarmed if any of these favors are granted you. We ought, even if we do not receive them ourselves, to praise Him fervently for thus communing with creatures, seeing how sovereign are His majesty and power.

2. For example, a person who is in no way expecting such a favor nor has ever imagined herself worthy of receiving it, is conscious that Jesus Christ stands by her side although she sees Him neither with the eyes of the body nor of the soul.1 This is called an intellectual vision; I cannot tell why. I knew a person to whom God granted both this grace and others I shall describe later on. At first it distressed her, for she could not understand it; she could see nothing, yet so convinced did she feel that Jesus Christ was thus in some way manifesting Himself that she could not doubt that it was some kind of vision, whether it came from God or no. Its powerful effects were a strong argument that it was from Him; still she was alarmed, never having heard of an intellectual vision, nor was she aware that such a thing could be. She however felt certain of Our Lord’s presence,2 and He spoke to her several times in the way that I described. Before she had received this favor, she had heard words spoken but had never known who uttered them.

3. She was frightened by this vision which, unlike an imaginary one, does not pass away quickly but lasts for several days and even sometimes for more than a year. She went, in a state of great anxiety, to her confessor3 who asked her how, if she saw nothing, she knew that Our Lord was near her, and bade her describe His appearance. She said that she was unable to do so, nor

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