The Life of St Teresa of Avila by Herself (Classics) by Avila Teresa of

Author:Avila, Teresa of [Avila, Teresa of]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780141916545
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2004-07-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

She continues the same subject and tells how her soul went on improving, once she had begun to obey; also how little use it was for her to resist God’s favours, since His Majesty went on giving them to her in more liberal measure.

THIS confession left my soul so amenable that I thought there could be nothing which I should not be prepared to do. So I began to make many changes in my habits, although my confessor did not press me, and indeed appeared to make very light of the whole matter. I was deeply influenced by his treatment, however, because he led me by way of the love of God, which brought me, not oppression, as it would have done if I had not acted out of love, but freedom; and I remained in this condition for almost two months, doing everything in my power to resist God’s gifts and favours. The change in me was visible even superficially, for the Lord was already giving me the courage to suffer things which those who knew me, and even the nuns of my own house, considered and described as extreme. Compared with what I had been doing before, these could rightly be called extreme, but they fell short of what was required of me by my habit and profession.

By resisting God’s gifts and favours, I gained one thing: instruction from His Majesty Himself. Previously I had thought that if I wished to receive favours in prayer, I must often remain apart, and so I had scarcely dared to stir. Then I saw how little this had to do with it; for the more I tried to turn my mind to other things, the more the Lord enveloped me in that sweetness and glory, until I felt entirely surrounded by it, I could not flee from it in any direction, and so things went on. All this so concerned me that I was quite distressed. But the Lord was much more concerned on my behalf in those two months; He granted me favours and revealed Himself to me to a far greater degree than He had done before, in order to show me that resistance was no longer within my power. I began to feel a new love for the most sacred Humanity; my prayers began to settle, like a house that now had some foundations; and I began to be more addicted to penances, which I had neglected because of my severe illnesses.

That holy man who heard my confessions told me that there were certain things that could not hurt me, and that perhaps God was giving me my ill-health because I did not perform penances. His Majesty, he suggested, might possibly have decided to inflict some penances on me Himself. He ordered me, therefore, to practise certain mortifications, which I did not find very pleasant. But I performed them all because they seemed to be commanded by the Lord; and I thanked Him for giving them to me in such a way as to make me obey Him.

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