I’m not a practising Catholic but there’s aspects of Christian spirituality that I still feel somewhat drawn to. I don’t know if it’s like this or the other way around, but I usually am very critical of my beliefs. Faith and belief are two different things, but let's not go there. The only thing I know is that I’m definitely not an atheist, however it’s with atheists that I often talk about such things. I enjoy the pragmatism, the critical thinking, the freedom and the sense of humour that comes in conversation. But sometimes it's not enough and that’s why I read historical writings about the spiritual life of religious people. Some of these people were canonised and others were tragically condemned by the Inquisition. Both are equally valid to me if I happen to find inspiration in their writings.
The 15th October is the celebration day of St. Teresa of Ávila. She died exactly at the transition from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, so either the 4th of October or the 15th of October 1582. It was, in any case, established the 15th of October as her celebration day. I’m writing this text mostly from memory and it’s possible that I’m not correctly getting some facts about her life, but that’s not the point. I'd like to praise her as a very important presence in my spiritual thinking. Even when I wasn't listening, I think her soul (or the Spirit dwelling within her) was somewhat passing through me, either as a warm and kind companion or blowing straight into my face. That came, however, a bit later.
Everyone from my Art History class knew about the seminal Bernini sculpture, a beautiful composition of two figures. One is an angel wearing a smile and holding a spear pointed towards a woman leaning against a rock, head bent backwards, eyes closed, lips slightly apart. The angel gracefully grabs the woman's vest, draped in such a way resembling the wild flames of desire. The altarpiece is a moving picture in itself; his eyes focused on her face, his spear pointed straight to her heart. Appropriately called “The Ecstasy of St. Teresa,” it decorates the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome. The sculpture created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini was commissioned by the Venetian Cardinal Federico Cornaro for his own final resting place in the church. The work was completed around 1652.
Pope Gregory XV canonised St. Teresa in 1622, not long before the commission. It was only in 1970, however, that St. Teresa was declared a Doctor of the Church (DoC), the first woman to get the recognition, by Pope St. Paul VI. There are thousands of saints in the Catholic Church, thousands upon thousands, but only 36 are DoC. From these 36 only 4 are women: Teresa of Ávila, Catherine of Siena, Therese of Lisieux and the almighty Hildegard of Bingen.
At the time, when we saw Bernini's sculpture in our baroque art classes, we didn't know any of this, nor who the woman was. She was just another saint, and in our Catholic country, we knew there were many to speak of, almost all nuns and monks, and we wanted to go to the smoking room and there was still an hour left of class. Yes, I smoked at the time. For some reason my asthma wasn't so predominantly present in my life and smoking a cigarette after class was part of our little rituals. And, of course, an espresso taken from a real espresso machine!
We were observing the sculpture projected on the screen and wondering, “Is this like... religious?” And the teacher explained that the reception was a bit controversial and the reason why was blatantly obvious: to our younger minds (and to the minds of the older men who criticised it) it looked like the woman was having something closer to a sexual climax. It could have been a naughty artistic choice to imbue the sculptural elements with expressive theatrical features or it could have simply been what the artist envisioned when consulting Teresa's writings where she described her rapture in detail. The artist filled in the blanks and came up with what we, in the class, felt was a masterpiece. No matter what crossed our minds at the time, if the café was still open or if we had to smoke outside, the altarpiece made an impression on the younger me.
Only years later would I sit comfortably and read the story of Teresa’s life, written in her own words. By that time I had already forgotten about the sculpture and when I reached the part where she described her “visions” it wasn’t what Bernini created that I imagined, but it was likewise much closer than I thought, except a bit bloodier:
It was our Lord’s will that in this vision I should see the angel in this wise. He was not large, but small of stature, and most beautiful – his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels, who seem to be all on fire: they must be those whom we call cherubim. Their names they never tell me; but I see very well that there is in heaven so great a difference between one angel and another, and between these and the others, that I cannot explain it.
I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with great love of God. The pain was so great that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain that I could not wish to get rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it, even a large one. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray to God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I’m lying.
[There are many translations of this passage even though it sounds better in the original language. I picked a translation available at Project Gutenberg – Chapter XXIX]
It wasn't the visions and the validity she tried to justify to her confessors that struck me when I read her book. The raptures she experienced could have been induced by many things, both natural and supernatural, depending on who you ask. Even though she was writing under the vow of obedience we are able to capture, through her writings, a clear picture of her soul, her faith and conflict. What I mean is not a conflict of faith, on the contrary. It’s a devotion that communicates dynamism, movement, flow, stress, restlessness, desire, reach, like a courtship! A constant wanting to leap into the arms of another who’s not entirely within reach, not yet, but to whom we can say anything, to whom we can love how we love, unshackled and undressed and frail and unafraid. We as mere readers and testimonies of these writings are left with this incredible gift, an incredible mystical experience pushing the soul into every direction. Her experience and intellectual ability to absorb the church’s doctrine and transcend it through her own words didn’t come without scrutiny. I wonder what she would have done without such intense monitoring.
I don’t want to misstep and say that Teresa wasn’t worried about salvation or worried about good works for the Church which she loved so much, in good measure with some criticism, I may add. However, at least from my readings, the church was more in the way than anything else. It was the people she was concerned with, and the actions upon the world with the promise of bringing religious perfection onto God. In order to do that, she reformed a religious order and founded the Discalced Carmelites, proceeding to found 17 convents across 16th century’s Spanish territory. Perhaps her endeavours were even more daunting, not only because she was a woman navigating a patriarchal society, but because she had some serious health issues. And yet, despite the limitations of her body, she strove for perfection in the way that she instituted the principles of her order.
It’s interesting how she wanted to live among small groups of people, no more than 13 nuns. The convent of the Incarnation in Ávila had about 180 [I don’t remember the precise number; it was more than 100]. As someone suffering from social anxiety and concentration difficulties among large groups of people I can only imagine Teresa’s unfruitful attempts at mental prayer and contemplation while 180 nuns were having visits from their families, not to mention the chattering, the noise, the infighting and the bustle. Teresa believed deeply that God was guiding her steps and it gave her a sense of purpose and a mission. From an early age she knew that a life of marriage and motherhood wasn’t the right vocation for her, but neither was a life of just being inside a convent and begging to creepy noblemen for patronage, or spending the day visiting people’s houses for alms. Money was something she despised with a passion. She wanted her nuns (her daughters) to be as self-sufficient as they could possibly be, as physically and spiritually strong and independent as they could be, as united in the love of God through effective forms of prayer, but above all that this should be their choice and their vocation too, independently of their social origins.
The accounts of contemporary Discalced Carmelites describing their own enclosure elucidate the reasons for such a radical life decision. Very few, if any, aren't there because they couldn’t be somewhere else, much less in this day and age. This was the wish of Teresa for the future, that people could be free to choose but when they did, that they’d be working towards something and pursuing something, not running away from less savoury aspects of worldly life. This was also her conflict and she sacrificed her well-being to leave an opportunity in the open for religious women and men at the time – she also founded male monasteries with great support from St. John of the Cross in the reformation of the Carmelites.
I still have so much to learn about Teresa's mysticism and her life in more practical terms. I haven’t read her book about the foundations, her letters or her poetry. She had a worldview and I think I’ve found my little corner in it. She struggled to explain her experience of the divine because it’s something extremely personal and unique, meaning that if we haven’t experienced it ourselves most likely we won’t know what she’s talking about. It’s not only about what images she saw, perceived or thought – images that were already part of her tradition – but all the sensations vibrating through her at that moment and the way she interpreted these: as gifts and perfect communion.
It’s funny that I’ve been trying to figure out her work in isolation, and I have absolutely no idea if the message I get from her writings is true, false or in between. Did I nail it or did I miss the mark? It’s one of those rare cases where I read more of the primary source than the secondary interpretative essays. In most cases, I prefer to read alongside deep historical context, introductory essays, literature analysis, you name it. It helps a lot to go for mediaeval studies and proceed from there. I would avoid sources without any connections to University departments. It’s just that in this specific case I may have been looking for something else and my perspective as a reader was marked by intentions I wasn’t even aware of.
I have to thank Bernini for the figure immortalised in his sculpture and the little cherubim that almost killed our saint with passion. Some clergymen won’t get much praise here for distrusting the experiences of a religious woman to the point that she had to lay it out for everyone to see and analyse its validity. It seems like intense scrutiny is what validates a mystic. It was yet another sacrifice Teresa wasn’t entirely aware of as she was very picky as to who should read her writings. Well… that part didn’t go so well for her to the advantage of theologians, medievalists, feminists, lay people and even atheists.