Saint of the Day Quote: Saint Teresa of Avila
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
One of my favorites, St. Teresa.
This well know story places our journey in proper perspective while trying to serve the Lord;
Teresa describes the journey thus: “We had to run many dangers. At no part of the road were the risks greater than within a few leagues of Burgos, at a place called Los Pontes. The rivers were so high that the water in places covered everything, neither road nor the smallest footpath could be seen, only water everywhere, and two abysses on each side. It seemed foolhardiness to advance, especially in a carriage, for if one strayed ever so little off the road (then invisible), one must have perished.” The saint is silent on her share of the adventure, but her companions relate that, seeing their alarm, she turned to them and encouraged them, saying that “as they were engaged in doing God’s work, how could they die in a better cause?” She then led the way on foot. The current was so strong that she lost her footing, and was on the point of being carried away when our Lord sustained her. “Oh, my Lord!” she exclaimed, with her usual loving familiarity, “when wilt Thou cease from scattering obstacles in our path?” “Do not complain, daughter,” the Divine Master answered, “for it is ever thus that I treat My friends.” “Ah, Lord, it is also on that account that Thou hast so few!” was her reply.
Source-
Life of St. Teresa, a 1912 translation by Alice Lady Lovat “taken from the French of ‘A Carmelite’ Nun,” which gives the following story on page 548. In January of the last year of her life, 1582, she left Ávila to establish convents in Burgos and Grenada, and this befell her along the way.
Saint Teresa was a pistol! A Doctor of the Church with a fine sense of irony and humor.
What she did for her order…I wish we had her to whip Rome into shape… know what I mean?
I’m going through “The Interior Castle.” It’s actually easy, entertaining reading. Here’s a random sample from one of the chapters on the First Mansions: “…self-knowledge is so important that even if we were raised right up to the heavens, I should like you never to relax your cultivation of it; so long as we are on this earth nothing matters more to us than humility.”
(advice to the sisters in her monastery).
Nada te turbe
nada te espante
todo se pasa
Dios no se muda
la paciencia
todo lo alcanza
quien a Dios tiene
nada le falta
solo Dios basta.
– Teresa de Jesus
________________
Let nothing disturb you,
let nothing frighten you.
All things pass.
God does not change.
Patience attains everything.
Whoever has God
lacks nothing.
God alone is enough.
– Teresa of Jesus
“Read St. Teresa of Avila’s Famous Poem, in Her Own Handwriting”:
https://www.catholiccompany.com/getfed/nada-te-turbe-teresa-avila-poem/
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I conduct a Liturgy of the Word with Holy Communion on Monday mornings as we do not have Mass. During my homily, I recalled the words of St. Teresa when she said, ” God spare me from stupid nuns”. I added, ” I suspect that today, given the state of the Church, Teresa may well say, ‘God, spare us from stupid bishops’.” Some were amused – others not so. 😉