Chapter 5 - Autobiography of St Teresa of Avila - The Life of Teresa of Jesus

THE LIFE OF THE HOLY MOTHER
      TERESA OF JESUS

The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus,
of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel.

      CHAPTER V

Describes:
She continues to speak
- of the great infirmities she suffered
   and the patience God gave her to bear them,
- and how He turned evil into good,
   as is seen from something that happened
   at the place where she went for a cure.
- Illness and Patience of the Saint.
- The Story of a Priest Whom She Rescued
   from a Life of Sin.

Discussion Questions / Topics
   to keep in mind
   as we read along:

1). What problem did St. Teresa encounter
      with a Confessor
      - whose "instructions to me were lax, and
      - (who) left me more at liberty" ?
         [ Life: Ch. 5: #6, 7 ]

2). What priests does St. Teresa name as
      having helped/ counseled her?
      [ Life: Ch. 5: # 8 ]

3). St. Teresa told of how she acted
          frivolously and blindly
          but with good intentions.

    What did she say regarding the dangers of
      acting badly but with good intentions?
        [ Life: Ch. 5: # 9, 12]

4). What book(s) does St. Teresa say helped her?
      [ Life: Ch. 5: # 16 ]

5). What was the "one grace, among others,
      which His Majesty has granted" to St. Teresa?
      [ Life: Ch. 5: # 20 ]

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The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus,
of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel.


CHAPTER V

Continues to tell
- of the grievous infirmities which she suffered and
- of the patience given her by the Lord, and
- of how He brings good out of evil,
      as will be seen from an incident
     which happened to her in the place where
        she went for treatment.

- Illness and Patience of the Saint.
- The Story of a Priest Whom She Rescued
   from a Life of Sin.

1. I forgot to say how, in the year of my novitiate,
I suffered much uneasiness about things
    in themselves of no importance;

but I was found fault with very often
          when I was blameless.
   I bore it painfully and with imperfection;

however, I went through it all, because of the joy
    I had in being a nun.

When they saw me
       seeking to be alone, and even
       weeping over my sins at times,
   they thought I was discontented, and said so.

2. All religious observances had an attraction for me,
      but I could not endure any
              which seemed to make me contemptible.

I delighted in being thought well of by others,
     and was very exact in everything I had to do.

All this I thought was a virtue,
       though it will not serve as any excuse for me,
because I knew what it was
              to procure my own satisfaction in everything,
       and so ignorance does not blot out the blame.

There may be some excuse in the fact
    that the monastery was not founded in great perfection.

I, wicked as I was,
     followed after that
                 which I saw was wrong,

     and neglected that
                 which was good.

3. There was then in the house a nun labouring
           under a most grievous and painful disorder,
      for there were open ulcers in her body,
           caused by certain obstructions,
           through which her food was rejected.

Of this sickness she soon died.
   All the sisters, I saw, were afraid of her malady.
I envied her patience very much;
   I prayed to God that He would give me a like patience;

     and then, whatever sickness
         it might be His pleasure to send,

I do not think I was afraid of any,
     for I was resolved on gaining eternal good, and
      determined to gain it by any and by every means.


4. I am surprised at myself,
  because then I had not, as I believe,
      that love of God which I think I had
               after I began to pray.

Then, I had only light to see that all things that pass away
     are to be lightly esteemed,
and that the good things to be gained by despising them
     are of great price,
          because they are for ever.

His Majesty heard me also in this,
     for in less than two years
I was so afflicted myself that the illness
              which I had,
     though of a different kind from that of the sister,
               was, I really believe,
     not less painful and trying for the three years it lasted,
as I shall now relate.

5. When the time had come
             for which I was waiting
       in the place I spoke of
             before I was in my sister's house,
       for the purpose of undergoing the medical treatment

they took me away with the utmost care of my comfort;
           that is, my father, my sister,
              and the nun, my friend,
                    who had come from the monastery with me,
                            for her love for me was very great.

At that moment, Satan began to trouble my soul;
God, however, brought forth a great blessing
     out of that trouble.


6. In the place
             to which I had gone for my cure
        lived a priest
            of good birth and understanding,
            with some learning, but not much.

I went to confession to him,
     for I was always fond of learned men,

although confessors indifferently learned
     did my soul much harm;

for I did not always find confessors
    whose learning was as good as I could wish it was.

I know by experience that it is better,
    if the confessors are
               good men and
               of holy lives,

    that they should no learning at all,
             than a little;
      for such confessors never trust themselves
           without consulting those who are learned
           nor would I trust them myself:

    and a really learned confessor never deceived me.

Neither did the others willingly deceive me,
    only they knew no better;

I thought they were learned, and
   that I was not under any other obligation
      than that of believing them,
   as  their instructions to me were lax,
   and left me more at liberty

for if they had been strict with me,
      I am so wicked,
    I should have sought for others.

That which was a venial sin,
     they told me was no sin at all;

of that which was most grievously mortal,
    they said it was venial.


7. This did me so much harm,
   that it is no wonder I should speak of it here
           as a warning to others,
   that they may avoid an evil so great;

for I see clearly
  that in the eyes of God
         I was without excuse,
  that the things I did being in themselves not good,
         this should have been enough
               to keep me from them.

 I believe that God, by reason of my sins,
     allowed those confessors to deceive themselves
              and to deceive me.
     I myself deceived many others
         by saying to them what had been said to me.


8. I continued in this blindness, I believe,
              more than seventeen years,
     till a most learned Dominican Father
             undeceived me in part,
             [ Fr. Vicente Barron ]
     and those of the Company of Jesus
            made me altogether so afraid,
         by insisting on the erroneousness
            of these principles,
  as I shall hereafter show.


9. I began, then, by going to confession
         to that priest of whom I spoke before.

He took an extreme liking to me,
   because I had then but little to confess
       in comparison with what I had afterwards;
and I had never much to say since I became a nun.

There was no harm in the liking he had for me,
    but it ceased to be good,
          because it was in excess.

He clearly understood that I was determined
         on no account whatever
  to do anything whereby
         God might be seriously offended.

He, too, gave me a like assurance about himself, and
    accordingly our conferences were many.

But at that time, through the knowledge and fear of God
               which filled my soul,
     what gave me most pleasure
                in all my conversations with others
     was to speak of God;

     and, as I was so young, this made him ashamed;

     and then, out of that great goodwill he bore me,
              he began to tell me of his wretched state.

It was very sad,
    for he had been nearly seven years
          in a most perilous condition,
    because of his affection for, and conversation
          with, a woman of that place;

and yet he used to say Mass.
The matter was so public,
    that his honour and good name were lost,
and no one ventured to speak to him about it.

I was extremely sorry for him,
     because I liked him much.
I was then so imprudent and so blind
     as to think it a virtue
          to be grateful and loyal to one who liked me.

Cursed be that loyalty
      which reaches so far
              as to go against the law of God.

It is a madness common in the world,
     and it makes me mad to see it.

We are indebted to God
     for all the good that men do to us,

and yet we hold it to be an act of virtue
     not to break a friendship of this kind,
        though it lead us to go against Him.

Oh, blindness of the world!
Let me, O Lord, be most ungrateful to the world;
     never at all unto Thee.
But I have been altogether otherwise
     through my sins.

10. I procured further information about the matter
    from members of his household;
      I learned more of his ruinous state,
         and saw that the poor man's fault
                was not so grave,
         because the miserable woman
                had had recourse to enchantments,

         by giving him a little image made of copper,
         which she had begged him to wear for love of her
              around his neck;

         and this no one had influence enough
               to persuade him to throw away.

As to this matter of enchantments,
   I do not believe it to be altogether true;
but I will relate what I saw,
    by way of warning to men
         to be on their guard against women
    who will do things of this kind.

And let them be assured of this,
   that women for they are more bound to purity
          than men

    if once they have lost all shame before God,
        are in nothing whatever to be trusted;

and that in exchange for the gratification of their will,
     and of that affection which the devil suggests,
 they will hesitate at nothing.

11. Though I have been so wicked myself,
   I never fell into anything of this kind,
   nor did I ever attempt to do evil;
   nor, if I had the power,
      would I have ever constrained any one to like me,
          for our Lord kept me from this.

But if He had abandoned me,
   I should have done wrong in this,
      as I did in other things

for there is nothing in me
     whereon anyone may rely.


12. When I knew this,
    I began to show him greater affection:

my intention was good,
   but the act was wrong,

for I ought not to do the least wrong
   for the sake of any good,
how great soever it may be.

I spoke to him most frequently of God;
    and this must have done him good

    though I believe that what touched him most
       was his great affection for me,
    because, to do me a pleasure,
       he gave me that little image of copper,
    and I had it at once thrown into a river.

When he had given it up, 
          like  a man roused from deep sleep,
  he began to consider all that he had done in those years;

and then, amazed at himself, lamenting his ruinous state,
   that woman came to be hateful in his eyes.

Our Lady must have helped him greatly,
    for he had a very great devotion to her Conception,
    and used to keep the feast thereof
               with great solemnity.

In short, he broke off all relations
          with that woman utterly,
   and was never weary of giving God thanks
          for the light He had given him;

and at the end of the year from the day I first saw him,
   he died.

13. He had been most diligent in the service of God;

and as for that great affection he had for me,
   I never observed anything wrong in it,
      though it might have been of greater purity.

There were also occasions
     wherein he might have most grievously offended,
 if he had not kept himself in the near presence of God.

As I said before, I would not then have done anything,
     I knew was a mortal sin.

And I think that observing this resolution in me
      helped him to have that affection for me;
for I believe that all men must have a greater affection
     for those women whom they see disposed to be good;

and even for the attainment of earthly ends,
   women must have more power over men
       because they are good, as I shall show hereafter.

I am convinced that the priest is in the way of salvation.

He died most piously,
   and completely withdrawn from that occasion of sin.

It seems that it was the will of our Lord
    he should be saved by these means.


14. I remained three months in that place,
     in the most grievous sufferings;
   for the treatment was too severe for my constitution.

In two months so strong were the medicines
   my life was nearly worn out;
and the severity of the pain in the heart,
    for the cure
           of which I was there
     was much more keen:

it seemed to me, now and then,
   as if it had been seized by sharp teeth.
So great was the torment,
   that it was feared it might end in madness.

There was a great loss of strength,
    for I could eat nothing whatever,
         only drink.
I had a great loathing for food,
         and a fever that never left me.
I was so reduced,
    for they had given me purgatives daily
         for nearly a month,
and so parched up,
    that my sinews began to shrink.
The pains I had were unendurable,
   and I was overwhelmed in a most deep sadness,
so that I had no rest either night or day.

15. This was the result;
and thereupon my father took me back.

Then the physicians visited me again.
All gave me up;
   they said I was also consumptive.

This gave me little or no concern;
   what distressed me were the pains I had
       for I was in pain from my head down to my feet.
Now, nervous pains, according to the physicians, are intolerable;
and all my nerves were shrunk.

Certainly, if I had not brought this upon myself
       by my sins,
   the torture would have been unendurable.

16. I was not more than three months
       in this cruel distress,
   for it seemed impossible
       that so many ills could be borne together.

I now am astonished
    at myself,
    and the patience His Majesty gave me
           for it clearly came from Him
             I look upon as a great mercy of our Lord.

It was a great help to me to be patient,
    that I had read the story of Job,
             in the Morals of St. Gregory
            (our Lord seems to have prepared me thereby);

   and that I had begun the practice of prayer,
        so that I might bear it all,
            conforming my will to the will of God.

All my conversation was with God.
I had continually these words of Job
         in my thoughts and in my mouth:
    "If we have received good things
           of the hand of our Lord,
        why should we not receive evil things?"
 This seemed to give me courage.

17. The feast of Our Lady, in August, came round;
from April until then I had been in great pain,
    but more especially during the last three months.

I made haste to go to confession,
  for I had always been very fond of frequent confession.

They thought I was driven by the fear of death;
and so my father, in order to quiet me,
     would not suffer me to go.

Oh, the unreasonable love of flesh and blood!
Though it was that of a father so Catholic and so wise,
       he was very much so,
  and this act of his
       could not be the effect of any ignorance on his part
what evil it might have done me!

18. That very night my sickness became so acute,
   that for about four days I remained insensible.

They administered the Sacrament of the last Anointing,
      and every hour, or rather every moment,
            thought I was dying;
they did nothing but repeat the Credo,
   as if I could have understood anything they said.

They must have regarded me as dead more than once,
   for I found afterwards drops of wax on my eyelids.

My father,
  because he had not allowed me to go to confession,
          was grievously distressed.
Loud cries and many prayers were made to God:
Blessed be He Who heard them.

19. For a day-and-a-half
the grave was open in my monastery,
   waiting for my body;
and the Friars of our Order,
   in a house at some distance from this place,
performed funeral solemnities.

But it pleased our Lord
   I should come to myself.

I wished to go to confession at once.
I communicated with many tears;

but I do not think those tears
  had their source
               in that pain and sorrow
    only for having offended God,
       which might have sufficed
              for my salvation

   unless, indeed,
     the delusion
        - which I laboured under
              were some excuse for me,
        - and into which I had been led
             by those who had told me
               that some things
                   were not mortal sins
            which afterwards
                  I found were so certainly.

20. Though my sufferings were unendurable,
      and my perceptions dull,
 yet my confession, I believe, was complete
      as to all matters
wherein I understood myself
      to have offended God.

This grace, among others,
         did His Majesty bestow on me,
    that ever since my first Communion
          never in confession
    have I failed to confess anything
          I thought to be a sin,
    though it might be only a venial sin.

But I think that undoubtedly
        my salvation was in great peril,
if I had died at that time
    partly because my confessors
        were so unlearned, and
    partly because I was so very wicked.

It is certainly true that
when I think of it, and consider
    how our Lord seems to have raised me
       up from the dead,
 I am so filled with wonder,
   that I almost tremble with fear.

21. And now, O my soul,
  it were well for thee
     to look that danger in the face
  from which our Lord delivered thee;

and if thou dost not cease to offend Him
      out of love
thou shouldst do so
      out of fear.

He might have slain thee a thousand times,
   and in a far more perilous state.

I believe I exaggerate nothing
      if I say a thousand times again,
   though he may rebuke me
who has commanded me to restrain myself
     in recounting my sins;
and they are glossed over enough.

I pray him, for the love of God,
     not to suppress one of my faults,
because herein shines forth the magnificence of God,
    as well as His long-suffering towards souls.

May He be blessed for evermore, and
    destroy me utterly,
rather than let me cease to love Him any more!
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