In a time caught up in the fury and violence of religious intolerance, inquisitions and sectarian war: Teresa symbolized a child-like devotion and surrendering to a forgiving and compassionate god. Saint, reformer, founder of 40 Carmelite monasteries, author and theologian; with deep insight she championed and helped establish a tradition for western mysticism and was the first in the West to harmonize a scientific view with contemplation and a mystical understanding. An inspiration for the Spanish Renaissance and Christian meditation practice, she promoted “mental prayer” and a personal approach to spirituality.
Lineages
Christian Hispanic Renaissance Women of Wisdom
Interior Castle
“It is love alone that gives worth to all things.”
from Way of Perfection
Chapters:
12. This Over That
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“It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves.”
from Way of Perfection
Chapters:
33. Know Yourself
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“The closer one approaches to God, the simpler one becomes”
from Way of Perfection
Chapters:
35. The Power of Goodness
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“Don’t let yourself be frightened by your own thoughts.”
from Way of Perfection
Chapters:
38. Fruit Over Flowers
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“I am more afraid of people terrified of the devil than I am of the devil himself.”
from Way of Perfection
Chapters:
46. Enough
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“Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.”
from Way of Perfection
Chapters:
6. The Source
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“Union is as if in a room there were two large windows through which the light streamed in it enters in different places but it all becomes one.”
from Way of Perfection
Chapters:
39. Oneness
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“All the way to heaven is heaven.”
from Way of Perfection
Chapters:
81. Journey Without Goal
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“Many people are good at talking and bad at understanding,”
from Way of Perfection
Chapters:
2. The Wordless Teachings
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“Never suppose that either the evil or the good that you do will remain secret, however strict may be your enclosure.”
from Way of Perfection
Chapters:
70. Inscrutable
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“At prayer-time, pray, at partridge-time, partridge!”
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“. . . it is presumptuous in me to wish to choose my path, because I cannot tell which path is best for me. I must leave it to the Lord, Who knows me, to lead me by the path which is best for me, so that in all things His will may be done.”
from Interior Castle
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“this fiery girl—a flame of the utmost purity—reminded me of an extraordinary woman, likewise either all body or all soul: saint Teresa. She gave herself completely to each of her acts, nourishing her body and her soul with equal voracity.”
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“Theresa's passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to her? Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel... She found her epos in the reform of a religious orer.”
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