The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, vol 3

Front Cover
ICS Publications, 1976 - Religion - 482 pages

This book contains Book of Her Foundations and Minor Works.
Includes general and biblical index.

In 1573, while staying in Salamanca to assist her nuns in the task of establishing one of her seventeen monasteries, Teresa began composing the story of their foundation. The Book of Her Foundations comprises the major portion of Volume Three. This book not only tells the story of the establishment of her monasteries but, characteristic of Teresa, digresses into counsels on prayer, love, melancholy, virtuous living and dying, plus other teachings of the Mother Foundress. This book also has an excellent introduction, chronology, and map of Teresa's foundations and journeys. Five of her brief works, including her poetry, complete ICS Publications' third volume of her Collected Works. Includes general and biblical index.

 

Contents

INTRODUCTION
3
A TERESIAN CHRONOLOGY
83
MAP OF FOUNDATIONS
93
On the circumstances surrounding the beginning of both
99
CHAPTER 3The circumstances surrounding the foundation of
105
CHAPTER 4 Treats of some favors the Lord grants to the nuns of these
113
CHAPTER 6Warns about the harm that can be done to spiritual
124
CHAPTER 7 How one must deal with the nuns who have melancholy
134
POETRY Introduction
371
Aspirations toward Eternal Life
375
In the Hands of God
377
On Those Words Dilectus Meus Mihi
379
Loving Colloquy
380
Happy the Enamored Heart
381
Sighs in Exile
382
Seeking God
385

CHAPTER 9Deals with how she left Medina del Campo for the foun
143
CHAPTER 11Continues the subject that was begun about how Doña
151
CHAPTER 14Continues to speak of the foundation of the first
164
CHAPTER 17Treats of the foundation of the two monasteries
179
CHAPTER 19Continues the account of the foundation of
192
CHAPTER 22Treats of the foundation named after the glorious
207
CHAPTER 24Continues with the foundation of St Joseph of Carmel
222
CHAPTER 25Continues telling about the foundation named after
230
CHAPTER 27Treats of the foundation made in the town of Caravaca
241
CHAPTER 28The foundation in Villanueva de la Jara
251
CHAPTER 29Treats of the foundation of St Joseph of Our Lady
268
CHAPTER 30Begins to treat of the foundation of the monastery of
280
Begins to treat in this chapter of the foundation of
286
EPILOGUE
308
Text
319
ON MAKING THE VISITATION
335
A SATIRICAL CRITIQUE Introduction
357
Text
359
RESPONSE TO A SPIRITUAL CHALLENGE Introduction
363
Text
365
Efficacy of Patience
386
To the Birth of Jesus
387
At the Birth of Jesus
388
For Christmas
389
At the Birth of the Infant God
391
Another on the Circumcision
392
On the Feast of the Holy Kings
393
To the Cross
394
The Way of the Cross
395
Embracing the Cross
396
To Saint Andrew
397
To Saint Hilarion
398
To Saint Catalina Martyr
400
For the Clothing of Sister Jerónima de la Encarnación
401
For the Profession of Isabel de los Angeles
402
To a Professed Nun
404
NOTES
411
The Constitutions
443
On Making the Visitation
455
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About the author (1976)

!--[if gte mso 9] Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ![endif]--Teresa Sanchez Cepeda Davila y Ahumada was
born at Avila, Old Castile, 28 March, 1515;
died at Alba de Tormes, 4 Oct., 1582.

She was the third child of Don Alonso
Sanchez de Cepeda by his second wife,
Doña Beatriz Davila y Ahumada, who died
when the saint was in her fourteenth year,
Teresa was brought up by her saintly father,
a lover of serious books, and a tender and
pious mother. After her death and the
marriage of her eldest sister, Teresa was
sent for her education to the Augustinian
nuns at Avila, but owing to illness she
left at the end of eighteen months, and
for some years remained with her father
and occasionally with other relatives,
notably an uncle who made her acquainted
with the Letters of St. Jerome, which
determined her to adopt the religious life,
not so much through any attraction towards
it, as through a desire of choosing the
safest course. Unable to obtain her
father's consent she left his house
unknown to him on Nov., 1535, to enter
the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation
at Avila, which then counted 140 nuns.
The wrench from her family caused her
a pain which she ever afterwards compared
to that of death. However, her father
at once yielded and Teresa took the habit.
After her profession in the following year
she became very seriously ill, and
underwent a prolonged cure and such
unskillful medical treatment that she was
reduced to a most pitiful state, and even
after partial recovery through the
intercession of St. Joseph, her health
remained permanently impaired. During these
years of suffering she began the practice
of mental prayer, but fearing that her
conversations with some world-minded
relatives, frequent visitors at the
convent, rendered her unworthy of the
graces God bestowed on her in prayer,
discontinued it, until she came under
the influence, first of the Dominicans,
and afterwards of the Jesuits. Meanwhile
God had begun to visit her with
"intellectual visions and locutions",
that is manifestations in which the
exterior senses were in no way affected,
the things seen and the words heard being
directly impressed upon her mind, and
giving her wonderful strength in trials,
reprimanding her for unfaithfulness, and
consoling her in trouble. Unable to
reconcile such graces with her
shortcomings, which her delicate
conscience represented as grievous faults,
she had recourse not only to the most
spiritual confessors she could find, but
also to some saintly laymen, who, never
suspecting that the account she gave them
of her sins was greatly exaggerated,
believed these manifestations to be the
work of the evil spirit. The more she
endeavored to resist them the more
powerfully did God work in her soul. The
whole city of Avila was troubled by the
reports of the visions of this nun. It was
reserved to St. Francis Borgia and St.
Peter of Alcantara, and afterwards to a
number of Dominicans (particularly Pedro
Ibañez and Domingo Bañez), Jesuits, and
other religious and secular priests, to
discern the work of God and to guide her
on a safe road.

The account of her spiritual life
contained in the "Life written by herself"
(completed in 1565, an earlier version
being lost), in the "Relations", and in
the "Interior Castle", forms one of the
most remarkable spiritual biographies
with which only the "Confessions of St.
Augustine" can bear comparison. To this
period belong also such extraordinary
manifestations as the piercing or
transverberation of her heart, the
spiritual espousals, and the mystical
marriage. A vision of the place destined
for her in hell in case she should have
been unfaithful to grace, determined her
to seek a more perfect life. After many
troubles and much opposition St. Teresa
founded the convent of Discalced
Carmelite Nuns of the Primitive Rule of
St. Joseph at Avila (24 Aug., 1562), and
after six months obtained permission to
take up her residence there. Four years
later she received the visit of the
General of the Carmelites, John-Baptist
Rubeo (Rossi), who not only approved of
what she had done but granted leave for
the foundation of other convents of
friars as well as nuns. In rapid
succession she established her nuns at
Medina del Campo (1567), Malagon and
Valladolid (1568), Toledo and Pastrana
(1569), Salamanca (1570), Alba de Tormes
(1571), Segovia (1574), Veas and Seville
(1575), and Caravaca (1576). In the
"Book of Foundations" she tells the story
of these convents, nearly all of which
were established in spite of violent
opposition but with manifest assistance
from above. Everywhere she found souls
generous enough to embrace the
austerities of the primitive rule of
Carmel. Having made the acquaintance of
Antonio de Heredia, prior of Medina, and
St. John of the Cross, she established
her reform among the friars (28 Nov.,
1568), the first convents being those
of Duruelo (1568), Pastrana (1569),
Mancera, and Alcalá de Henares (1570).

A new epoch began with the entrance
into religion of Jerome Gratian,
inasmuch as this remarkable man was
almost immediately entrusted by the
nuncio with the authority of visitor
Apostolic of the Carmelite friars and
nuns of the old observance in Andalusia,
and as such considered himself entitled
to overrule the various restrictions
insisted upon by the general and the
general chapter. On the death of the
nuncio and the arrival of his successor
a fearful storm burst over St. Teresa
and her work, lasting four years and
threatening to annihilate the nascent
reform. The incidents of this persecution
are best described in her letters. The
storm at length passed, and the province
of Discalced Carmelites, with the support
of Philip II, was approved and canonically
established on 22 June, 1580. St. Teresa,
old and broken in health, made further
foundations at Villanuava de la Jara and
Palencia (1580), Soria (1581), Granada
(through her assistant the Venerable Anne
of Jesus), and at Burgos (1582). She left
this latter place at the end of July,
and, stopping at Palencia, Valladolid,
and Medina del Campo, reached Alba de
Torres in September, suffering intensely.
Soon she took to her bed and passed away
on 4 Oct., 1582, the following day, owing
to the reform of the calendar, being
reckoned as 15 October. After some years
her body was transferred to Avila, but
later on reconveyed to Alba, where it is
still preserved incorrupt. Her heart, too,
showing the marks of the Transverberation,
is exposed there to the veneration of the
faithful. She was beatified in 1614, and
canonized in 1622 by Gregory XV, the
feast being fixed on 15 October.

St. Teresa's position among writers on
mystical theology is unique. In all her
writings on this subject she deals with
her personal experiences, which a deep
insight and analytical gifts enabled
her to explain clearly. The Thomistic
substratum may be traced to the
influence of her confessors and
directors, many of whom belonged to
the Dominican Order. She herself had
no pretension to found a school in the
accepted sense of the term, and there
is no vestige in her writings of any
influence of the Areopagite, the
Patristic, or the Scholastic Mystical
schools, as represented among others,
by the German Dominican Mystics. She is i
ntensely personal, her system going
exactly as far as her experiences, but
not a step further.
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