Let nothing disturb you

“All things are passing … God alone is enough.” ~Teresa of Avila

As a teenage nun, Teresa’s had her doubts about religious life, questioning the path for 20 years. She wrote her first book in her mid-forties.

“Whoever has not begun the practice of prayer, I beg for the love of the Lord not to go without so great a good. There is nothing here to fear but only something to desire.” ~Saint Teresa

We love enlightened masters, but it is hard to imitate Christ, difficult to become a Buddha. Yet there is some middle ground. Maybe we can imitate the saints.

Then again, not all saints have left clear instruction about how to love God. St. Teresa of Avila, however, wrote three books and many poems. But she was an active contemplative, loving God with all her mind, all her spirit, and all her body.

Much of Teresa’s writing was about prayer. “Contemplative prayer,” she wrote in The Way of Perfection, “is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.” Loving God with all your mind includes contemplative prayer.

To speak to God, St. Teresa taught, it is not necessary to be in heaven, nor is it necessary to speak in a loud voice. “However quietly we speak, he is so near that he will hear us. We need no wings to go in search of him, but have only to find a place where we can be alone and look upon him present within us.” (The Way of Perfection) Remembering that God hears everything we say, we can love God with all our spirit.

Last, we can admire Teresa’s example of loving God with all her body by devoting herself to serving others. As part of her efforts to reform a religious order of the Catholic Church (the Carmelite Reform), she founded 14 monasteries, making long journeys through most of the provinces of Spain, establishing new houses for the reformed order.

We need not be saints or even monks or nuns to benefit from St. Teresa’s instructions. There is something for everyone in her book The Way of Perfection, and the mansions she speaks of in The Interior Castle are accessible to all of us. To access the peace and freedom Teresa teaches, however, we will have to begin to pray, thinking more about how to die than everyday life.

“Life passes so quickly that we ought to think more about how to die than how to live.”

One of St. Teresa’s most popular poems.

Love God

All the way to heaven

Pablo F. del Real S.

Written by

Mindfulness teacher. Received the Five Mindfulness Trainings from Thich Nhat Hanh. Discovered the equivalence of the Beatitudes and the Eightfold Path.

Love God

Love God

All the way to heaven

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