Teresian Spirituality
P. Tomás Alvarez, OCD
Father Tomás is a Carmelite friar of the Burgos Province. He is recognized as the preeminent scholar of St. Teresa of Jesus. He was invited to address the Discalced Carmelite General Chapter held in Avila, Spain, in 2003 on the subject of the central themes of Teresian Spirituality. This is a translation of that address, taken from the Internet and translated from the Spanish by Bro. Salvador Roman, OCD.
First of all, thank you for having invited me to share with you these moments of pre-chapter reflection. I offer my most fervent prayers to the Lord for a good outcome of this chapter that you celebrate in the city of St. Teresa of Avila.
The theme Father General entrusted to me is Teresian spirituality. We tackle it once again. We are conscious that in its essence it deals with "remembering" what you already know or what we all know, to the degree that we have thought about it many times ... Yet, "remembering," in our case, has biblical connotations. We remember something that belongs to our story of salvation, historia salutis. Still valid even for us are the biblical references: Remember O Israel... remember all the ways which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness. Only take heed, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. We "remember" not only for its historical value, but rather to say thank you to the past, to live the present, and to plan a future with a faithful and hopeful spirit.
With the term "Teresian spirituality," I do not mean a handbook on spirituality more or less dense, but the very life that comes to us from the saint that we share with her; it is a stream of life that flows from the evangelical furrow of the Church and from within Carmel that has its historical point of departure in the person of St. Teresa, that comes to us after four centuries, which we live and expand within the Church before the Carmel of tomorrow. Obviously such a vital stream is founded upon some experiences, more or less incarnated in the great persons of yesterday and today, sustained by a collection of ideas and by the doctrines of the saints, and nourished by a constant yearning for renewal, which is essential to every living organism and vital movement.
Point of Departure
The point of departure for our Teresian spirituality, always within the Church, is the historical fact of the profound religious experience lived by the saint. We, as a religious order within the Church, are born from the religious experience lived by two of our saints, Teresa of Jesus and John of the Cross. That of Teresa, with which we will occupy ourselves solely, has been told and testified by The Book of Her Life. In that book, she relates foremost her personal salvation story, her vocation, struggles, conversion, complete catharsis of heart ... a process that culminates shortly after in a grace that overflows in her very person and that will overflow on a small group of pioneers that met together at the Convent of San José in Avila. This group of pioneers expanded quickly during the lifetime of the saint.
Fortunately for us, this initial grace did not become diluted or dissipated in the story of her first book. She testifies to this in an authoritative manner at the beginning of the chapters that tell her story about the foundation of the Carmel, very conscious that her spiritual dowry spills over as a grace. Here we have the obligation to read her words textually.
One day after Communion, His Majesty earnestly commanded me to strive for this new monastery with all my powers, and He made great promises that it would be founded and that He would be highly served in it. He said it should be called St. Joseph [San José] and that this saint would keep watch over us at one door, and our Lady at the other, that Christ would remain with us, and that it would be a star shining with great splendor. He said that even though religious orders were mitigated one shouldn’t think that He was little served in them; He asked what would become of the world if it were not for religious and said that I should tell my confessor what He commanded, that He was asking him not to go against this or hinder me from doing it.
A powerful quote that not only constitutes the gift of the birth of our Order but also testifies to the moment in which the charism as founder is given to her as pure grace and goes beyond any human possibility. Her particular gift is a grace that comes from above with prophetic surging, as "sent" by the Lord (the text begins with "earnestly commanded me" and finishes with "what he commanded"). This command was repeated to her many times, which then at a later moment is authenticated even by Our Lady. Finally, this command becomes a guarantee of "great deeds" when she takes upon herself the mission of becoming the founder of Discalced friars. St. John of the Cross, once discovered, was associated to her mission as founder in order to commence the foundation of the friars, to administer it, and to unite it to the style of life lived in her Carmelite convents.
These Teresian texts give evidence to the fact that there is continuity between personal experience and the mystical life of Teresa and the initial grace received by her, first for her group of nuns and then for John of the Cross and the brothers. It is necessary to define the content of this moment of grace handed down to us that we might share it.
Content of Foundational Experience of Our Holy Founder
Obviously every religious experience contains, implicitly and explicitly, an experience of God. Surely there is no true experience of God that does not entail at the same moment a new experience of humanity. This occurs in that which we have called "profound religious experience" of the saint. For now, before speaking about the human component ("the fraternal spirit that exists among us"), we begin with the theological component: her experience of God. It is pertinent to the degree in which the theological experience can be a determining factor or can exemplify better that Teresian experience she transmitted to us.
(Note: If you want to read the entire article on "Central Themes of Teresian Spirituality," you may do so by ordering a copy of the Winter 2007 Issue of Carmelite Digest – see below.)
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