Thought for the Day – 15 October – The Memorial of St Teresa of Jesus/Avila (1515-1582) Doctor of the Church

Thought for the Day – 15 October – The Memorial of St Teresa of Jesus/Avila (1515-1582) Doctor of the Church “Doctor of Prayer”

Excerpt of Pope Benedict’s Catechesis
on the Doctors of the Church
Wednesday, 2 February 2011

“It is far from easy to sum up in a few words Teresa’s profound and articulate spirituality.   I would like to mention a few essential points.   In the first place St Teresa proposes the evangelical virtues as the basis of all Christian and human life and in particular, detachment from possessions, that is, evangelical poverty and this concerns all of us;  love for one another as an essential element of community and social life; humility as love for the truth;  determination as a fruit of Christian daring;  theological hope, which she describes as the thirst for living water.   Then we should not forget the human virtues: affability, truthfulness, modesty, courtesy, cheerfulness, culture.

Secondly, St Teresa proposes a profound harmony with the great biblical figures and eager listening to the word of God.   She feels above all closely in tune with the Bride in the Song of Songs and with the Apostle Paul, as well as with Christ in the Passion and with Jesus in the Eucharist.   The Saint then stresses how essential prayer is.   Praying, she says, “means being on terms of friendship with God frequently conversing in secret with Him who, we know, loves us” (Vida 8, 5).  St Teresa’s idea coincides with Thomas Aquinas’ definition of theological charity as “amicitia quaedam hominis ad Deum”, a type of human friendship with God, who offered humanity His friendship first – it is from God that the initiative comes (cf. Summa Theologiae II-II, 23, 1).

Prayer is life and develops gradually, in pace with the growth of Christian life – it begins with vocal prayer, passes through interiorisation by means of meditation and recollection, until it attains the union of love with Christ and with the Holy Trinity. Obviously, in the development of prayer climbing to the highest steps does not mean abandoning the previous type of prayer.  Rather, it is a gradual deepening of the relationship with God that envelops the whole of life.

Dear brothers and sisters, St Teresa of Jesus is a true teacher of Christian life for the faithful of every time.   In our society, which all too often lacks spiritual values, St Teresa teaches us to be unflagging witnesses of God, of His presence and of His action.   She teaches us truly to feel this thirst for God that exists in the depths of our hearts, this desire to see God, to seek God, to be in conversation with Him and to be His friends.

This is the friendship we all need that we must seek anew, day after day.   May the example of this Saint, profoundly contemplative and effectively active, spur us too every day to dedicate the right time to prayer, to this openness to God, to this journey, in order to seek God, to see Him, to discover His friendship and so to find true life – indeed, many of us should truly say:  “I am not alive, I am not truly alive because I do not live the essence of my life”.

Therefore time devoted to prayer is not time wasted, it is time in which the path of life unfolds, the path unfolds to learning from God an ardent love for Him, for His Church and practical charity for our brothers and sisters.    Many thanks.”

St Teresa, Pray for Us!

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Quotes of the Day – 15 October – The Memorial of St Teresa of Jesus/Avila (1515-1582) Doctor of the Church

Quotes of the Day – 15 October – The Memorial of St Teresa of Jesus/Avila (1515-1582) Doctor of the Church

“Oh my Lord!
How true it is that,
whoever works for You,
is paid in troubles!
And what a precious price
to those who love You,
if we understand its value.”

“We need no wings
to go in search of Him
but have only to look upon Him,
present within us.”

“It is love alone that gives worth to all things.”

“Always think of yourself
as everyone’s servant;
look for Christ Our Lord
in everyone
and you will then have
respect and reverence
for them all.”

“Know that,
even when you are
in the kitchen,
our Lord moves
amidst the pots
and pans.”

“Hope, O my soul, hope.
You know neither the day nor the hour.
Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly,
even though your impatience makes doubtful,
what is certain and turns
a very short time into a long one.”

St Teresa of Jesus/Avila (1515-1582)

One Minute Reflection – 15 October – Today’s Gospel: Luke 11:29–32 and the Memorial of St Teresa of Jesus/Avila (1515-1582) Doctor of the Church “Doctor of Prayer”

One Minute Reflection – 15 October – Today’s Gospel: Luke 11:29–32 – Monday of the Twenty-eighth week in Ordinary Time, Year B and the Memorial of St Teresa of Jesus/Avila (1515-1582) Doctor of the Church “Doctor of Prayer”

“This generation is an evil generation;  it seeks a sign but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah…”…Luke 11:29

REFLECTION – “Am I attached to my things, to my ideas, closed?   Or am I open to the God of surprises?   Am I a stationary person or a person on a journey?….Do I believe in Jesus Christ and in what He has done?   He died, rose again… do I believe that the journey goes forth toward maturity, toward the manifestation of the glory of the Lord?   Am I capable of understanding the signs of the times and of being faithful to the voice of the Lord that is manifest in them?”…Pope Francis 13 October 2014
Better Your faithful love than life itself;
my lips will praise You.
Thus I will bless You all my life,
in Your name lift up my hands. (Ps 63:3-4)

PRAYER – Almighty God, our Father, You sent St Teresa of Jesus to be a witness in the Church to the way of perfection.   Sustain us by her spiritual doctrine and kindle in us, the longing for true holiness.   Through Christ, our Lord, in union with the Holy Spirit, God forever.   May the intercession of St Teresa be a source of strength, amen

Our Morning Offering – 15 October – The Memorial of St Teresa of Jesus/Avila (1515-1582) Doctor of the Church “Doctor of Prayer”

Our Morning Offering – 15 October – The Memorial of St Teresa of Jesus/Avila (1515-1582) Doctor of the Church “Doctor of Prayer”

Morning Offering
Of St Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) 

Lord,
grant that I may always
allow myself
to be guided by You,
always follow Your plans,
and perfectly accomplish
Your Holy Will.
Grant that in all things,
great and small,
today and all the days of my life,
I may do
whatever You require of me.
Help me respond
to the slightest prompting
of Your Grace,
so that I may be
Your trustworthy instrument
for Your honour.
May Your Will be done
in time
and in eternity
by me,
in me
and through me.
Amen

Saint of the Day – 15 October – St Teresa of Avila/of Jesus (1515-1582) Doctor of the Church

Saint of the Day – 15 October – St Teresa of Avila/of Jesus (1515-1582) Doctor of the Church – Full Biography here: https://anastpaul.wordpress.com/2017/10/15/saint-of-the-day-15-october-st-teresa-of-jesusof-avila-1515-1582-doctor-of-the-church/

Excerpt of Pope Benedict’s Catechesis
on the Doctors of the Church
Wednesday, 2 February 2011

St Teresa, whose name was Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada, was born in Avila, Spain, in 1515.   In her autobiography she mentions some details of her childhood – she was born into a large family, her “father and mother, who were devout and feared God”.   She had three sisters and nine brothers.

While she was still a child and not yet nine years old she had the opportunity to read the lives of several Martyrs which inspired in her such a longing for martyrdom that she briefly ran away from home in order to die a Martyr’s death and to go to Heaven (cf. Vida, [Life], 1, 4) – “I want to see God”, the little girl told her parents.

A few years later Teresa was to speak of her childhood reading and to state that she had discovered in it the way of truth which she sums up in two fundamental principles.   On the one hand was the fact that “all things of this world will pass away” while on the other God alone is “forever, ever, ever”, a topic that recurs in her best known poem: “Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, all things are passing away: God never changes.   Patience obtains all things.   Whoever has God lacks nothing, God alone suffices”.   She was about 12 years old when her mother died and she implored the Virgin Most Holy to be her mother (cf. Vida, I, 7).

When she was 20 she entered the Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation, also in Avila. In her religious life she took the name “Teresa of Jesus”.   Three years later she fell seriously ill, so ill that she remained in a coma for four days, looking as if she were dead (cf. Vida, 5, 9).   In the fight against her own illnesses too, the Saint saw the combat against weaknesses and the resistance to God’s call:  “I wished to live”, she wrote, “but I saw clearly that I was not living but rather wrestling with the shadow of death, there was no one to give me life and I was not able to take it.   He who could have given it to me had good reasons for not coming to my aid, seeing that He had brought me back to Himself so many times and I as often had left Him” (Vida, 7, 8).

In 1543 she lost the closeness of her relatives, her father died and all her siblings, one after another, emigrated to America.   In Lent 1554, when she was 39 years old, Teresa reached the climax of her struggle against her own weaknesses.   The fortuitous discovery of the statue of “a Christ most grievously wounded”, left a deep mark on her life (cf. Vida, 9).   The Saint, who in that period felt deeply in tune with the St Augustine of the Confessions, thus describes the decisive day of her mystical experience:  “and… a feeling of the presence of God would come over me unexpectedly, so that I could in no wise doubt either that He was within me, or that I was wholly absorbed in Him” (Vida, 10, 1).

Artist – Yaquinto de Corrado

Parallel to her inner development, the Saint began in practice to realise her ideal of the reform of the Carmelite Order – in 1562 she founded the first reformed Carmel in Avila, with the support of the city’s Bishop, Don Alvaro de Mendoza and shortly afterwards also received the approval of John Baptist Rossi, the Order’s Superior General.   In the years that followed, she continued her foundations of new Carmelite convents, 17 in all.   Her meeting with St John of the Cross was fundamental.   With him, in 1568, she set up the first convent of Discalced Carmelites in Duruelo, not far from Avila.   In 1580 she obtained from Rome the authorisation for her reformed Carmels as a separate, autonomous Province.   This was the starting point for the Discalced Carmelite Order.

Indeed, Teresa’s earthly life ended while she was in the middle of her founding activities. She died on the night of 15 October 1582 in Alba de Tormes, after setting up the Carmelite Convent in Burgos, while on her way back to Avila.   Her last humble words were: “After all I die as a child of the Church” and “O my Lord and my Spouse, the hour that I have longed for has come. It is time to meet one another”.

Teresa spent her entire life for the whole Church although she spent it in Spain.   She was beatified by Pope Paul V in 1614 and Canonised by Pope Gregory XV in 1622  . The Servant of God (now Canonised yesterday, 14 October 2018) Paul VI proclaimed her a “Doctor of the Church” in 1970.

Christ Resurrected Between St Teresa Of Avila & St John of the Cross by Michel des Gobelins Corneille

Memorials of the Saints – 15 October

St Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) Doctor of the Church (Memorial)
Biography here: https://anastpaul.wordpress.com/2017/10/15/saint-of-the-day-15-october-st-teresa-of-jesusof-avila-1515-1582-doctor-of-the-church/

St Antiochus of Lyon
St Aurelia of Strasbourg
St Callistus of Huesca
St Cannatus of Marseilles
Bl Cipriano Alguacil Torredenaida
St Euthymius the Younger
St Fortunatus of Rome
Bl Josefa Martínez Pérez
St Leonard of Vandoeuvre
St Magdalena of Nagasaki
Bl Narcis Basté y Basté
St Odilo
Bl Pere Verdaguer Saurina
Bl Ramón Esteban Bou Pascual
St Sabinus of Catania
St Severus of Trier
St Thecla of Kitzengen
St Willa of Nonnberg
—
Martyrs of Cologne: A group of 360 Christian soldiers martyred together in the persecutions of Diocletian and Maximian. They were martyred in 303 outside the city walls of Cologne, Germany.

Martyred in the Spanish Civil War:
• Blessed Cipriano Alguacil Torredenaida
• Blessed Josefa Martínez Pérez
• Blessed Narcis Basté y Basté
• Blessed Pere Verdaguer Saurina
• Blessed Ramón Esteban Bou Pascual

One Minute Reflection – 11 October – Today’s Gospel: Luke 11:5–13 and the Memorial of St Pope John XXIII

One Minute Reflection – 11 October – Today’s Gospel: Luke 11:5–13 – Thursday of the Twenty-seventh week in Ordinary Time and the Memorial of St Pope John XXIII

“For everyone who asks, receives and he who seeks, finds and to him who knocks, it will be opened.”…Luke 11:10

REFLECTION – ” Now by asking, He means prayer but by seeking, zeal and anxiety, as He adds, seek and you shall find.   For those things which are sought require great care.   And this is particularly the case with God.   For there are many things which block up our senses.   As then we search for lost gold, so let us anxiously seek after God.   He shows also, that though He does not forthwith open the gates, we must yet wait.   Hence he adds, knock and it shall be opened to you, for if you continue seeking, you shall surely receive.   For this reason and as the door shut makes you knock, therefore He did not at once consent that you might entreat.
Or by the word knock perhaps he means seeking effectually, for one knocks with the hand but the hand is the sign of a good work.   Or these three may be distinguished in another way.   For it is the beginning of virtue to ask to know the way of truth.   But the second step is to seek how we must go by that way.   The third step is when a man has reached the virtue to knock at the door, that he may enter upon the wide field of knowledge.   All these things a man acquires by prayer  . Or to ask indeed, is to pray but to seek, is by good works to do things becoming our prayers.   And to knock is to continue in prayer without ceasing.”…St John Chrysostom (347-407) Father & Doctor of the Church

PRAYER – Help us my Lord, to discern through prayer and meditation, what You truly want of us.   Then enable us to offer it to You and indeed to offer myself and all I have to You.   Teach us to listen that we might hear Your answers, teach us to wait in patience for that which we ask and to trust in Your answer and teach us to constantly knock at Your door in prayer.   May St John XXIII, pray for Holy Mother Church, pray for all the members of the Mystical Body, pray for our sons and daughters and for us all, pray for me! Amen