 |
| St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) |
Avila. Also she called St. Teresa of Jesus.
One reason I think this book is relevant today is that she writes a lot about money and people's relationship to it. In this time of material hardship what she says may sound unrealistic to the secular mind, but I don't think it does to the religious mind. In my mind it's the absolute truth.
Although I'm not a Catholic, I study and read a lot of what the Catholic writers and saints have written, because it's so good and true. I believe in studying different religions and I learn from all of them.
St. Teresa lived during the life and rise of Martin Luther and really puts the Lutherans down as lost souls. It's true that the first Protestants in Germany had a very rocky beginning. However, I think other things she says in this book are great. I consider myself essentially a Protestant, but a Catholic in many philosophical ways. I can't accept authoritarianism of any kind--if it comes from man--not when it comes from God. However, I've also been studying Martin Luther who despite his rebellion against the Catholic Church was still very authoritarian. Despite his rebelling against the Catholic Church, he thought it wrong for people to rebel against their governments or secular rulers. He didn't believe in being a protester. Luther thought that the peasant uprisings in his day were bad, and that their being slaughtered was justified. In our time, that's something very hard to understand. I think because we have seen more of history since the 1500's, our hindsight provides a longer historical view. Luther believed that the kings and men in power were put there by God and their authority should be accepted. Luther's rationale was that Jesus didn't protest, but endured and suffered his enemies and died on the cross. However, it seems to be that in his life, before his dying episode, he did do a lot of protesting, which is basically why he ended up being crucified. He was crucified because he protested against the society in which he lived and the practices of Judism. Jesus's main objective was reforming Judism. He also thought that the Roman's were scum. If he had just accepted everything, he wouldn't have been crucified.
[Since I discovered that Martin Luther was my 15th great grand uncle, I've been studying him, although I was fascinated by him before I even found out this fact. This I think shows that discovering one's ancestors can be of value. It has stimulated my interest in history tremendously.]
St. Teresa on the materialistic side of life (quotes from her book)--[St. Teresa addresses her sisters because she was a Carmelite nun.]
Let us not pray for worldly things, my sisters. It makes me laugh, and yet it makes me sad, when I hear of the things which people come here to beg us to pray to God for; we are to ask His Majesty to give them money and to provide them with incomes--I wish that some of these people would entreat God to enable them to trample all such things beneath their feet. Their intentions are quite good, and I do as they ask because I see that they are really devout people, though I do not myself believe that God ever hears me when I pray for such things.
I totally agree that God does not hear when you pray for money. When I ask God for something that is spiritual in nature, I'm blown away by how fast he gives me an answer. Even when I've prayed for some relief of some physical ailment, I'm been cured quickly. However, when I've prayed for money or to better my sustenance, which is how I phrase it when I pray, nothing happens. That's because I'm praying for the wrong thing. I believe that if you pray for something that God in his infinite wisdom doesn't think that is good or right for you, he will ignore your prayer. Anyway, that's how it has worked in my life.
...and are we to waste our time upon things which, if God were to grant them, would perhaps bring one soul less to Heaven? Mo, my sisters, this is no time to tret with God for things of little importance...
Do not think, my sisters, that because you do not go about trying to please people in the world you will lack food. You will not, I assure you: never try to sustain yourselves by human artifices, or you will die of hunger, and rightly so.
...For the love of the Lord, let us not forget this: you have forgone a regular income; forgo worry about food as well, or thou will lose everything. Let those whom the Lord wishes to live on an income do so: if that is their vocation, they are perfectly justified; but for us to do so, sisters, would be inconsistent. Worrying about getting money from other people seems to me like thinking about what other people enjoy. However much you worry, you will not make them change their minds nor will they become desirous o giving you alms. Leave these anxieties to Him Who can move everyone, Who is the Lord of all money and of all who possess money...
The irony is that she talks of poverty and its importance and the evil of material concerns while at the same time saying that Lutherans are lost souls who will burn in hell. Luther revolted against the greed and material concerns of the Catholic Church. The same thing that Avila is against. Luther revolted because the Catholic Church was selling "get out of hell" cards for money. The Catholic church owned castles and land in many countries, and these countries sided with Luther because they wanted their land back. The way that Avila writes about poverty, she seems to totally disregard the practices of her own Church. She seems to think that rebellion for any reason is a great sin that will cause a person to go to hell. However, it is true that some of Luther's followers went too far and undoubtedly ended up in hell, but they were probably there to begin with.
I also don't agree that the best way for a religious person to find God is to remove oneself from society to help avoid temptation and the wanting for the material aspects of life. That seems too easy to me. I don't believe the best way to solve a problem is by just removing oneself from the situation. It seems stronger to me to stay and change things.
However, I agree with her that she offers a path to perfection, which is her goal. If you feel that you are on that path, I would recommend this book.
The world is but a dream
On Amazon.com I wrote a review of a book called "Start Where You Are" subtitled "A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chodron, who is an American Buddhist Monk. Her main thesis was Don't take yourself or life so seriously because it's only a dream anyway.
Around 1567, Saint Avila wrote :
Now it seems to me that, when God has brought someone to a clear knowledge of the world, and of its nature, and of the fact that another world (or, let us say another kingdom) exists, and that there is a great difference between the one and the other, the one being eternal and the other only a dream;...Pema Chodron, an American, rejected Christianity for Buddhism, but as of yet I haven't found one idea in Buddhism that doesn't exist in Christianity, except Buddhists don't believe in God. I think the reason for that is that the Buddhists can only think of God in anthropomorphic terms, and they reject Christianity because they think that is the way all Christians see God. Christianity is far more metaphorical than Buddhism, and people who have trouble understanding metaphors seem to like Buddhism better. I also think that people who reject the religion of the culture into which they were born, comes from deep hurt from people in their culture. They knew people who professed to be Christian, but were mean and terrible, so they reject Christianity altogether as worthless. But every religion has people who are mean and terrible, because they have no understanding. It isn't the fault of the religion.
This idea that the world is but a dream, or a shadow, of the real world, which is spiritual and eternal, comes from Plato. Although I think that many people, most likely Saint Avila, probably come to this conclusion on their own and have never read or heard of Plato, but Plato was the first in literature that I know of who expounded this idea. The idea may have existed before Plato, and I'm not just well-read enough to know about it.
