Interpreting St Teresa of Avila (XIV)

Patrick Burke, O.Carm.

Awareness & Recollection

Very much in keeping with St. Teresa’s thinking, many people in modern times wish to enjoy realistically the company of Jesus Christ, the Lord, in their daily living. By baptism consciously dedicated to God, they try to give themselves to Jesus by faithful and practical service of their whole life, whether married or otherwise. But to be enlivened with the spirit of Carmel and the zeal of our saints, one must truly be a friend of Christ, having an intimate friendship with Him by means of a life of love and generous concern for all. As the Little Flower expressed it “We have only one thing to do here below - to love Jesus and to save souls so that He may be loved.”

Teresian doctrine concerns everyone, although it refers more directly to those who are more generous and more open or prepared to accept it. For her and for all Carmelites, it is impossible to conceive of a real love of God that is not accompanied by the love of souls. A great love of God demands a very generous concern for souls. This is why Teresa prepared “The Way of Perfection”. Since Jesus offers to all the fountain of living water, He will give the generous soul this water to drink, at least according to their spiritual need. Despite the sublimity of this truth, Teresa recognised the individual “scatter-brain” with minds that wander and have difficulty concentrating in trying to talk to the Lord in prayer. As a result, she sets about teaching us “one of the ways of greatly slowing down the mind and recollecting the soul” (WP28, 1), spelling out the nature of “prayer of recollection”.

She comments on the most common of prayer “Our Father.” It opens with “Our Father who art in heaven.” Our fundamental faith accepts that God is everywhere and, as Teresa believes, “wherever God is, there is heaven” (28,2). Immediately she refers to St. Augustine who “says that he sought Him in many places but found Him ultimately within himself.” This must have pleased her heart because she observes as a consequence “that there is no need to go to heaven in order to speak to one’s Eternal Father or find delight in Him”. The Lord is readily present to us. “All we need to do is go into solitude and look at Him within ourselves and speak to Him as a father. Beseech Him as you would a father; tell Him about your trials; ask Him for a remedy against them, realising that you are not worthy to be His daughter or His children.

She decries any false sense of humility, on account of which some people plead that they are unable to speak with God; they make excuses of unworthiness and neglect to respond to His graciousness and favours. She says that “we are to speak with Him as with a father or a brother or a Lord or as with a spouse” (28,3).

There is at the beginning a psychological barrier in trying to focus on the person of Jesus, concentrating on Him and at the same time trying to withstand the distractions of the senses and to calm a perturbed mind or imagination. However Teresa herself notes that “without one’s realising it, the eyes close so as to avoid seeing them and so that the sight might be more awake to things of the soul,, (28,6). At the beginning the effort is demanding and the concentration may not be so intense. But gradually, depending on the individual and the grace of the Lord, “the soul should get used to this recollection.” The Saint assures us that if one perseveres in practising this prayer over and over several days, it will prove more successful and satisfying, the benefits being more obvious; all without any effort on our part, because it is the Lord’s will that in return for our own effort, our soul can rule the senses and we more easily become recollected.

For St. Teresa this path of recollection enabled people to understand that we can create within the soul something incomparably more precious than anything we can see outside ourselves. God enlivens our body through our soul and the more we embrace the soul through the domination of our senses, the more fitting we are to possess the Lord and praise “Our Father who art in heaven”. She acknowledges that “I understood well that I had a soul. But what this soul deserved and who dwelt within it I did not understand because I had covered my eyes with the vanities of the world” (28,11). Obviously thinking in human terms, she tries to assess the great blessing she had received from the King of Heaven in His coming to her. “But what a marvellous thing, that He who would fill a thousand worlds and many more with His grandeur could be perceived and understood according to our nature. Being the Lord, since He loves us, He adapts Himself to our size”(28,11). According to Teresa, the Lord accommodates the human limitations by enlarging our capacity little by little to receive His various graces. We should, therefore, give ourselves to Him with complete determination, emptying ourselves of all that might inhibit or prevent our receiving and using what is His. “He doesn’t give Himself completely until we give ourselves completely” (28,13) and a reminder - “Don’t think that things in heaven are like they are here below”.

As she focuses on “dwelling” with the Lord, she teaches a detachment from everything that is not God. It is an ascetical practice that is most necessary for acquiring a sense of a loving intimacy between the soul and our Father. Recollection or the concentration of our mind and soul on the divine matches our awareness of God within us. In encouragement she says; “There is a withdrawing of the senses from exterior things and a renunciation of them in such a way that, without one’s realising it, the eyes close so as to avoid seeing them and so that the sight might be more awake to things of the soul” (28,6). Although, when praying before a statue or picture, she normally kept her eyes open as a stimulus to prayer, Teresa observes with respect to the prayer of recollection “anyone who walks by this path keeps his eyes closed almost as often as he prays.” She saw great worth in striving not to think of worldly things or affairs, helped by the concentration resulting from closing the eyes.

This is the prayer of recollection, because by gathering the faculties together and concentrating as well as we can on the mystery of God, “the soul enters within itself to be with its God, and its divine Master comes more quickly to teach it and give it the prayer of quiet than He would through any other method it might use”. She warns us that we are not to be distracted by the senses, by recalling former occasions or happenings, natural to a wandering mind. Even though one’s prayer may not be very good at first, “they do what they can during that time to get free by recollecting their senses within. If the recollection or concentration is true, it is felt very clearly for it produces some effect in the soul” (28,6).

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