Meditation 71
Teresa of Avila’s Tetramorph
When
Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross began their reform within the
Carmelite Order they returned to the Primitive Rules as they came from
the hands of Albertus Patriarch of Jerusalem. Albertus based his rules
on the apostolic tradition as it had thrived in the Jerusalem church
through the centuries.
He emphasized the role of the prayer life as continuous prayer which directs the soul to the silence of the heart – to the hesychia kardia as the Greeks called it – where the sobriety or growing awareness of the soul was a corner stone. Just as among the Egyptian desert fathers Our Father was the pattern to follow in the contemplative prayer. This can best be seen by the fact that in his Rule Albertus ordered those of the brothers who were not able to pray the Liturgy of the Hours or Divine Office to replace it with a certain number of paternosters. The Our Father was thus considered a worthy substitute for the Divine Office. It might sound strange that the lay brothers were not able to pray the Divine Office, but when we bear in mind how expensive it indeed was to compose manuscript in these remote times, we can easily grasp the demand required of priests: to learn the Divine Office by heart in Greek or Latin.
The heaven of the soul – the garden of the heart – is not some remote reality but hidden within when the spiritual intellect attains awareness of the movements of the Spirit in the deep, this Spirit whom the soul received at Baptism, the spirit of adoption who cries, “Abba! Father!” (see Rm 8. 16). And this same Spirit “testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,” as St. Paul rightly said. All the endeavor in the prayer life is focused on this truth: to attain spiritual watchfulness In order to recite the continuous prayer of the Spirit with the Spirit and in the Spirit.
It is this same spirit who reveals also the authentic immanence of “His Majesty” in the soul in her Christification. This is indeed what St. Paul said, “Father of all, over all, through all and within all” (Ep 4. 6). Just as the desert fathers waited in expectancy after His coming in the desert all the works of Teresa of Avila gives account of how this coming is realized in the prayer. The foundation of the prayer is as she says in her Life the humility which she repeats in The Way of Perfection because the Lord is clothed in humility and with Your humility, nothing will stop you. His Majesty has the initiative when His friends – the white nation of ever lasting joy, His holy messengers – find still another humble soul in their daily inspection of human hearts on earth.
Thus the garden of the heart is rooted in humility and as Meister Eckhart said “fluids run downhill into anything adapted to receive them.” The water is already at hand, but when the soul takes the first steps in the prayer life she is obliged to draw closer to the spring or well in her own endeavor to fetch the water to water the garden. This refers to the meditation which Teresa called mental prayer. This beginning stage is the vocal prayer which she discussed in chapters 11-13 in her Life. The difficulty is the lack of concentration or awareness and thus the vocal prayer must become mental prayer. Teresa is speaking to souls that are not strong, souls “that can not recollect or tie their minds down in mental prayer” which I guess refers to must of us in modern times. Her methodology is simple,
Teresa's message is the same as the Blessed Virgin’s: look at Him! As a help to recollection Teresa recommended an image or a painting of Jesus, “What you can do as a help in this matter is to try to carry about an image or painting of this Lord that is to your liking, not so in order to carry it about on your heart and never look at it but so in order to speak often with Him; for He will inspire you with what to say. Since you speak with other persons, why must words fail you more when you speak with God?” Teresa call this a perfect recitation of a vocal prayer,
This gradual suspension of the contemplative intellect Teresa sheds light upon as infused prayer in chapters 14-15 in her Life. This is the second stage when the prayer of recollection (marked by N on the diagram above) becomes a prayer of rest (E). Here everything begins to go more smoothly as God has now the initiative. She compares this stage with a water wheel – noria – which still today is used in Spain and is driven by a windmill. Thus the garden of the heart is now watered. This is the prayer of the Holy Spirit (see Rm 8. 26) which has always been at work in the heart after the baptism, but becomes now authentic experience.
The Holy Spirit gives the soul now rest from her endeavor. Gradually all the functions of the souls powers are quieted down: the soul becomes passive (pasivo). The meditation becomes more and more akin to contemplation and the prayer is simple. This experience is difficult for many because we are used to control our lives in accordance with our own will and now God has enraptured the will to Himself and the soul's powers have lost their captain. Teresa emphasizes two virtues at this stage: the humility and the communion of the Church. The prayer is never egoistic and all its charisms are intended to serve the community of the Church in order to build up its living body.
The third stage of the prayer (marked by S on the diagram) which she discusses in chapters 16-17 she calls the sleep of the soul's powers. Now the garden is watered by a brook or a river. The live of grace – the water – saturates gradually all the soul's being, she so to say sinks down into the earth of humility. The soul doesn't belong longer to herself and God does what is in accordance with His purpose: to free the soul from herself. The love demands continuously more and the soul is overwhelmed by love and is like in a deep sleep. The powers of the souls are uprooted and thoughts and images fly like butterflies aimlessly in the head as their supervisor – the will – is enchanted by God. God is making a breakthrough as the Living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The fourth and final stage in this transformation of the soul in her assimilation to her Royal Image of Glory and the fourth way in which the garden of the heart is watered is rain falling in quantity from heaven. This Teresa discusses in chapters 18-20 in her Life. It is now God that brings the water to the soul and all her trials are behind. She has reached the center of the Tetramorph. The soul has become one with her Beloved and from this fact the name of the prayer is derived: the prayer of union. This is the stage of numerous charisms, super mundane graces and ecstasies. But these are only side effects which do not matter. The only thing which matter now is the union in love between the soul and her God. God has now opened the treasure house of His heavenly blessings, but the soul does not demand anything on her behalf.
Everything streams through the heart of the soul – this heavenly garden as she has become a replica of the Tetramorph – were she enjoys holy rest in restless love. She is only a thoroughfare of God's boundless love whom she loves in boundless love just as her neighbors. She is not frightened of death because she has attained His life for the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus made her free from the law of sin and of death (see Rm 8. 2).
When Teresa discussed the seventh and last invocation of the Our Father: Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a mal, the subject matter is important. She refers to the toll houses of the ancient fathers which she calls “inns”. If the soul is not humble and attentive to God's infused love and His divine will she will fall into the temptation of pride and self indulgence, the severest among the death sins, fall like the guardian cherub formerly from this heaven, or will be driven out of the Garden as Adam and Eve in their presumptuousness This is one and the same thing as to replace the Giver with His gifts, to become enchanted by super mundane graces, rather than gaze to God, to esteem the fruit more than God's will,
We can repeat with Teresa, “We ought to give great praise to the Lord for the sublime perfection of this evangelic prayer.” In it the soul has been forgiven all her offenses, is cured off all diseases, her life has been redeemed from the abyss and God has crowned her with faithful love and tenderness (see psalm 103). This is to be clothed in Christ or by Saint Paul's words, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me” (2 Cor 2. 20).
The Doxology is continuously on Teresa's lips from now on and thus she says, For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. “From her heart shall flow streams of living water” (Jn 7. 38).
He emphasized the role of the prayer life as continuous prayer which directs the soul to the silence of the heart – to the hesychia kardia as the Greeks called it – where the sobriety or growing awareness of the soul was a corner stone. Just as among the Egyptian desert fathers Our Father was the pattern to follow in the contemplative prayer. This can best be seen by the fact that in his Rule Albertus ordered those of the brothers who were not able to pray the Liturgy of the Hours or Divine Office to replace it with a certain number of paternosters. The Our Father was thus considered a worthy substitute for the Divine Office. It might sound strange that the lay brothers were not able to pray the Divine Office, but when we bear in mind how expensive it indeed was to compose manuscript in these remote times, we can easily grasp the demand required of priests: to learn the Divine Office by heart in Greek or Latin.
In the Way of Perfection Teresa
praised the Our Father in a sublime way, “We ought to give great praise
to the Lord for the sublime perfection of this evangelic prayer. Each
of us, daughters, can apply the prayer to her own needs since it was
composed by such a good Master. I marvel to see that in so few words
everything about contemplation and perfection is included.” [1]
The heaven of the soul – the garden of the heart – is not some remote reality but hidden within when the spiritual intellect attains awareness of the movements of the Spirit in the deep, this Spirit whom the soul received at Baptism, the spirit of adoption who cries, “Abba! Father!” (see Rm 8. 16). And this same Spirit “testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,” as St. Paul rightly said. All the endeavor in the prayer life is focused on this truth: to attain spiritual watchfulness In order to recite the continuous prayer of the Spirit with the Spirit and in the Spirit.
It is this same spirit who reveals also the authentic immanence of “His Majesty” in the soul in her Christification. This is indeed what St. Paul said, “Father of all, over all, through all and within all” (Ep 4. 6). Just as the desert fathers waited in expectancy after His coming in the desert all the works of Teresa of Avila gives account of how this coming is realized in the prayer. The foundation of the prayer is as she says in her Life the humility which she repeats in The Way of Perfection because the Lord is clothed in humility and with Your humility, nothing will stop you. His Majesty has the initiative when His friends – the white nation of ever lasting joy, His holy messengers – find still another humble soul in their daily inspection of human hearts on earth.
Thus the garden of the heart is rooted in humility and as Meister Eckhart said “fluids run downhill into anything adapted to receive them.” The water is already at hand, but when the soul takes the first steps in the prayer life she is obliged to draw closer to the spring or well in her own endeavor to fetch the water to water the garden. This refers to the meditation which Teresa called mental prayer. This beginning stage is the vocal prayer which she discussed in chapters 11-13 in her Life. The difficulty is the lack of concentration or awareness and thus the vocal prayer must become mental prayer. Teresa is speaking to souls that are not strong, souls “that can not recollect or tie their minds down in mental prayer” which I guess refers to must of us in modern times. Her methodology is simple,
I'm not asking you to do anything
more than look to Him. For who can keep you from turning the eyes of
your soul toward this Lord, even if you do so just for a moment if you
can't do more? . . . Well now, daughters, your Spouse never takes His
eyes of you . . . Behold. He is not waiting for anything else, as He
says to His bride (Sg 2. 14) than that you look at Him. In the measure
you desire Him, you will find Him. He so esteems our turning to look at
Him that no diligence will be lacking on His part. [2]
Teresa's message is the same as the Blessed Virgin’s: look at Him! As a help to recollection Teresa recommended an image or a painting of Jesus, “What you can do as a help in this matter is to try to carry about an image or painting of this Lord that is to your liking, not so in order to carry it about on your heart and never look at it but so in order to speak often with Him; for He will inspire you with what to say. Since you speak with other persons, why must words fail you more when you speak with God?” Teresa call this a perfect recitation of a vocal prayer,
To keep you from thinking that
little is gained through a perfect recitation of a vocal prayer, I tell
you that it is very possible that while you are reciting the Our Father
or some other vocal prayer. the Lord may raise you to perfect
contemplation. By these means His Majesty shows that He listens to the
one who speaks to Him . . . suspending one's intellect. [3]
This gradual suspension of the contemplative intellect Teresa sheds light upon as infused prayer in chapters 14-15 in her Life. This is the second stage when the prayer of recollection (marked by N on the diagram above) becomes a prayer of rest (E). Here everything begins to go more smoothly as God has now the initiative. She compares this stage with a water wheel – noria – which still today is used in Spain and is driven by a windmill. Thus the garden of the heart is now watered. This is the prayer of the Holy Spirit (see Rm 8. 26) which has always been at work in the heart after the baptism, but becomes now authentic experience.
The Holy Spirit gives the soul now rest from her endeavor. Gradually all the functions of the souls powers are quieted down: the soul becomes passive (pasivo). The meditation becomes more and more akin to contemplation and the prayer is simple. This experience is difficult for many because we are used to control our lives in accordance with our own will and now God has enraptured the will to Himself and the soul's powers have lost their captain. Teresa emphasizes two virtues at this stage: the humility and the communion of the Church. The prayer is never egoistic and all its charisms are intended to serve the community of the Church in order to build up its living body.
The third stage of the prayer (marked by S on the diagram) which she discusses in chapters 16-17 she calls the sleep of the soul's powers. Now the garden is watered by a brook or a river. The live of grace – the water – saturates gradually all the soul's being, she so to say sinks down into the earth of humility. The soul doesn't belong longer to herself and God does what is in accordance with His purpose: to free the soul from herself. The love demands continuously more and the soul is overwhelmed by love and is like in a deep sleep. The powers of the souls are uprooted and thoughts and images fly like butterflies aimlessly in the head as their supervisor – the will – is enchanted by God. God is making a breakthrough as the Living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The fourth and final stage in this transformation of the soul in her assimilation to her Royal Image of Glory and the fourth way in which the garden of the heart is watered is rain falling in quantity from heaven. This Teresa discusses in chapters 18-20 in her Life. It is now God that brings the water to the soul and all her trials are behind. She has reached the center of the Tetramorph. The soul has become one with her Beloved and from this fact the name of the prayer is derived: the prayer of union. This is the stage of numerous charisms, super mundane graces and ecstasies. But these are only side effects which do not matter. The only thing which matter now is the union in love between the soul and her God. God has now opened the treasure house of His heavenly blessings, but the soul does not demand anything on her behalf.
Everything streams through the heart of the soul – this heavenly garden as she has become a replica of the Tetramorph – were she enjoys holy rest in restless love. She is only a thoroughfare of God's boundless love whom she loves in boundless love just as her neighbors. She is not frightened of death because she has attained His life for the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus made her free from the law of sin and of death (see Rm 8. 2).
When Teresa discussed the seventh and last invocation of the Our Father: Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a mal, the subject matter is important. She refers to the toll houses of the ancient fathers which she calls “inns”. If the soul is not humble and attentive to God's infused love and His divine will she will fall into the temptation of pride and self indulgence, the severest among the death sins, fall like the guardian cherub formerly from this heaven, or will be driven out of the Garden as Adam and Eve in their presumptuousness This is one and the same thing as to replace the Giver with His gifts, to become enchanted by super mundane graces, rather than gaze to God, to esteem the fruit more than God's will,
As long as we have not reached
this state (fullness of the love of charity in true penitence),
Sisters, let us beseech God that if therefore we are receiving
sufferings, they will be received here below. For, with hope of being
freed from them, we can bear them willingly, and we will not lose His
friendship and grace. Let us beseech Him to give us His grace in this
life so that we will not walk unaware into temptation. [4]
We can repeat with Teresa, “We ought to give great praise to the Lord for the sublime perfection of this evangelic prayer.” In it the soul has been forgiven all her offenses, is cured off all diseases, her life has been redeemed from the abyss and God has crowned her with faithful love and tenderness (see psalm 103). This is to be clothed in Christ or by Saint Paul's words, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me” (2 Cor 2. 20).
The Doxology is continuously on Teresa's lips from now on and thus she says, For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. “From her heart shall flow streams of living water” (Jn 7. 38).