Klaus Hart Brasilientexte

Teresa was born into a bourgeois family in Avila in 1515. She entered the monastery when she was 20 but her love affair with God only revealed itself as a great passion nine years later, in 1544. She felt enraptured by this mystic experience.

At a historical moment when Cartesianism divided the unity between spirituality and theology and the Protestant Reformation gave more importance to the experience of faith over the doctrine of ecclesiastical authority, Teresa became suspect in the eyes of the Inquisition.

Between 1558 and 1560 six theologians kept her under surveillance, ready to unmask the demon they believed to be behind her spirituality…

Teresa did not experience visions; she was certain of the presence of the Beloved in her heart: ”This is a great grace from God and let him to whom he has given it esteem it much because it is a very high degree of prayer but it is not vision. God is understood to be present there by the effect he works in the soul: that is the way His Majesty makes His presence felt (Life, 27, 4)

Fernando de Valdes the inquisitor battled against this ”loving spirituality and in 1559 published the index of forbidden books particularly novels, some of which were Teresa™s favourites: ”When they withdrew many books in the vernacular from the public so that they could not be read, I was very sorry, because reading some of them entertained me and I could no longer do it for they only permitted them to be in Latin. The Lord said to me: ”Don™t be sad, I will give you a book which is alive (Life, 26, 6)

Jeronimo de Sáo José tells that the sisters were surprised by Teresa: ”Why does Teresa get involved with these inventions? Why these extremes and novelties, so much prayer and contemplation, hiding in the attics and corners of the house?

There came a time when no one wanted to hear Teresa™s confession: ”I was afraid that the moment would come when nobody would want to hear my confession, for they all run from me. All I did was cry (Life 28, 14). Many reproaches and many vexations have I borne while telling this. So certain were they to whom I spoke that I had an evil spirit that some would have me exorcised. I did not care much for this but I felt it bitterly when I saw that my confessors were afraid to hear me or when I knew that they were told anything about me. (Life 29, 4). ”I do not understand our fears: It is the devil! It is the devil! When we can say God! God! (Life 25, 22).

 
St Paul in the First Letter to the Corinthians says: ”Women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not allowed to speak but should be subordinate, as even the law says. But if they want to learn anything, they should ask their husbands at home. For it is improper for a woman to speak in the church. (14:34-35)

In 1970 Pope Paul VI dared to disagree with the Apostle and proclaimed Teresa a ”Doctor of the Church.  A militant of the faith, reformer and foundress, she did not keep quiet in the Church, she struggled in the cause of religious freedom for contemplatives and became their spiritual mistress. She left us a work of great spiritual and literary value.

For Teresa the active life and the contemplative life journey together: ”when the soul is in this state Martha and Mary do not cease to work together because in what would appear to be external activity, interior activity operates and when active works spring from this root, they are admirable. (Meditations on the Song of Songs 7, 3. cf. Exclamations 5, 2).

When she died in 1582 aged 67, Teresa had founded 17 monasteries in Spain. In a Church marked by scholastic academicism and the suspicion that mystics were insubordinate to ecclesiastical control, Teresa opened the doors of a loving spirituality which is internalized and joyful and is reached through meditation and by renouncing everything which alienates us and is superfluous, trusting that God loves us passionately and unconditionally.

Frei Betto has always been active in Brazilian social movements, and has been an adviser to the Church™s ministry to workers in Sáo Paulo™s industrial belt, to the Church base communities, and to the Landless Rural Workers™ Movement (MST).