Here is the summary of the 4th and 5th Mansions in the Interior Castle that was presented at the February meeting.

Lay Dominican – Large Group Study

Summary of The Interior Castle, St. Teresa of Avila

On the Fourth and Fifth Mansions

Using the Study Addition, Translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D.,

ICS Publications, Washington, DC, 2010

We continue our study of St Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle after a beautiful preaching last month on the first three mansions, which focused on states of prayer “achievable through active or human efforts and the ordinary help of grace”; and we venture into the Fourth and Fifth Mansions, or dwelling places, the first two of the final four mansions, all of which illuminate for us the stages of prayer characterized by passive or mystical elements of the spiritual life.

History: St. Teresa’s Life in Three Stages

In her own movement through the mansions, St. Teresa’s spiritual life can be separated into three distinct stages. The first period was her childhood and youth until entrance into religious life between the years 1515-1535. In this first stage of her life, she experienced many highs-and-lows and notable breakdowns. This took her in and out of the First, Second, and Third Mansions.

The second period occurred between 1535-1544, and includes her initial years as a Carmelite nun, a serious and painful illness, and her return to prayer after her father’s death in 1543. This period was marked by “intense ascetical struggle” and entrance into the fourth mansion.

The third period, marking her soul’s entrance into the final three mansions and supernatural union with God, comes soon after her conversion in 1554. How did she come to the point of conversion? Let us go back a step to that second period of her life and a look at the Fourth Mansion. Teresa was leading a holy life within the monastery. Though she had fallen away from prayer, she enjoyed having visitors with whom she could still remember and share the consolations God gives and brief glimpses of Him, discussing mental prayer and other things concerning faith. Yet she still focused her energies outward.

The Fourth Mansion or Dwelling Place is where the soul begins to experience infused prayer, which St. Teresa also calls “supernatural prayer” or “contemplation”. The key to knowing whether the soul is still in this fourth mansion is that it experiences this transitioning back and forth, or even an intermingling, between the natural and the supernatural (or the acquired and the infused), because it is still struggling between friendship with God and friendship with the world. (p120-21)

The soul struggles with the natural world in three main ways:

First, the soul is still strongly tempted by worldly matters. However, because the soul is aware of these temptations and other pains, it even more greatly desires the quiet, peace, and love within the spirit (that turning to God offers). Thus, the soul merits greatly by knowingly resisting temptations in this stage.

Second, the way the soul experiences God is greatly influenced by human nature and one’s individual temperament. For example, when meditation on one’s sins or on the Passion of Christ results in tears or even heavy sobbing, the soul may eventually experience what Teresa calls “contentos” or “consolations.” Consolations begin with our own human efforts and end in God. St. Teresa identifies these devout efforts (such as meditation, petitions, or virtuous works) as noisy activity working almost continually with the Intellect, BUT they are important in this mansion if one needs to awaken the Will. However, when the Will is awakened through Acts of Love, Praising God, Rejoicing in His goodness, and Desiring His honor and glory, the soul should abandon meditation and follow the Will’s call towards God. (IV, 1, vi-vii)

Third, the soul does not understand that of which it is capable. If it did, it would not be so distracted when the mind will not concentrate on what is happening with the will. St. Teresa blames these distractions on a weak imagination, human nature, and the devil. She writes, “There is an interior world here within us. Just as we cannot stop the movement of the heavens, but they proceed in rapid motion, so neither can we stop our mind…” The mind or imagination is NOT one of the soul’s faculties, and so the soul might be joined with God (in “suspension” or contemplation) in the central mansions even while the mind is suffering in the outer walls of the castle. But still the soul merits from this suffering by overcoming it, and by persevering in prayer. (IV, 1, ix, xiv)

The first degree of supernatural prayer is one that, in The Interior Castle, Teresa names the prayer of recollection. Though sporadic and not perfect or pure, these first recurring moments of divine union in the fourth mansion draw the soul toward a more intense spiritual life. Teresa believes that “the faculties are not united but absorbed by God and looking as though in wonder at what they see.” In other words, during recollection, the mind and its distractions are stopped or suspended and only occur in the soul of one whose love for God has already been awakened and who has already begun to despise the world. Here, St. Teresa specifically mentions that although those in the married state cannot despise the world in deed, they can do so by desire. (4^th, 3.3). According to Jordan Aumann, O.P., “Discursive meditation can be defined as a reasoned application of the mind to some supernatural truth in order to penetrate its meaning, love it, and carry it into practice with the assistance of grace” (Spiritual Theology). Aumann, who studied Carmelite spirituality, outlines Carmelite method of meditation in three stages: first, the Introduction – which includes Preparation & Reading; second, Meditation – which includes an Imaginative representation of the material (some scene in the Gospels or the like), Reflection or meditation, and Conversation with God; and third, the Conclusion – which includes Thanksgiving, Oblation, and Petition. The Catechism states, “Meditation engages thought, imagination, emotion and desire… This mobilization of faculties is necessary in order to deepen our convictions of faith, prompt the conversion of our heart, and strengthen our will to follow Christ” (CCC 2708). Any joy we feel from discursive meditation is what Teresa described before as natural or acquired, because it begins in the soul rather than in God and is affected by our temperament and emotions.

St. Teresa had difficulty praying with discursive meditation (she thought it required much work and produced too much mind noise) and it was our Lord Himself who taught her how to pray the prayer of recollection. In her books The Way of Perfection and her autobiography, Teresa asserts that the prayer of recollection is the best way by anyone to begin prayer, no matter how advanced one is in the spiritual life. Recollection is keeping Christ present by drawing all the soul’s faculties together and entering itself to be with God (Way of Perfection 28.4). Neither the intellect nor the imagination is involved, as mentioned before; rather, one senses a “gentle drawing inward”, like a turtle drawing into its shell, and comes only when God wants to grant the favor. Though infused, St. Teresa suggests two ways of maintaining this recollection: repetition of vocal prayer and being present to our Lord in scenes of the Gospel. She writes, “The important thing is not to think much but to love much, and so do that which best stirs you to love” (IV, 1, 7; 3, iii).

To explain recollection through imagery, Teresa likens the senses and faculties to people walking around for many years outside the castle, in the company of the castle’s enemies. At some point, the senses and faculties realize their folly, and, though they sometimes come inside the castle, they lack the habit of staying inside and so wander out again. The King knows their good intentions and mercifully calls them to Himself with an almost inaudible whistle. This whistle is so powerful that they can pull themselves away from the exterior things and enter the castle again (IV, 3, ii). This explains St.Augustine’s memorable confession: “Late have I loved Thee, 0 Beauty so ancient and ever new; late have I loved Thee! For behold Thou were within me, and I outside; and I sought Thee outside and in my unloveliness fell upon those lovely things that Thou hast made. Thou were with me and I was not with Thee. Iwas kept from Thee by those things, yet had they not been in Thee, they would not have been at all.” (Confessions, X, 27)

By the prayer of recollection, the edifice is being built to prepare the soul for a deeper experience (IV, 3, i). It is being prepared for the prayer of quiet, moments of silence and rest experienced at first only by the Will. These are gratuitous favors from God, pure gift. We cannot merit infused prayer; and, so, should not expect consolations. We should not be discouraged if we do not experience consolations (Teresa writes, “If the well is dry, we cannot put water into it” p134). This prayer of quiet, touches only the Will with grace, which is the love of God penetrating the human heart (p136). The soul feels God’s “goodness and tender love toward humans” (p135) but does not necessarily feel consolations (IV, 3)

How do we recognize Love when He comes? Teresa says that it is not in “great delight”. Love manifests in our “desiring with strong determination to please God in everything, striving not to offend Him, and asking Him for the advancement of honor and glory of His Son and the increase of the Catholic Church.”

How can one love much effectively while vacillating from the world to God? Teresa talks about an expansion of the heart during contemplative prayer, drawing upon imagery in Psalm 119:32: “I have run the way of thy commandments, when thou didst enlarge my heart.” She later writes that the enlarging of the heart really must be an enlargement of the soul. And she introduces the image of two fountains, to discuss the difference between the two types of prayer that characterize this fourth dwelling place: consolations (natural prayer, which begins with our efforts and end in God) and spiritual delight (also called infused or supernatural prayer, which begins in God and ends in ourselves) (IV, 2, iii, v).

Consolations are like a fountain filled from far away and carried through many different aqueducts. It takes much creativity and intelligence to fill the fountain, just like consolations are obtained by tiring the intellect through thoughts and discursive meditation. (IV, 2, iii)

Spiritual Delights, on the other hand, (which St. Teresa calls “gustos”) are like the fountain which flows directly out of its source, abundant and quiet, and ever flowing. Its source is God, and when He wills, the fountain offers spiritual delights, “the greatest peace, quiet, and sweetness,” which may even overflow from the most interior part of the soul into the body. But the more water there is, the larger the trough holding the water becomes. The soul can hold all this delight, because this heavenly water “swells and expands our interior being.” (IV, 2, vi). In her autobiography, Teresa compares the soul that reaches this state to a little spring constantly flowing, always stirring, and thinking about what it will do. She warns against seeking out spiritual delights, although she acknowledges that anyone who has experienced them will desire them. But it is important not to strive for them. (IV, 2, iii-iv)

How can we possibly obtain these delights without seeking them? Practicing humility and detachment will properly dispose the soul to receive them (IV, 2, x).

We can have confidence that St. Teresa’s description of this mystical prayer that is so difficult to explain, because other saints have described it in a similar way. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, living 500 years before her and proclaimed Doctor of the Church, had also experienced supernatural prayer. He speaks of God as Love and alludes to the same fountain. He writes, “Love is sufficient of itself, it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in its practice. I love because I love, I love that I may love. Love is a great thing so long as it continually returns to its fountainhead, flows back to its source, always drawing from there the water which constantly replenishes it.
“Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make some sort of similar return however unequal though it be. For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return; the soul purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love him are made happy by their love of him.“

There are certain signs by which one can recognize that the soul has experienced this prayer of quiet. It no longer fears hell or physical trials, but fears offending God. It knows that God will always give the strength necessary to overcome any trial and desires more penance to have something more to offer God. The soul improves in virtue, because it withdrawals from the world as the worldly delights are “filth” compared to delights of God. Yet even now, if the soul does not seek virtue and persevere in prayer to avoid offending God, it could lose everything and stray even further than one who has not received these gifts. The devil tries to tempt these souls because they have been shown a particular love by God.(V, 2, viii; 3, ii)

St. Teresa warns that women should especially be on guard against the devil counterfeiting God’s favors and causing what she terms a “stupor,” which generates a certain languishing in the soul. It lasts a long time, and a person becomes weak. This is much different from the prayer of quiet which lasts only a short time and usually does not produce any exterior feeling. The remedy for stupor is an active life, less time spent in solitude, lighter mortifications and penances (IV, 3, xi-xiv).

Teresa now moves into the Fifth Mansion. She writes that true contemplation is a precious pearl, “a treasure which lies within our very selves” (IC, V, 1). It is available to everyone if only we dispose ourselves to communicate with our Lord, if we beg Him to help us rid of any impediments through our own fault. Teresa mentions learning that God is in all things through His presence, power, and essence and she insists that “anyone who does not believe that God is present even in a sinner has not reached the prayer of union” (p169). She likely learned this from her Dominican confessors who knew well the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas that: “God is in all things by his power inasmuch as all things are subject to his power; he is by his presence in all things, as all things are bare and open to his eyes; he is in all things by his essence, inasmuch as he is present to all as the cause of their being” (Summa theologiae Ia q.8, a.3) (p171)

Mystical union “points like a sacrament to the culmination of the love God has for human beings” (p169). Although the faculties can be said to be asleep to the things of the world and to ourselves, it is more like a delightful death to the world as the soul is living more completely in God. During contemplation, the intellect is stunned because it wants to understand what the soul is experiencing, but it cannot. For this reason, a person in this state would seem dead. (V, 1, iv)

Since the imagination, the memory, and the intellect are all suspended or absorbed, nor can the devil enter or do any damage, God can work within the soul without being disturbed. In Revelation we read, “Behold, I stand at the gate, and knock. If any man shall hear my voice, and open to me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (3:20). Our Lord does not want any impediments to our soul: the will must fully surrender; the faculties and senses put to sleep so He can enter. No door will stop Him from entering when all has been surrendered, like when He passed through the door of the Upper Room and through the stone guarding His tomb. Like the bride in the Song of Songs, the soul is placed by God in the wine cellar and He puts charity in order within her (Song of Sol 2:4). The soul is now under the rule of love. (V, 1, v; p187)

St. Bernard writes, “It is true that the creature loves less because she is less. But if she loves with her whole being, nothing is lacking where everything is given.”

Despite its love for God, a person may still be tempted by the devil at this stage if it ever vainly directs its love elsewhere (V, 3, x).

Another difference between the prayer of quiet in the Fourth Mansion and mystical union in the Fifth is certitude. Other vain unions do not cause true joy in the soul. The difference is as drastic as “feeling something on the rough outer covering of the body” and a feeling deep within, “in the marrow of the bones” (V, 1). Still tainted with worldly attachments, the soul in the Fourth Mansion is always doubtful after infused contemplation, left with a thousand suspicions whether it really was God communicating with the soul. This is good because it guards the soul against deception and keeps it on its guard. If there is no certainty, union of some other kind may have taken place with other favors granted to the soul, but it will not have been union of the whole soul with God. In the Fifth Mansion, Mystical union, and the certainty that the soul was in God and God was in it, is never doubted, even if years pass without God granting the favor again (V, 1, ix-xi).

The illustration Teresa gives to explain the prayer of union is the silkworm. She compares its growth to the first four mansions, and the cocoon to the house wherein it will die. The house is Christ. We build the cocoon through our sacrifices and by detaching from every earthly thing. When the soul emerges, like the butterfly or moth from its cocoon, it does not recognize itself, and begins to feel great pain, feeling so much love for God especially when He is offended. The soul feels new suffering in that it no longer belongs to earth. Teresa writes, “How can (the soul) be happy walking step by step when it can fly?” The effects of this transformation in the soul are that it finds strength in penance, sadness in offending God, and weariness in all worldly matters for it can find no rest here. It desires to leave the world and regrets that it does not have the ability to give more to God. In fact, it is not entirely surrendered to God’s will yet (V, 2, ii-x)

This pain or longing for God, Teresa explains by saying the soul is like wax that has been impressed with a seal. Lord, “All you want is our will and that there be no impediment in the wax” (V, 2, xii). However, mystical union in the Christian soul is only a shadow of the reality, the divine union which is the Holy Trinity. Christ’s love and desire to save souls were infinitely greater than our suffering can ever be for the sake of Christ. Teresa writes that His suffering while witnessing the offenses against God the Father were greater even than those of His Passion (V, 2, xii-xiv).

After experiencing the prayer of union, although the soul falls away from prayer by focusing too much on little matters under the guise of good, yet God’s favor will not be lost. The person who experienced the divine favors desires to benefit other souls and explain the favors God grants to whomever loves Him and serves Him. This happened to St. Teresa. (p 215) To avoid falling away, she says we must be obedient to God’s law, and keep our wills fixed on His will. We also must continue to grow in virtue, for even the littlest “worms” in the form of self-love, self-esteem, judging one’s neighbor, and lack of charity will keep us from advancing spiritually. God grants favors to whomever He wishes, good or bad. He alone knows how much good He can do in a soul; we should not judge or be jealous of those who appear to receive more favors than we do. We should always rejoice in God’s goodness no matter where it is bestowed. I was touched by her reference to “half-learned, fearful” men who cause much damage to souls; and I pray that it strengthens our resolve to always continue learning about God and looking for ways to practice humility. (V, 3, i, vi; 1, xiii)

If we conform our wills to God and love Him alone, we may be granted a deeper union which she names the delightful union. The clearest sign that we love God is love of our neighbor. Union is obtained through loving acts, not by sitting silently waiting always for spiritual delights. St. Teresa was convinced that for all the acts of love shown to our neighbor, God would reward the soul by a thousand times over increasing its love for Him (V, 3, viii-ix, xi).

Before we continue to the next stage, I want to briefly note where we are in history. Teresa began to write The Interior Castle on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, on June 2, 1577, at the request of her confessor Fr. Gracian, a Carmelite friar enthusiastic for the reform. She had written as far as the second chapter of the Fifth Mansion when constant interruptions finally forced her to stop. She was suffering from the scrutiny and disapproval of the reforms her Order was undergoing. An offensive pamphlet had appeared denouncing Teresa. The papal nuncio in Spain Nicolas Ormaneto, who had guarded her and believed in her, died. The new nuncio determined to discard all plans of reform. She thought it best to return to Avila to draw less attention, but she could not hide. The commissary general of the order, Fr. Jeronimo Tostado, gave orders to annul the elections when the Carmelite nuns elected her once again as prioress. Those nuns who insisted on electing her again were excommunicated. Teresa had no desire to be prioress again. Her headaches were getting worse, and she needed the help of a scribe when she was able to sit down to work on her book again. Although five months had passed since she had last worked on it, she did not have the energy or strength to re-read or edit anything. She simply continued where she left off, without any mention of these outward troubles, and finished the book in less than a month on November 29^th (p5-7).

Back to the Fifth Mansion. At some point, this prayer of union deepens, and the soul begins to recognize the Lord as its Spouse. It sees His goodness and will do anything to make Him happy. Instead of receiving gifts from Him, the soul secretly sees more of who He is. St. Teresa compares this level of union to an engaged couple going through the stages before marriage. First, they must learn more about each other by meeting regularly (V, 4, ii-iv).

As the soul is drawn closer to God, and before it is united to Him in the divine Espousal, the devil tries to win the soul for himself. How is the soul deceived when all it wants is to do the will of God? Very sneakily. The devil deceives the soul into turning its attentions little by little to insignificant things that appear to be good. And “little by little, he darkens the intellect, cools the will’s ardor, and makes self-love grow” (V, 4, viii). This is not an easy task for the devil because God gives this soul a thousand interior warnings. Teresa warns us not to trust ourselves, to constantly ask God in prayer to sustain us, and to keep watch over whether we are growing in virtue. Love is never idle, and so must be growing in virtue, advancing. Failing to grow is a warning (V, 4, v-x).

I will end with a quote from St. Bernard of Clairvaux, based on Song of Songs 27:10 (“I to my beloved, and his turning is towards me.”

What a capacity this soul has, how privileged its merits, that it is found worthy not only to receive the divine presence, but to be able to make sufficient room! What can I say of her who can provide avenues spacious enough for the God of majesty to walk in! She certainly cannot afford to be entangled in lawsuits not by worldly cares; she cannot be enslaved by gluttony and sensual pleasures, by the lust of the eyes, the ambition to rule, or by pride in the possession of power. If she is to become heaven, the swelling place of God, it is first of all essential that she be empty of all these defects. Otherwise, how could she be still enough of all these defects. Otherwise how could she be still enough to know that he is God?… The soul must grow and expand, that it may be roomy enough for God. Its width is its love, if we accept what the Apostle says: ‘Widen your hearts with love.’ The soul being a spirit does not admit of material expansion, but grace confers gifts on it that nature is no equipped to bestow. Its growth and expansion must be understood in a spiritual sense; it is its virtue that increases, not its substance…The capacity of any one’s soul is judged by the amount of love on possesses” (p 216).

(“It is true that the creature loves less because she is less. But if she loves with her whole being, nothing is lacking where everything is given. To love so ardently then is to share the marriage bond; she cannot love so much and not be totally loved, and it is in the perfect union of two hearts that complete and perfected marriage consists.” – St. Bernard of Clairvaux)