Day 2: Avila
Wednesday, Sept 25, 2024
On Day 2, we started with a great breakfast and great coffee!!!
We visited today the Monastery of the Incarnation, in which Teresa professed and spent the first 27 years of her religious life. She entered the religious life there on November 2, 1533, the feast of All Souls. She was 18 years old. Her brother entered the Dominican Order that same day. Because her parents had such great means, and because she therefore had quite a dowry, the Order received much from them. For that reason, she got a really good cell: right next to the chapel. It was small, but right next to the chapel. More on that in a minute.
Outside in front is a beautiful statue of St Teresa. It's interesting because she is walking...an interesting posture for a cloistered contemplative. But, you see, Teresa always taught that UNION WITH JESUS is expressed in a LIFE OF CHARITY. Being one with Jesus -- not just a distant follower or a moral code adherent -- means we will live a Christ life, each in his or her own vocation. For Teresa, it was as a contemplative. For Mother Teresa of Calcutta who would take her name many years later, it was as a missionary to the poorest of the poor. For each of us it is something special. The statue is also nice becuase she just looks so kind, so real.
This posture of Teresa in this photo is particularly beautiful given that she is walking....just as we will be walking to Camino in the coming days. Such is the nature of life: pilgrimage.
From the courtyard, we first went into the monastery. On the way in, we found a statue of Pope St. John Paul II, who was just the best! He came to Avila in 1982 an celebrated Mass for the nuns to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Teresa of Ávila. Here is his homily from that Mass in Spanish. He visited the Monastery of the Incarnation for the Mass. His chair is there and a relic or two.
That last picture is Sergio, our bus driver....Pope John Paul II gave him a hug one time. That makes him a second class relic! And me, a third!!!
Then came the inside entrance area, the only part of the monastery that would have been accessible to the public. (The monastery remains, but has moved to the other side of the courtyard so that the public can enter into this part that would have been the main thing back in Teresa's day.)
There at the entrance area is where the vsitors would talk with the nuns through a screen. There are three such rooms there. One time, St. Teresa was being visited by St John of the Cross....and the two were found on their respective sides of the gate levitating! There is a painting of that moment in the room now.
I offered a prayer there and knelt where these holy saints levitated. I asked their intercession, to make me more of a contemplative, more in union with Jesus, more a man in union iwth Jesus.
We then went and saw the parlor. In the parlor the nuns would gather and chat and so forth. This was one reason Teresa founded her reformed order: because there was too much comfort, too much chatting, too much coffee and so forth. She had nothing against the nuns; she just yearned to live a life more in line with the original charism of the Carmelites: austerity, solitude, strict contemplation, etc. There is an image in the parlor that inspired her much - the flagellation of Christ. These two things in the parlor -- the image and the excessive partying and chatting and so froth -- helped lead her to her reform
We saw some of the other areas and saw how some of the architecture was inspired by the Muslims who occupied Avila for years before they were all expelled around 1500. Seen in this photo also is a cello; she loved music and praising God through music--and the other sisters, too.
We saw the cell she would have lived in during her three years as the Prioress. Simple but quite spacious. The ropes to the bells are in that room, since it was the job of the Prioress to ring the bells that called everyone to prayer. There in the cell is also a statue of San Pedro and a spinning wheel.
Outside her room we saw the key to the cell she lived in for 24 of her 27 years in the monastery there. AMAZING!
Also, we found this beautiful state of St. Joseph with an open mouth. This is interesting because normally St. Joseph isn't talking. But St Teresa had a great devotion to St Joseph and often felt his presence and protection, as she writes:
I have taken for my advocate and protector, the glorious St. Joseph, to whom I have recommended myself with all the fervor of my heart, and by whom I have been visibly aided. This tender father of my soul, this loving protector hastened to snatch me from the wretched state in which my body languished, as he had delivered me from greater dangers of another nature, which threatened my honor and my eternal salvation.
His mouth is open not only to show that she received direction and guidance from him, but also because the other nuns would talk about all this among each other - and some were thinking she was crazy. People think that about all the saints.
We also found vestments...oh how I'd love to wear them!
And a picture she treasured of Jesus with his cross, drawn by St John of the Cross!
And the key to her cell before she became prioress...
Above are also some items from St Teresa's holy week experiences, including the vase used for washing of the feet and the pillow the cross rested on (not sure I'm remembering those items correctly)
Also there is the chair St John of the Cross would have sat on as he heard confessions
If that chair could talk! On the other side of that chair was this grill, where the nuns would have come to give their confessions and receive absolution in the holy sacrament. It's right there in the church. So beautiful!
Also is buried there in the floor Bishop Alvaro de Mendoza, who was bishop during the time of the reforms and who gave his full support. The importance of a pastor saying YES to the workings of GOD...how often we have tragically seen, in the course of church history, some unfortunate NOs.
Off the side of the main chapel is the Chapel of Transverberation. So beautiful! There is a cross on the wall that says "Tengo sed de ti," which means, "I am thirst for you." Of course, Jesus said the first two words--"I thirst"--on the Cross as he was preparing to die. St Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who took her name after St Teresa of Avila (just as St Therese the Little Flower did), would later require all chapels of her Missionaries of Charity order to have a simple altar, a simple crucifix, and the words "I Thirst" next to the Crucifix. Also on the ground is engraved: "La tierra que pisas es santa." That is because, when the chapel was constructed, those words were heard by the sisters. "The ground you are walking is holy."
Off to the side of the sanctuary of the Chapel of Transverberation is a door that leads to the cell where St Teresa lived before she because the prioress. I asked how it was she, of all the nuns, got that room -- right there? Turns out it was because her parents were so wealthy and her dowry--given to the Order--was so big. Her parents were from wealthy and powerful families with ties to the old kingdom of Castile. In her cell there was a small second floor with a mini-kitchen.
The Chapel of Transverberation is where the mystical piercing of Teresa's heart took place. The "transverberation" is a mystical grace wherein the Saint’s heart was pierced with a “dart of love” by an angel. She wrote about it in the Book of Life:
I saw an angel beside me toward the left side, in bodily form. He was not very large, but small, very beautiful, his face so blazing with light that he seemed to be one of the very highest angels, who appear all on fire. They must be those they call Cherubim…I saw in his hands a long dart of gold, and at the end of the iron there seemed to me to be a little fire. This I thought he thrust through my heart several times, and that it reached my very entrails. As he withdrew it, I thought it brought them with it, and left me all burning with a great love of God. So great was the pain, that it made me give those moans; and so utter the sweetness that this sharpest of pains gave me, that there was no wanting it to stop, nor is there any contenting of the soul with less than God
St. John of the Cross wrote:
It will happen that while the soul is inflamed with the Love of God, it will feel that a seraph is assailing it by means of an arrow or dart which is all afire with love. And the seraph pierces and in an instant cauterizes this soul, which, like a red-hot coal, or better a flame, is already enkindled. The soul is converted into an immense fire of Love. Few persons have reached these heights
Three years later, in 1562, St Teresa started her first reformed monastery whose rule of life would return her and the sisters that would follow to the original charisms of the Carmelite life.
The best statue of the transverberation is in front the wall, and I shot this photo on an ice cream run late last night
That year, she obtained permission from Pope Pius IV to found the convent of St. Joseph’s. A miracle is attributed to St. Teresa during the time St. Joseph’s was being built. As the story goes, Teresa’s young nephew was playing near the construction site when a section of wall fell on the boy, leading to severe injury or death. When St. Teresa arrived on the scene, she reportedly was able to perform a miracle healing, either mending his injuries or raising him from the dead.
So dedicated to St Joseph was she that she named her convent after him. She would found many a total of 17 reformed monasteries before her death. Several were called St. Joseph. We visited one of them and found the very simple church. Here's a map in the museum we visited of the ones she founded
On the wall is a sign in Spanish that explains the place:
Buried in the middle in front of the altar is Fr. Francisco de Salcedo, who died on Dec. 9, 1580. He had been a pious layman and had served in the army to protect Avila and especially the Church. When his wife died, he became a priest. He was one of Teresa's first spiritual directors--the first, actually. She went to confession to him and learned about mental prayer from him. He had studied mental prayer and practiced and preached about it for 40 years. He had doubts about whether Teresa's visions and insights were from God or from the Devil, but she loved him and admired him greatly because he was the one who first showed her the deep life of prayer that was meant for everyone.
On the back is a picutre of St. Joseph--for reasons we already discussed. She loved St Joseph and had a great devotion to him. In Joseph, she saw a portrait of contemplation and devotion to Jesus done right. She also saw earthly father in him, who was so good to her.
We saw what her cell would have looked like -- a simple wooden cross, a little tiny desk for writing, and a bed with a literal log as the pillow. She wanted to suffer for and with Jesus. She saw in Jesus somone who had been "damaged" so much - and she too wanted to be damaged with him. She had a great devotion to the cross.
Lastly, we had Holy Mass in the chapel of the cathedral of Avila called San Segundo. San Segundo is venerated as a Christian missionary and martyr of the 1st century, during the Apostolic Age. He evangelized Avila, and became its first bishop. He was ordained by St. Peter the first pope, and co-consecrated by St Paul. An image of his ordination is in the chapel. He probably would have known St. James and the other apostles, too. As James took the faith to Compestella, Segundo took the faith to Avila. This is where we had Mass today:
Fr. Matt talked about how we, like San Segundo and Santiago, have something to take with us on this journey of faith: our gifts, challenges, prayers, etc. Our opening hymn at Mass was the Spanish version of St Teresa's famous prayer:
Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.
When San Segundo's body was uncovered, it was discovered that he had not corrupted. Here we are 1900 years later, and still his body has not corrupted. He was known to be a saintly man who evangelized with great charity and passion -- and this, too, is depicted in the chapel.
After Mass, we got on the bus to head over to Lugo, where we will start our portion of the Camino tomorrow!
