The Life and Teachings of St. Teresa of Avila

In preparation for the celebration of the 500 years birth anniversary of St. Teresa of Avila on March 28, 2015.

St. Teresa’s First Stage of Prayer

After St. Teresa of Avila recovered from the serious illness which almost ended her life at a young age , she spent the next many years of her life at the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation praying and more importantly trying to discover the secrets of praying. Teresa was an avid reader of spiritual books and the lives of saints who have experienced favors from God. Influenced by the lives of the saints that she had read about, she herself developed a desire to be like them. She prayed hard to earn God’s favor. But as she confessed in her Book of Life, for eighteen years after she joined the Carmelite nuns she experienced only dryness in her prayers. For her, it seemed that God was not listening to her or making any response. But instead of being discouraged, she persevered and she forced herself to be determined in praying ceaselessly. Then one day, after prayer at the oratory of their convent as she passed by the image of Jesus being scourged and glanced at it, she felt within her the Suffering of Jesus and His Love flowing out for her. Suddenly she realized how little she was offering in return for the love she was receiving from the Lord. This moment changed Teresa’s life forever. She discovered the power of contemplative prayer and how one must prepare herself or himself to enter into a union with God.

In her Book of Life Teresa described the four stages of contemplative prayer. She did this in a beautiful way by using the allegory of the water and the garden. For Teresa, prayer is like a garden being tended by the gardener for God. The gardener is the person praying and he is responsible for keeping the plants growing by watering them. All that God does is pull out the weeds so that only the good seeds can grow in the garden.

The plants in the garden have to be watered daily by the gardener. The first stage of prayer is likened to the gardener drawing water from the well to water the plants. This stage requires the most effort and diligence. At this stage those who are still learning to pray should exert the most effort in removing themselves from distractions and consciously placing the mind in a state of meditation. And so a quiet place like a room in the house, a nook in the garden or better still an empty church or an adoration chapel is necessary for meditation. And reading short passages from the Scriptures or from a spiritual book helps greatly in entering a meditation state. It serves like a fertilizer to prayer. The object of meditation according to St. Teresa is to place oneself in the presence of God and talk to God. Tell God about your needs, your problems, your joys, your sadness, your fears, your plans in life as if you are talking to a friend. And if you have nothing to tell him just feel blessed that you are in his presence. Teresa believed, “This practice of carrying Christ in our consciousness is beneficial at all phases of the spiritual path, especially in the first degrees of prayer.”