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 Second Stage of Prayer – The Prayer of Quiet

St. Teresa’s life in the convent of the Encarnation was not all spent strictly in prayer or in the prayer room. She had to do her share of the work in the convent like, cleaning floors, washing pots and pans, doing laundry work and gardening. There were also occasions when Teresa had to deal with the affairs of the world outside the convent, many of which were not easy matters. One of the important matters Teresa had to deal with was settling the heavily indebted estate of her father Alonso de Cepeda after he died. Her father had probably assessed Teresa’s gift in handling administrative matters and therefore named her as one of the executors of his estate. And perhaps like many heirs of the wealthy and landed deceased parents of Castillan families of Teresa’s time, properties were contested by the heirs and they very often had to go to Court to seek for legal settlement. Teresa’s family was one of these. Teresa managed to have the case settled by asking two of her brothers to share part of their bequest to a sister and her husband. Despite all of these distractions Teresa’s prayer life had remained undisturbed. In her Book of Life St. Teresa did talk about the storms that sometimes engulf her exterior life and the up and down movements of her interior life but she confessed that she had never abandoned prayer nor allowed her attention to be diverted. She commented that even among the pots and pans she still found the Presence of God. Perhaps the reason why Teresa could no longer be distracted is because at this time Teresa already discovered the prayer of Quiet.

In her discourse on prayer, Teresa talked about the second stage of prayer which she called the prayer of Quiet. Continuing with the allegory of the water and the garden, Teresa likened the second stage to the gardener (the person praying) obtaining water for the garden ( the state of prayer) through the use of a water wheel and an aqueduct. Unlike in the first stage when more labor and effort is needed to draw water from the well, in the second stage less effort is needed. The gardener need only to turn the crank of the wheel and water flows through the aqueducts and into the garden. With less effort and more water, the gardener can rest without need of working constantly. Teresa described this state in the following way:

“This is a supernatural state, and, however hard we try, we cannot reach it for ourselves; for it is a state in which the soul enters into peace, or rather in which the Lord gives it peace through His presence. In this state all the faculties are stilled. The soul, in a way which has nothing to do with the outward senses, realizes that it is now very close to its God, and that, if it were but a little closer, it would become one with Him through union. This is not because it sees Him either with its bodily or with its spiritual eyes. The body experiences the greatest delight and the soul is conscious of a deep satisfaction. So glad is it merely to find itself near the fountain that, even before it has begun to drink, it has had its fill. There seems nothing left for it to desire.” (Chapter 15, Book of Life).