or
Manifestations
or
Spiritual Testimonies
or
Relations of the Spirit
Relation X.
Relation 10
Of a Revelation
to the Saint at Avila, 1579, and
Of Certain Directions
Concerning the Government
of the Order.
|
________________________
Topics/ Discussion Questions
to keep in mind
as we read along:
1). What did St. Teresa hear
Our Lord say regarding
what the Discalced Carmelites Fathers
should observe?
[Relation 10: #1]
2). What was the "greatest graces"
that Our Lord had given to
St.Teresa on Pentecost
some twenty years before?
[ Relation 10: #1 ]
[ The Life: Ch 38: #11 ]
|
_________________________
Relation X.
In St. Joseph of Avila,
on Pentecost eve,
in the hermitage of Nazareth,
thinking of one of the greatest graces
our Lord had given me
on that day
some twenty years before, [733]
more or less,
my spirit
was vehemently stirred and
grew hot within me, [734] and
I fell into a trance.
In that profound recollection
I heard our Lord say
what I am now going to tell:
I was to say
to the Barefooted Fathers,
as from Him,
that they must strive
to observe four things;
and that so long as they observed them,
the Order would increase
more and more;
and if they neglected them,
they should know
that they were falling away
from their first estate.
The first is,
the superiors of the monasteries are
to be of one mind.
The second,
even if they have many monasteries,
to have but few friars in each.
The third,
to converse little
with people in the world,
and that only for the good of their souls.
The fourth,
to teach more by works than by words.
This happened in the year 1579;
and because it is a great truth,
I have put my name to it.
Teresa de Jesu
___________________
[733] See [522]
Life, ch. xxxviii. § 11.
|
From The Life: Ch 38: #11
"One day
-- it was the eve of Pentecost --
I went after Mass to a very lonely spot,
where I used to pray very often, and
began to read about the feast
in the book of a Carthusian;
[The Life of Christ,
by Ludolf of Saxony.]
and reading of the marks (signs)
by which beginners,
proficients, and the perfect
may know
that they have the Holy Ghost,
it seemed to me,
when I had read of these three states,
that by the goodness of God,
so far as I could understand,
the Holy Ghost was with me.
I praised God for it;
and calling to mind
how on another occasion,
when I read this,
I was very deficient,
-- for I saw most distinctly
at that time
how deficient I was then
from what I saw
I was now --
I recognised herein
the great mercy of our Lord to me,
and so began to
consider the place
which my sins had earned
for me in hell, and
praised God exceedingly,
because it seemed as if
I did not know my own soul again,
so great a change had come over it.
|
[734] Psalm xxxviii. 3:
"Concaluit cor meum intra me."
"My heart grew hot within me:
and in my meditation a fire shall flame out"
|
________________________________
End of Relation 10 |
