Teresa of Avila

Description

Our Holy Father St. John of the Cross sought to help souls find the narrow way that leads to heaven through the complete detachment of the soul from all creatures, in order to attain to a perfect love of God. He explained that God will lead a soul to Union with Him, if the soul cooperates in an emptying of all desires for anything that is contrary to God. The attaining of Union with God is primarily God’s work, yet the soul can correspond with a joyful detachment from everything that is not God. When our souls are completely detached from everything but the love of God, God can take complete possession of our souls and unite them to Himself. This is our primary focus as Carmelite Monks, to love God above all things with the hope of being transformed in Him.

Our Holy Mother St. Teresa of Jesus taught the importance of mental prayer and the practice of the highest virtues for attaining to the heights of the mystical life. She explained that we must have an intimate relationship with Christ, who loves us, through a daily conversation with Him. Over many years of daily mental prayer and the practice of virtue, a soul can be lead by the way of contemplation to the heights of Union with God. As Carmelite Monks, we strive to follow the many teachings St. Teresa left us on attaining to contemplation and an intimate Union with God.

St. Teresa’s deepest conviction as a Carmelite was to imitate the way of life of the early hermits of the Order. She often said: “Let us remember our holy fathers of past days, the hermits whose lives we attempt to imitate. What sufferings they bore, what solitude, cold, thirst and hunger, what burning sun and heat! And yet they had no one to complain to except God.” She also said to her daughters: “For the whole manner of life we are trying to live is making us, not only nuns, but hermits, like the holy fathers our predecessors.” In the way of life instituted by Ss. Teresa of Jesus and John of the Cross, we find the means necessary to live the pristine charism of those first hermits on Mount Carmel.