The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel

1. One day, in prayer, the sweetness of which was so great that, knowing how unworthy I was of so great a blessing, I began to think how much I had deserved to be in that place...

God has shown her. From some of these very good doctrine may be gathered, and this, as she declares, was, besides compliance with obedience, her principal motive (in writing thi...

1. Having now left that city, [1] I travelled in great joy, resolved to suffer most willingly whatever our Lord might be pleased to lay upon me. On the night of my arrival here,...

1. I wish I could explain, with the help of God, wherein union differs from rapture, or from transport, or from flight of the spirit, as they speak, or from a trance, which are...

1. One night I was so unwell that I thought I might be excused making my prayer; so I took my rosary, that I might employ myself in vocal prayer, trying not to be recollected in...

1. So, then, going on from pastime to pastime, from vanity to vanity, from one occasion of sin to another, I began to expose myself exceedingly to the very greatest dangers: my...

1. I was once importuning our Lord exceedingly to restore the sight of a person who had claims upon me, and who was almost wholly blind. I was very sorry for him, and afraid our...

1. Now that I have described certain temptations and troubles, interior and secret, of which Satan was the cause, I will speak of others which he wrought almost in public, and i...

1. It will be as well, I think, to explain these locutions of God, and to describe what the soul feels when it receives them, in order that you, my father, may understand the ma...

1. When I saw that I was able to do little or nothing towards avoiding these great impetuosities, I began also to be afraid of them, because I could not understand how this pain...

The Security of Contemplatives Lies in Their Not Ascending to High Things if Our Lord Does Not Raise Them. The Sacred Humanity Must Be the Road to the Highest Contemplation. A D...

1. I have thought it right to speak of certain temptations I have observed to which beginners are liable--some of them I have had myself--and to give some advice about certain t...

1. Now, though I was very careful that no one should know what we were doing, all this work could not be carried on so secretly as not to come to the knowledge of divers persons...

1. I now resume the story of my life. I was in great pain and distress; and many prayers, as I said, [1] were made on my behalf, that our Lord would lead me by another and a saf...

1. I now resume our subject. I spent some days, not many, with that vision [1] continually before me. It did me so much good, that I never ceased to pray. Even when I did cease,...

1. When the matter was in this state--so near its conclusion, that on the very next day the papers were to be signed--then it was that the Father Provincial changed his mind. I...

1. I shall now return to that point in my life where I broke off, [1] having made, I believe, a longer digression than I need have made, in order that what is still to come may...

1. Let us now go back to the subject. This quiet and recollection of the soul makes itself in great measure felt in the satisfaction and peace, attended with very great joy and...

as well as several passages where Vuestra Merced--you, my Father--is addressed. For although the book came finally into the hands of Father Bañez, it was first delivered into th...

Why Men Do Not Attain Quickly to the Perfect Love of God. Of Four Degrees of Prayer. Of the First Degree. The Doctrine Profitable for Beginners, and for Those Who Have No Sensib...

The Effects of This Fourth State of Prayer. Earnest Exhortations to Those Who Have Attained to It Not to Go Back, Nor to Cease from Prayer, Even if They Fall. The Great Calamity...

1. Some considerable time after our Lord had bestowed upon me the graces I have been describing, and others also of a higher nature, I was one day in prayer when I found myself...

1. When I was staying with this lady, [1] already spoken of, in whose house I remained more than six months, our Lord ordained that a holy woman [2] of our Order should hear of...

The Fourth State of Prayer. The Great Dignity of the Soul Raised to It by Our Lord. Attainable on Earth, Not by Our Merit, but by the Goodness of Our Lord.

v. 17; persuaded by the Saint to practise mental prayer, vii. 16; makes progress therein, vii. 20; holy death of, vii. 22-25; seen in heaven by the Saint, xxxviii. 1.

1. I forgot to say how, in the year of my novitiate, I suffered much uneasiness about things in themselves of no importance; but I was found fault with very often when I was bla...

1. It is painful to me to recount more of the graces which our Lord gave me than these already spoken of; and they are so many, that nobody can believe they were ever given to o...

the Divine and the imaginary locutions, says that a person commending a matter to God with great earnestness, may think that he hears whether his prayer will be granted or not:...

1. In those days, when I was thus resolved, I had persuaded one of my brothers, [1] by speaking to him of the vanity of the world, to become a friar; and we agreed together to s...

The Saint Ceases Not to Pray. Prayer the Way to Recover What Is Lost. All Exhorted to Pray. The Great Advantage of Prayer, Even to Those Who May Have Ceased from It.

1. Having spoken of the toilsome efforts and of the strength required for watering the garden when we have to draw the water out of the well, let us now speak of the second mann...

1. After those four days, during which I was insensible, so great was my distress, that our Lord alone knoweth the intolerable sufferings I endured. My tongue was bitten to piec...

1. To bring this matter to an end, I say that it is not necessary for the soul to give its consent here; it is already given: the soul knows that it has given up its will into H...

The Graces She Received in Prayer. What We Can Do Ourselves. The Great Importance of Understanding What Our Lord Is Doing for Us. She Desires Her Confessors to Keep Her Writings...

1. Enough has been said of this manner of prayer, and of what the soul has to do, or rather, to speak more correctly, of what God is doing within it; for it is He who now takes...

1. Let us now speak of the third water wherewith this garden is watered,--water running from a river or from a brook,--whereby the garden is watered with very much less trouble,...

1. What I shall now speak of was, I believe, the beginning of great harm to me. I often think how wrong it is of parents not to be very careful that their children should always...

9. When they had begun to insist on my putting my visions to a test like this, and resisting them, the graces I received were multiplied more and more. I tried to distract mysel...

1. My soul was now grown weary; and the miserable habits it had contracted would not suffer it to rest, though it was desirous of doing so. It came to pass one day, when I went...

1. After this my confession, my soul was so docile that, as it seems to me, there was nothing in the world I was not prepared to undertake. I began at once to make a change in m...

1. I had a father and mother, who were devout and feared God. Our Lord also helped me with His grace. All this would have been enough to make me good, if I had not been so wicke...

1. My aim in the foregoing chapter--though I digressed to many other matters, because they seemed to me very necessary--was to explain how much we may attain to of ourselves; an...

1. I look upon the courage which our Lord has implanted in me against evil spirits as one of the greatest mercies which He has bestowed upon me; for a cowardly soul, afraid of a...

1. I have wandered far from the subject; for I undertook to give reasons why the vision was no work of the imagination. For how can we, by any efforts of ours, picture to oursel...

1. I began gradually to like the good and holy conversation of this nun. How well she used to speak of God! for she was a person of great discretion and sanctity. I listened to...

Satan, subtlety of, iv. 14; an artifice of, vii. 12, 35; suggests a false humility, xiii. 5; and a carefulness for health, xiii. 9; afraid of learned directors who are humble, x...

of the world, xxix. 5; vehemence of her love, xxix. 10; her supernatural wound, xxix. 17; manifests her spiritual state to St. Peter of Alcantara, xxx. 4; bodily trials of, xxx....

absented herself from this place and how her Superior commanded her to go away at the request of a very noble lady who was in great affliction. She begins to tell what happened...

entirely abandoning prayer so as not to lose her soul; and what an excellent remedy this is in order to win back what one has lost. She exhorts everybody to practise prayer, and...

explain the effects on the soul of this degree of prayer. She earnestly exhorts not to turn back nor to give up prayer even if, after having received this favour, one should fal...

begins to explain [3] in what high dignity God holds a soul that has attained this state; this should animate those who are given to prayer, to make an effort to reach so high a...

prayer, and how much we can do for ourselves, and of the importance of understanding God's mercies towards us. She requests those to whom this is to be sent to keep the remainde...

foundation of this convent of the glorious St. Joseph was finally accomplished, and the great contradictions and persecutions she had to endure after the Religious had taken the...

perceived by the soul without being actually heard; and of some deceits that might take place in this matter, and how one is to know which is which. This is most profitable for...

contemplatives is not to lift up the spirit to high things but to wait for God to lift it up. How the Sacred Humanity of Christ is the medium for the most exalted contemplation....

spirit in that place of Hell she had deserved by her sins. She tells a little [6] of what she saw there compared with what there was besides. She begins to speak of the manner a...

of an elevated nature; what the soul that has come so far can do, and the effect of such great graces of God. This is calculated to greatly animate the spirit to the praise of G...

sent her a remedy for all her anxieties by calling the holy Friar Fray Pedro de Alcantara of the Order of the glorious St. Francis to the place where she lived. She mentions som...

love God perfectly in a short time. She begins to expound by means of a comparison four degrees of prayer, of the first of which she treats here; this is most profitable for beg...

and how He appeared to her for the first time; she explains what an imaginary vision is, and speaks of the powerful effects it leaves and the signs whether it is from God. This...

her some favour; together with other very good doctrine. She shows how one ought to strive after and prize every increase in heavenly glory, and that for no trouble whatever one...

prayer, and says what a soul having reached it feels when obliged to turn back and live in the world, and speaks of the light God gives concerning the deceits (of the world). Th...

began to practise greater perfection. This is profitable for those who have to direct souls practising prayer that they may know how to deal with beginners, and she speaks of th...

our glorious Father St. Joseph; in what manner our Lord ordained that holy poverty should be observed there; the reason why she left the lady with whom she had been staying, and...

advice how one should behave in the prayer of quiet. She shows that many souls advance so far, but that few go beyond. The matters treated of in this chapter are very necessary...

without speaking, makes His Will known in an admirable manner. She goes on to explain a vision, though not an imaginary one, and a great grace with which God favoured her. This...

her, even making known to her heavenly secrets by means of visions and revelations His Majesty vouchsafed to grant her; she speaks of the effects they caused and the great impro...

the glorious St. Joseph. How she was commanded to have nothing (further) to do with it, how she abandoned it, also the troubles it brought her and how God consoled her in all this.

suffered and the patience God gave her to bear them, and how He turned evil into good, as is seen from something that happened at the place where she went for a cure.

Trance, and explains what a Trance is; she also says something about the good a soul derives from being, through God's goodness, led so far. She speaks of the effects of Union. [5]

graces granted her by God; how He promised to hear her requests on behalf of persons for whom she should pray. Some remarkable instances in which His Majesty thus favoured her.

soul improved since she began to practise obedience, and how little she was able to resist God's graces, and how His Majesty continued to give them more and more abundantly.