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As in a family, there is a kinship among various images (in our case, among the images of Our Lady of Mount Carmel)...

From the interpretation of the Carmelite Rule by Blessed John Soreth

Carmelite spirituality is today one of the most popular in the church. However, outside the circle of experts, it is not very well known, especially when it comes to the older part of our heritage.

Veronika Elisabeth Schmitt, OCD

“I emphasize everything that supports virtue, not bodily austerity.”

For centuries, the “Barefoot Carmel” has had a reputation for extraordinary penitential austerity. However, the letters of St. Teresa, the reformer and founder of this order, speak a different language. For instance, in a letter addressed to one of her sisters, Mother Maria of St. Joseph, a prioress in Seville, we read: “... the candies you sent me in such quantities taste excellent.”¹ Teresa clearly knows how to savor them. She admits it to herself as well as to the sisters and brothers of her young order! She enthusiastically writes to the prioress in Salamanca: “I have a hermitage from which I can see the river. Even where I sleep, I have the same view, and I can admire it even from my bed, which gives me extraordinary pleasure.”² And to Father Gracián, she advises in one letter: “When sleep comes, enjoy it. You will still find plenty of time to think about what is needed.”³ Teresa is by no means a “numb” nun who cannot accept human emotions and pleasures. Her intense compassion for others is based on a highly developed ability to perceive through all the senses.

On the contrary, she looks skeptically at those who strictly maintain bodily austerity but chase after dubious pleasures in spiritual life: “If prayer is accompanied by those mentioned pleasurable feelings, it leaves only weakness, fear, and hypersensitivity toward those who do not appreciate us in our souls. I would not wish for any other prayer than that which makes me grow in virtues. Even if it is accompanied by strong temptations, dryness, and despondency, I consider it a good prayer only if I come out of it more humble.”⁴

Here it is very clear what reformer Teresa is aiming at: “I emphasize everything that supports virtue, not bodily austerity. You can see this in all our monasteries,”⁵ she writes to Father Marián. This insistence of hers was often misunderstood, as shown by the lines from the following letter: “If Father John of Jesus says that it is my will for our brothers to go barefoot, it seems strange to me; for I have always forbidden this to Father Antonín. I wanted capable men to enter the order and not be discouraged by excessive austerities.”⁶ She is not concerned at all about outer “strictness,” about the rigorism that was very relevant to her time in the monastic reform movement. She distances herself from it. What she cares about is the inner conversion of the heart. She speaks of humility and virtues, which are so important to her, and means those attitudes that lead from egocentric imprisonment to openness through all the senses to the divine and human You. One should become completely transparent to God's presence and His action in and through oneself.

“Please take care of your health!”

“God prefers your health and your obedience to your penitential exercises,” Teresa writes to her brother Lorenzo, whom she also spiritually accompanied.⁷ “This is a sign that you are surrendered to His will, and I consider this surrender the greatest good that comes with the practice of internal prayer.”⁸ Teresa certainly harmed her own health by often denying herself sleep due to excessive work. In hindsight, however, she recognized this as a mistake. “My health was indeed harmed by it, and therefore I fear it might have been a temptation,” she writes to Father Gonzalo Dávila in June 1578.⁹

Health is a gift from God that we must protect. With this understanding, Teresa stands in stark contrast to those who, at her time, exaggerated penitential practices. There is hardly a letter in which she does not inquire about the addressee's health and how they are doing, and she usually mentions how her health is doing too. She is particularly concerned about her sisters and Father Gracián; occasionally, she even gives therapeutic advice up to providing a recipe for pills that helped her so much. “I am convinced that using these medicines will greatly alleviate your suffering, even if you take just one pill every two weeks,” we read in a letter from 1581 to the prioress in Seville.¹⁰ The illnesses of others disturb Teresa much more than her own: “I do not know what to do so that the illnesses of my prioresses do not affect me so much. Please take care of your health, but neither you nor the sisters use that ‘healing’ water!”¹¹ When the plague rages in Seville, Teresa endures severe anxiety about her sisters and writes to Father Gracián in June 1582, a few months before her death: “Do not succumb to (...) the temptation to want to travel there! That would be ruinous for all of us, at least for me. God has indeed granted you health, but exposing it to danger would be appropriate only to prepare me for life!”¹²

Taking into account the condition in which one finds oneself is something Teresa recognizes in relation to the life of prayer. She knew the importance of psychosomatic connections and that both body and soul must be led “gently,” lest human nature suffer harm: “You must know that just as in the external world, there are also various ‘weathers’ in the inner world, and it cannot be otherwise…”¹³ She also gives advice: “Occasionally pay attention to taking a walk outdoors if you are feeling down; for it does not prevent prayer, and we must fight against our weaknesses in such a way that our nature does not suffer. This is also seeking God; for it is because of Him that we resort to these means, and it is necessary to lead our soul gently.”¹⁴

During her life in the monastery, Teresa hardly went a day without pain. Without bitterness, and with a great deal of humor, she admits: “... if I suffered no more than my usual pains, then my health is excellent.”¹⁵ She knew very well what it meant to have impaired health. This made her sensitive regarding the health of others.

It took until our time for reasonable care for health to become something natural in the monastery. Even the “little” Teresa of Lisieux was denied appropriate medical treatment. Her biological sisters had to secretly mix morphine into marmalade to somewhat relieve her pains. How would Teresa have cared for this sister and how would she have tried to help her! How unfaithful the order proved in this regard! It preferred poorly understood asceticism over such a human and Christian attitude of its founder!

It is no coincidence that Teresa emphasized the contemplation of Jesus' humanity in spiritual life. Human beings are the place where God reveals Himself. The Incarnation, this central truth of Christian faith, Teresa always placed, in every respect, at the center of her life.

“I no longer act as I was accustomed; everything is easier with love.”

To a world characterized by ambition, strength, hardness, and power, Teresa responds with human and “maternal” values. Again and again, she emphasizes how important it is for her that everything is done gently. This is the quality she values so much in Father Gracián. “I believe that Your Paternity will achieve much if you proceed quietly and gently,”¹⁶ she writes to him in 1575, in the same year that she got to know him. She also advises the prioresses of her reformed monasteries: “Prioresses should remember to execute their office with great gentleness.”¹⁷ About herself, she admits that she has gone through a process of learning in this regard: “You know that regarding the manner of leading the monastery, I no longer act as I was accustomed; everything is easier with love.”¹⁸

A few years after her death, Teresa's humanity, from which her deep spirituality emerged, would no longer guide the reformed Carmel; instead, an ascetic lifestyle hostile to life would set the tone, embodied in the new provincial, Father Dori. Father Gracián was expelled from the order due to his “lukewarmness.” Father John of the Cross was to meet the same fate; he preempted this by voluntarily signing up for the missions, but died before his departure. As a woman, Teresa set new standards for her reform, which the masculine world of her time understood far too little. Father Gracián and Father John of the Cross were the honorable exceptions here.

Only gradually could Teresa's great humanity establish itself in her order, not least thanks to the scientific research of our times, which has brought the original accents of the reform to light.

Our time is also not immune to erroneous forms of spiritual life. I think of that seductive “performance piety” which is evident everywhere, the inclination toward extraordinary phenomena, the overvaluation of “spiritual” areas of life, associated with disdain for the mundane and worldly. Teresa showed us through her life what true spirituality looks like: heaven and earth are connected in it in appealing humanity. Teresa wanted authenticity and thus credibility. This remains a challenge to this day.

“I have observed so much that monasteries, if these matters are considered unimportant, will gradually disappear.”

This is a time of the fiercest battles between reformed and unreformed members of the order. Everything is to be settled by nuncio Sega, a sworn opponent of Teresa. Lies of all kinds are brought to him against the reformers, including against Teresa herself: “About me, they said that I am a wandering and restless woman and that the monasteries I founded were established without the permission of the Pope and the order's superiors.”¹⁹ Nevertheless, Teresa does not fall into self-pity, even though she admits: “The Lord wants us to suffer because no one stands up for the truth and says a word in my defense.”²⁰ Even Father Gracián, her closest collaborator and confidant, cannot defend her. He himself is also persecuted. This is what Teresa suffers the most.

At the first provincial assembly of reformed brothers in Alcalá in 1581, Teresa is excluded. As a woman, she has no right to participate in decision-making, she, the founder of a new religious branch. “As for what concerns the sisters, perhaps I may nonetheless say at least a word, for I have observed so much that monasteries, if these matters are considered unimportant, will gradually disappear,”²¹ she writes to Father Gracián in February 1581, in order to influence the statutes for the sisters. Gracián (as a candidate whom she wished for) had just emerged from the first elections as provincial by one majority vote.

It took much time for Teresa's spirit to assert itself irrevocably through the voice of women, such as Teresa of Lisieux, Elizabeth of Dijon, and Edith Stein. “In short, truth may suffer, but it will not perish; and so I hope the Lord will reveal it even more.”²²

Taken from the magazine Karmelimpulse, Year 10, 2000/II, pp. 5–9.
Translated from German by Sister M. Petra of the Risen Christ, OCD.

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