Fr. Pierre-Marie of the Cross, OCD
“Therefore, I urgently recommend that we never give up prayer” (KŽ 15, 3).
Among the many pieces of advice that Teresa gave to those who asked her for light, few are repeated as often as this one. In her work, we often come across it in various forms. The saint immediately explains why: “Here [in prayer] the soul understands what it does and receives from the Lord the grace of penance and the strength to rise” (KŽ 15, 3).
Let us understand that Teresa speaks here based on her rich experiences. She was not always the exalted mystic that she later became. Her beginnings were difficult, filled with weakness and failures that long hindered her enthusiasm for God.
Prayer for her was a constant living reproach, a place of her struggle. Under God’s gaze, she felt distinctly that the life she led – completely attached to the vanities in which her nature delighted – was incompatible with the highest and purest gift that God continually asked of her. It troubled her continuously. “On this turbulent sea, I spent almost twenty years...” (KŽ 8, 2).
What ultimately saved Teresa? Prayer. Without it, she could easily have succumbed to “worldly joys” that so attracted her personality and character – but in doing so, she would have been lost to God. However, with prayer, it was no longer possible to maintain peace in such a divided life. At one point, Teresa succumbed, it's true. She understood that she had to choose between the joys of the world and the joys from God. Because she felt more attached to the first, she rejected the latter. Under the pretext of humility, she stopped praying: “It is one of the most painful, delicate, and hidden inventions of the devil that I have discovered” (KŽ 30, 10).
Is this pious exaggeration? Not at all. Saint Teresa means exactly what she says. She is not a woman who regrets something without reason. Her words are true. Until the last day of her life, she will insist that there is no worse temptation than the temptation to abandon prayer.
What remains if we lose (among other things) the three effects of prayer that the saint mentions? We deprive ourselves of three states of the soul, which she considers essential for spiritual life: self-knowledge, humility, and great desires. Let us now pause at these effects.
1. In prayer, we understand what we are doing
In prayer, we receive self-knowledge, which is the foundation of all wisdom. Teresa wants this self-knowledge to accompany us to the highest states of prayer. Self-knowledge “is the bread given to eat on this prayer journey along with all meals, no matter how delicate, and without this bread, the souls cannot be nourished” (KŽ 13, 15).
Where do we find this bread? Certainly in examining our conscience, but here we find it only partially, since “no one can be a judge in their own case.” We judge ourselves by a perspective that can never be entirely impartial. Our view is distorted by our hidden tendencies, which are precisely what need to be recognized.
Life, with all it brings, and people with their judgments and criticisms teach us very carefully about ourselves. But even their testimony remains incomplete, for they see only our outward behavior. “Man looks at the outward appearance...” (1 Sam 16,7). Moreover, we often miss precisely that in which we could learn more truth about ourselves from them.
Only God’s gaze examines the heart and mind. “But the Lord looks at the heart...” (1 Sam 16,7). Prayer not only puts us under God’s gaze but also gives us a share in God’s light. In this brightness that comes from above, one can see even their hidden corners that would never be revealed through the examination of conscience – and sees them in a completely new way. Such knowledge is no longer the result of self-examination, which can always be only partial, but it is an intuitive, inner knowledge – suddenly we see our misery. The dryness of prayer, which leaves us exhausted and powerless against ourselves, also sweeps away all illusions, reveals all the small lies that were meant to improve our self-image, and uncovers every disguise. When we stand before God face to face, all masks fall away. Even the unconscious lies that the “spirit of the world” has sown in us cannot withstand divine light.
It is a long-distance run; we do not see the results immediately. And sometimes it can shake us quite a bit! We often think that we are done with ourselves, but we are not. God continues to purify our innermost being for a long time.
Prayer thus strips us to enrich us. It undresses us from the person we think we are and returns us to who we truly are. It awakens in us a strong aversion to everything that is not true. Saint Teresa does not hesitate to accept such a blessing and calls:
“Test us, Lord, you who know the truth, so that we may know ourselves” (3 H 1, 9).
2. In prayer, we receive sorrow for our faults
Prayer is an exchange of love. And it does not cease to be one even in times of greatest desolation, when it seems to us that the Lord is distant, indifferent to the faithfulness of our seeking. We remain in love even when we do not feel it (and precisely because we do not feel it), and God remains in love as well. Without our conscious effort, without feeling it, mutual intimacy with Him is thus strengthened, and our affection for God deepens and refines. At the same moment that grace enlightens our inner being and our faults, it also gives us sorrow over them.
Love cannot bear anything that distances it from the one it loves. Every obstacle, offense, or tactlessness is suffering for it. The more we love God, the more it pains us how little we love Him. If in prayer we understand what we are doing, then in prayer we also lament what we have done.
If we cease to pray, we will not only distance ourselves from the light of truth but will also cease to hear the gentle reproaches of love that we perceive only in quietude. Even if we fill our life with the best deeds, this will soon be soiled by human dishonesty and ultimately contribute very little to our sanctification and to hastening the coming of God’s kingdom. Christ reminds us that there are also good deeds by which we do not do anything special, which even Gentiles do.
3. In prayer, we gain the strength to rise again
Love is dynamic; it needs to be shared and distributed. To participate in the exchange of love with God means to receive His divine power. Love in us awakens not only sorrow for the past but also gives strength for the future.
“Despite the evils committed by one who began (praying), let him not abandon it, for it is a means by which one can return to amend, and without it, it will be much more difficult. (...) Whenever the (soul) sincerely repents and decides not to offend Him, the original friendship and imparting of graces, which before (God) was given, is renewed, and sometimes much more, if the sorrow merits it” (KŽ 8, 5).
If God tries us in prayer, it is not to weaken or break us, but to transform us; to elevate any activity that remains on our human level to the level of His divine action in the world. When God awakens in the soul a sorrow for her faults, it is not a barren, burdensome sorrow. It is a sorrow full of desire. The same love that leads us to sorrow also gives us a longing.
Saint Peter also went through this path. In trial, he fell, denied the Lord, and recognized his misery. But the look of love, which he exchanges with Jesus, moves him to sorrow. Two days later, he runs to the empty tomb, where he enters first, to later be led by love to where “he does not want to go”.
Saint Teresa conveys what she has deeply understood herself. Succumbing to the temptation of despair and abandoning prayer means losing the best opportunity to approach God and begin to do what He expects from us. Persisting in prayer “despite all faults,” and even precisely because of them, means remaining in God’s hand, in the “right hand” that protects, leads, and attracts us.
The moments of daily prayer that we have set aside are the most precious times of the day. Something sacred, belonging to God: let us not take it back. It is clear that during this time we will suffer a bit, and in many ways, because Satan does not like prayer and often tries to make it unpleasant for us. “He knows the harm that comes to him from it,” said Saint Teresa (KŽ 11, 4). Nevertheless, let us persevere. God will lead us further and further on paths that are not our own as long as we give our consent.
God awaits us, hidden in His mystery. To pray means to look at this mystery with the eyes of faith and love. God sometimes lifts the veil slightly and reveals Himself in such a way that we can perceive Him. But if we stop looking, how could we see anything? Saint Teresa repeats for us:
“Oh, Lord, all harm comes to us from the fact that we do not have our eyes fixed on you” (CD 16, 7).
(4th chapter from the book Prayer of the Poor,
published in 2013 by
Carmelite Publishing House.)
