Awesome! That is my first impression of Saint Teresa of Avila. I recently got a mail from Amazon.com recommending her book, "The Interior Castle". Since that is a concept which I have thought and written occasionally over the last couple years, in my more touristly than saintly way, I was intrigued.
(I first saw the concept of an interior castle in a Japanese martial arts TV series and it struck me as profoundly true. I have not taken much interest in Catholic literature until just lately, since Catholic countries suck.)
I have a problem with St Teresa's work. The problem is that I stop at the beginning and don't want to go on, because her words are so awesome I just want to stop and read them again and laugh with joy at the brightness of it all. I can only hope this improves further into the book. Probably, since it is supposedly for the most part about things that are too high and holy for me at this time. But the beginning. Whoa.
Would it not be gross ignorance, my daughters, if, when a man was questioned about his name, or country, or parents, he could not answer? Stupid as this would be, it is unspeakably more foolish to care to learn nothing of our nature except that we possess bodies, and only to realize vaguely that we have souls, because people say so and it is a doctrine of faith.
St Teresa, where have you been all my life?
(PS: The book is available for free download elsewhere, legally, being out of copyright for centuries.)
3 comments:
Thanks for the recommendation, Magnus. I'll have to look that one up.
I was just reading about her last week in a copy of Dark Night of the Soul. St. John of the Cross was a close associate of hers and a confessor for many of her "barefoot" Carmelite nuns. She was awesome.
As a natural hypochondriac, I intend to avoid reading Dark Night of the Soul as long as I can!
No disrespect intended for St John.
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