We’ve reached the end of our journey through the mansions and arrived at the center. Where, Teresa describes the spiritual marriage that takes place between the soul and God. After briefly covering this mansion I’ll talk about my reflections of the book overall. (more…)
Written and posted by Jamison on November 17, 2009, 11:09 am.
Filed under: General Discussion, Reflections
We’ve come now to the third or mansions, or the third floor of our tower. At this point in Teresa’s descriptions we’ve arrived at the point where people are basically living a pious life. In this level we find people who have managed to overcome the day to day struggles of sin. Granted, from her description, the holiness appears to be an outward holiness, and perhaps hasn’t penetrated them completely.
I believe that, through His goodness, there are many such souls in the world: they are most desirous not to offend His Majesty; they avoid committing even venial sins; they love doing penance, they spend hours in recollection; they use their time well; they practise works of charity toward their neighbours; and they are very careful in their speech and dress and in the government of their household if they have one.
Written and posted by Jamison on September 26, 2009, 12:38 pm.
Filed under: General Discussion, Reflections, Transformation
This second portion of Teresa of Ávila’s work is quite short. She explains that this is because she has covered much of this material in a different book. However, I don’t really feel compelled to go and seek out that book, and want to just stay focused on what she’s given us to chew on in this book.
In the second mansion described by Teresa , we have progressed deeper into the human soul, but not too deep. We are still in an area of the castle where the broods of vipers and wild animals (as she is so fond of talking about) can still enter and seek to bite us, in other words we can still be tempted to sin quite readily. However, in this second phase of our journey inwards, we start to see a change in intention. If prayer is the doorway in which we begin our pathway towards uniting Christ and our soul, then it is in the second mansion that we start to perfect our steps through the denial of sin.
Written and posted by Jamison on September 21, 2009, 9:40 pm.
Filed under: General Discussion, Reflections, Transformation
Today I picked up, and started reading Interior Castle by Teresa of Ávila. I thought it might be an interesting task to bring the readers of HHG (all 3 of you) along with me as I journey through this classic work. The nature of this work is to examine our souls as if they were a mansion with many layers of rooms. Christ’s light is at the core, with His power of love, compassion and perfection. The world of sinfulness and darkness exists beyond the outer rooms. Therefore the question we face is how we can move ourselves further inwards towards the pure light of Christ.
Written and posted by Jamison on September 19, 2009, 5:01 pm.
Filed under: General Discussion, Reflections, Transformation
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