Obedience in the Rule of St. Benedict

The Cycle of Daily Readings from the Rule of St. Benedict starts with the call to obedience. 

LI S T E N carefully, my child, to your master's precepts, and incline the ear of your heart (Prov. 4:20). Receive willingly and carry out effectively your loving father's advice, that by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience. To you, therefore, my words are now addressed, whoever you may be, who are renouncing your own will and are taking up the strong, bright armor of obedience to do battle under the Lord Christ, the true King,[i]

Obedience is often difficult for contemporary Americans who beat the loud drum of independent thinking and action.  The first job of military boot camp is to boot that out of us.  Why?  In warfare, if you don’t learn obedience you and your friends might very well die.  Bear in mind, that the testimony of the saints is that we are involved in an interstellar warfare on a cosmic scale.  “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.  Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”[ii]

Our call to obedience transcends the transitory characteristics of individual leaders who may themselves die, or be transferred, or perhaps even betray their call.  For leaders to lead they also must be under obedience.  People who don’t accept authority don’t exercise it very well.  The issues are larger than personalities.  In the Church we are called to obedience for each battle, but each battle is part of a larger action.  That larger action is not to be determined by the leaders nor by the will of the people, nor by those who make the most noise.  Rather it is determined by the revealed will of God and by the action of the Holy Spirit revealed in the ongoing tradition of the Church.  “We believe what has been believed always, everywhere, and by all.”  Stepping outside of the teachings of Holy Scripture and the cautionary tradition of the Church, is not prophetic action, nor innovation, it is very simply disobedience.

We are, each of us, called to obedience.  For the call of each individual soldier of the Lord has very little to do with the plans and policies, rebellions and stubbornness that we see vaunted in the media and so many blogs.  You are called to obedience, but it may not be what you would like to hear.  You are first of all called to obey the simple fundamentals of the faith.  God has said, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”[iii] 

For most of us obedience has to do with simple everyday things.  We are called to serve.  Service is the simple basic form of obedience.  So strong is this service that Saint Paul calls himself a “bondservant.”  He is bound under obedience and he has willingly taken that obedience upon himself, because he knows that disobedience ultimately leads to death, his death, and even ours.  The battle we are engaged in is no joke, but a real action with real enemies and very real casualties.

You also are called to obedience within the Church and within the family in simple things.  Make the coffee, move the chairs, clean the kitchen, do the laundry, fold the clothes, take the trash out.  You are called to humble service.  It is in surrender to the reality of the little things that need to be done that we find the necessary place of obedience. 

There should never be a time in the life of the Church, or the life of the family when you think that you are too busy, or too important to serve.  There should never be a time in either the Church or the family when people sit back and say, “Let George do it, that’s not my job.  I have more important things to do.”  Part of the difficulty is that we want something glorious to do, and what the Lord is saying is polish your boots, or even better, polish your brother’s boots.

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[i] The Prologue of the Rule of St. Benedict

[ii] Ephesians 6:12-13  

[iii] Leviticus 19:2

The Third Mansion: False Security

     Blessed is the man who fears the LORD[i],

“But of one thing I must warn you : … do not be too sure of yourselves…nor must you become confident because you are always talking about God, continually engaging in prayer, withdrawing yourselves completely from the things of this world and (to the best of your belief) abhorring them.”[ii]

Teresa is addressing the sisters in her Order, so what she advises is not surprising.  They are cloistered.  They observe the Hours of Prayer.  They fast, sometimes too much.  They meditate.  They talk of God.  She exhorts them, “Enter, then, enter within yourselves, my daughters; and get right away from your own trifling good works, for these you are bound, as Christians, to perform, and many more.”[iii]  What is surprising is the simple fact that we are so far from the problem that Teresa is concerned about. 

Contemporary Christians, particularly from an evangelical background, are too sure of themselves and have an odd confidence based on their assurance that they have accepted Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.  They have been told that they are accepted by God, and that’s the end of it.   They therefore assume that they must be perfectly fine.  Very few even know what the Hours of Prayer are.  In general they have a hard time praying and reading Scripture once a day, even for a short period of time.  They pray when the heat is on.  Meditation is exceptional.  And far from doing good works they assume that if they keep away from doing real stupid and wicked things that they are perfectly alright.

Contemporary Christianity has barely gotten through the gate of the Castle.  Having by grace arrived that far, some of the more adventuresome have entered the Interior Castle; accompanied by their snakes and vipers and poisonous creatures.  There they sit, often for far too little time in the Room of Self-Discovery, for self-discovery is a painful thing.  We live in an aspirin culture. Pain is not something we are taught to endure.

What then can we gather from Teresa’s exhortation to her sisters in the Third Mansion?  Certainly this, “Blessed is he who fears the Lord.”  God is to be held in awe, and we are not to rest on our own laurels.  She says, “Get away from your trifling good works,” and compared to her sisters our works are indeed trifling.  We should understand also that we would be wise “to get away from” the false assurances of contemporary Christianity.  What the Room of Self-Discovery should teach us is that God is awesome and we, by contrast are an embarrassment to the angels.  How could God love such creatures as we are?  “O LORD, what is man that you regard him, or the son of man that you think of him?”[iv]

It is alarming to hear St. Teresa say, “What do you expect His Majesty to do, for the reward which He is to give us must of necessity be proportionate with the love which we bare Him?  And this love, daughters, must not be wrought in our imagination but must be proved by our works.”[v]

Blaise Pascal, the 17^th Century scientist philosopher makes an important observation about the difference between imagination and the heart.  He says, “Men often take their imagination for their heart, and often believe they are converted as soon as they start thinking of becoming converted.”[vi]  Peter Kreeft comments, “Not all direct and immediate intuition is from the heart.  Imagination also intuits rather than reasons.  It “sees pictures”.  But it is not the heart.  And we can easily mistake it for the heart.  This is why we can imagine ourselves to be saints.  We can easily  imagine, think of, contemplate and be attracted to the idea of  giving our whole selves and lives over to God without actually doing it, and think we have done it because we have imagined it.”[vii] 

That is why the biblical view of conversion and surrender does not rest on subjective feelings, even though subjective feelings are a legitimate part of conversion.  In his epistle St. John says, “By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”[viii]  What Teresa said was, “This love, daughters, must not be wrought in our imagination but must be proved by our works.”[ix]  Those works include the works of righteousness and the works of love as we reach out to others.

We often spend too much effort in trying to recapture the subjective experiences of the Presence of God.  Instead of expecting unearned favors and blessings from our Lord, Teresa would have us understand that aridity in prayer is a gift given to help us understand our limitations and by spiritual discomfort draw us to greater discipline in seeking the Lord.  We have been taught a false application of the doctrine of justification by faith.  We are justified by faith.  That does not mean that there is no further discipline of effort required on our part.  We sense that and it makes us uncomfortable.  Often contemporary Christians try to relive the first flush of spiritual fervor by attending more conferences, or more renewal events. 

That is no substitute for simple spiritual discipline.  Pray the Daily Office.  Read Scripture. Sing praise to the Lord. Practice the awareness of His Presence.  Meet frequently with the Saints.  Pray for one another.  Become aware of the need to lead a more disciplined life.  Pursue love.  Seek the spiritual gifts.

Teresa tells her sisters, “Believe me, what matters is not whether or not we wear a religious habit; it is whether we try to practice the virtues, and make a complete surrender of our wills to God and order our lives as His Majesty ordains: let us desire that not our wills, but His will be done.”[x]

She cries out, “How I wish our [love] would make us dissatisfied with this habit of always serving God at a snail’s pace!  As long as we do that we shall never get to the end of the road. And as we seem to be walking along and getting fatigued all the time—for, believe me, it is an exhausting road—we shall be very lucky if we escape getting lost.”[xi]

The essence of the Third Mansion is this:  It is a Mansion, that is, a place of development, a stage in the Interior Castle.  Whether or not our spirituality matches that of her sisters, she would call us once more to understand that, “Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,” to be humble before our God, and to surrender our wills to Him and once more to renew our spiritual disciplines.

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[i] Psalm 112:1 

[ii] Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, ed. & trans. E. Allison Peers, (New York: Doubleday, 1989), p. 56

[iii] Ibid. p. 60

[iv] Psalm 144:3

[v] Teresa, p. 61

[vi] Peter Kreeft, Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal’s Pensées, (San Franscico: Ignatius Press, 1993), p. 232

[vii] Ibid. p. 234-233

[viii] I John 3:19

[ix] Teresa, p. 61

[x] Ibid. p. 65

[xi] Ibid.

The Gift of Recollection

Recollection is the simple action of calling yourself consciously into the Presence of God.  Acknowledge to Whom you are talking.  Be awake, be aware of His Presence as you begin your prayers.  The basis for recollection is twofold: Penitence, and Holy Detachment.  But our experience of both is always partial and incomplete.

I have tried to achieve perfect penitence.  The deeper I dig the more I find.  There is no way to confess all one’s sins.  No sooner are we through than something else pops up.  It is rather like the child’s toy with colored pegs in a board and a wooden mallet.  Strike down one, up pops another.  In the end, part of my confession must be that my confession, by force of nature, is incomplete.  I do my best and rely on mercy, grace, and the Blood of Christ to cover the imperfection of my confession.  I pray, “For these and all other sins which I cannot now remember, I am truly sorry” (BCP p. 447).  Even at that, retrospectively I wonder if I am sorry enough.  “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (Jer. 17:9). 

One cannot boast of one’s confession.  God knows the heart.  There are no merits from penitence that purchase the Presence of God.  The Presence is pure gift and comes at the mercy of the crucified Christ.  Can it be any other way?  Still we are called to enter into penitence as a doorway through which we must pass, muddled or not.  At least do your best, and do not willfully hold back anything from your God who loves you.

Holy Detachment is also by nature incomplete.  In the words of Henry Suso, “No matter how much one abandons, one repeatedly finds more of one’s self to abandon.”  Yet clinging to the materialism of our age, to our anxieties and worries, only blocks the entry of God.  Make your surrender as best you can.  Take whatever clings to you, whatever nags at your spirit and put it down at the foot of the cross.  Make your surrender at least for the present moment, for the now, and push all the cares of the world out of your heart for the time of prayer.  The more we try to live in the state of detachment from the cares of this world, trusting in grace, the happier we will be.  The more we embrace holy detachment, the more we will make our souls ready for the gift of the Presence of God.

The Presence of God is a gift.  It is a gift given in the Incarnation of Christ, “Lo, I am with you always”  (Mt. 28:20).  The Presence of God is the fundamental reality that is the ground of our existence, “In Him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).  The Psalmist cries out, “Where can I go then from Your Spirit?  Where can I flee from Your Presence?  If I climb up to heaven, you are there.  If I make the grave my bed, you are there also.  If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand hold me fast” (Psalm 139:6-9).  From a spiritual perspective, the Presence of God all around us is a given.  We do not need to practice the Presence of God.  Rather we are called to practice the awareness of that Presence from Whom there is no escape.

That is only half of the secret, and secret it is.  Paul’s word for it was mystery.  Paul testifies that to the saints, “God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).  The fact is that not only do we live in God, God also lives in us.  Jesus said, “At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:20).  At what day?  That day is declared by Jesus in John 14:16-17, “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”  At the moment of our entry into personal faith in Jesus Christ the living God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world, the Spirit of God makes His home in our hearts. 

Paul speaks forth this glad truth; “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.  Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.  And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness” (Rom. 8:9-10).  If by faith you have the Spirit of Jesus within you, you have also Jesus Himself within you and you have also the Father of lights dwelling in your soul, for God cannot be divided.  Jesus speaks the simple truth, “you will know that I am in My Father, and you in me, and I in you.”  Penitence and detachment make the way clear for the humble acknowledgment that we not only dwell in God, but that He dwells in us: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Recollection starts with the acceptance of the spiritual reality as a given.  There is nothing you need to do about it.  It just is.  Recollection calls to mind the perpetual Presence of God all around us and within us.  At the beginning of each time of prayer, of each approach to God, recall to mind that He is present all around you, right beside you and within you, within your very souls.  He is the liveable, breathable medium of our lives. 

There are varying levels of awareness in recollection.  Clearly the nature of our penitence and detachment will affect the depth of our recollection.  So also will the level of our experience.  Practice the awareness of the Presence of God by deliberately, consciously, recollecting yourself in His Presence when you pray and at other times on and off throughout the day.  The more you surrender yourself to the Presence of God without and within, the deeper will be your experience of Him.  Christ became incarnate and died for this purpose, that we might live consciously in union with God.         

Snakes and Vipers and Poisonous Creatures

A Reflection on Elements of Warfare in Teresa of Avila’s “Interior Castle”

You and I have had our share of wrestling with the snakes and vipers and poisonous creatures; but many children of the world, always giving into temptation, have no awareness of the role of tempters.  For the children of the world temptation and tempters are a joke.  Alfie’s song in My Fair Lady tells the story:

The Lord above made liquor for temptation,
To see if man could turn away from sin.
The Lord above made liquor for temptation, but
With a little bit o' luck,
With a little bit o' luck,
When temptation comes you'll give right in![i]

We live in a dangerous world.  And the dangers that confront us can be lethal.  Surrender to Alfie’s temptation can lead to ruined marriages, abused children, loss of jobs, and ultimately loss of life itself.  The joke is no joke.

Isaiah describes this world of ours as a Habitation of Dragons:

Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,

nettles and thistles in its fortresses.

It shall be the habitation of dragons

a court of owls.

And wild animals shall meet with howlers;

the satyr shall cry to his fellow;

indeed, there the night hag settles

and finds for herself a resting place.[ii]

We live our lives in the habitation of dragons, in the den of snakes and vipers and poisonous creatures, and when we approach the door of our Interior Castle they enter along with us.  By our long unperceptive association with them they have in a sense earned the right of entrance.   Our settled habits and accepted weaknesses are dangerous.  Teresa tells us that we are so accustomed to living with that vile horde that they enter the first rooms of the castle along with us, and make it difficult for us to “appreciate the beauty of the castle or to find any peace within it.”[iii]

Teresa gives us notice, “Remember that in few of the mansions of this castle are we free from struggles with devils,”[iv] and that “the devil’s intentions are always very bad, he has many legions of evil spirits in each room to prevent souls from passing from one (mansion) to another, and as we, poor souls, fail to realize this we are tricked by all kinds of deceptions.”[v]

            C. S. Lewis rightly remarks, “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils.  One is to disbelieve in their existence.  The other is to believe, and to feel and excessive and unhealthy interest in them.  They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”[vi] 

As twenty-first century Anglican Christians, we are much more apt to err on the side of ignoring the reality of devils, than being spooked by Teresa’s clear teaching in this area.  The reason for Teresa’s concern is the negative effect that these devils have on our spiritual perception.  She says, “(I hardly know how to explain myself) because there are so many bad things—snakes and vipers and poisonous creatures—which have come in with the soul that they prevent it from seeing the light.”[vii]   Indeed, “being among such poisonous things, it (the soul) cannot, at some time or another, escape being bitten by them.”[viii]  That may at first glance be uncomfortable, but it is very important.  To change the analogy, if I know where the poison ivy is, most of the time I will try to avoid walking barefoot in it.  Most of the time.  On the other hand we have a propensity to think somehow that we are immune and become careless.

Teresa tells us that “There are a multitude of ways in which he (the devil) can deceive us, and gradually make his way into the castle, and until he is actually there we do not realize it.”[ix]  Our own spiritual experience should tell us that our early warning signals need to be finely tuned.  When the moment comes that we realize we have been bitten by poisonous vipers it is time for us once more to visit the Room of Self-knowledge.  When we have been snake bitten, it is instructive to start where we are and trace our steps backward.  It is rather like trying to find something you have lost.  Walk backward in your  memory and try to find where that particular temptation began to arise.  Sometimes we don’t have to look very far; but at other times we may indeed pull on the end of that thread of memory and unravel a whole sequence of uncomfortable events.

There is a marvellous scene in the movie ‘The Iron Lady’ in which Lady Margaret Thatcher comments on habits.  She says, “Watch your thoughts for they become words.  Watch you words for they become actions.  Watch your actions for they become habits.  Watch your habits for they become your character, and watch your character for it becomes your destiny!”[x]  Our society tends to look for the origin of our problems in our feelings, but what biblical basis is there for this?  Jesus didn’t ask Peter, James, Andrew, or Judas how they felt about things; he gave them a choice, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”[xi] 

It is not that feelings have no importance, after all even a casual reading of the Psalms will make it clear that we are to take our feelings to the God who is the mender of broken hearts, and it is clear that feelings, both negative and positive can be a driving force in our lives, particularly when we don’t recognize and understand them.  Emotions run riot are a symptom of spiritual snake bite.  Note the Biblical emphasis: We are to rule our feelings; our feelings are not to rule us.  “A man without self-control is a city broken into and left without walls,”[xii] and “Be angry and sin not,”[xiii] and “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”[xiv]   At every step of our life looking backwards and forwards we have the responsibility that comes from making choices, and each choice is an act of the will.

The search for the knowledge and Presence of God will lead us from time to time back to that room of self-knowledge.   A burst of ill-temper may be only the result of not enough sleep and a poor diet indicating a need for better care for some of the simple basics of life.  On the other hand a burst of ill-temper may uncover a whole thread of unresolved and unforgiven things that need to be resolved.  Some of these things may reach far back into our childhood and to the models set by our parents. 

It is a grace to hear the Lord say, "What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge'?  3 As I live, declares the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel.”[xv]  Through self-knowledge and the grace of God we can arm ourselves in the battle against the vipers, and by grace rule our feelings. 

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[i] Alan Jay Lerner, “My Fair Lady”, 1964

[ii] Isaiah 35: 13-14 (Note that the night hag in Hebrew is Le-Leeth, from which we get Lilith

[iii] Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, E. Allison Peers, trans, and ed. (New York; Doubleday, 1989, p. 33

[iv] Ibid. p.41

[v] Ibid. p.40

[vi] C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).    p. 15

[vii] Teresa, p. 40

[viii] Ibid. p. 41, (bracket added for clarity)

[ix] Ibid. p. 42

[x] “The Iron Lady”, Pathé, 20^th Century Fox, 2012

[xi] Luke 9:23

[xii] Proverbs 25:28

[xiii] Psalm 4:4

[xiv] 2 Timothy 1:6-7  

[xv] Ezekiel 18:2-3  

Teresa of Avila: Reflections on the Interior Castle

In Teresa of Avila’s “Interior Castle” there are seven mansions.  Each mansion represents a particular development in the life of prayer.  Teresa wrote primarily for the nuns under her care.  Nuns and monks have made a basic commitment to live in a community whose life is structured around the seven times of prayer that make up the Daily Offices.  That commitment to community and regular prayer forms the necessary foundation for the contemplative theology of Teresa.

The great mystery of Christian life is that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit,[i] and through the gift of the Spirit the Father and the Son come to us and make their home within us.[ii]  That is not only an objective fact based on Holy Scripture and the doctrine of the Church, but also a fact that is meant to be experienced subjectively in our personal experience in real time.

The Quaker Thomas Kelly wrote “Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which may continuously return.  Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home unto Itself.”[iii]  That Light is Christ Jesus our Lord.  He is the light of the world.

In her book The Interior Castle, Teresa of Avila tells us, “I began to think of the soul as if it were a castle made of a single diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are mansions.”[iv]  She goes on to say, “In speaking of the soul we must always think of it as spacious, ample and lofty; and this can be done without the least exaggeration, for the soul’s capacity is much greater than we can realize, and this Sun, Which is in the palace, reaches every part of it.”[v]

However not every soul is a glorious castle.   With its central dwelling place and surrounding rooms the medieval castle is an image of the interior life; but what of the ruined castle with its crumbling stairs and battlements and all of its wooden floors long since rotted out?  Evelyn Underhill remarks, “Some souls, like some people, can be slummy anywhere.  There is always a raucous and uncontrolled voice ascending from the basement, and a pail of dirty water at the foot of the stairs.”[vi]

The first order of business with the soul is housecleaning.  John testifies, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.  If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”[vii]

We come to the door of the castle through the grace of forgiveness and our acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord.  That is only safe way to approach the door.  Teresa tells us, “As far as I can understand, the door of entry into this castle is prayer and meditation.”[viii]

If we are going to enter through the door we have to purposefully approach the door.  Prayer, to be prayer at all must be both conscious and intentional.  Teresa says,  “If a person does not think Whom he is addressing, and what he is asking for, and who it is that is that is asking and of Whom he is asking it, I do not consider that he is praying at all even though he may be constantly moving his lips.”[ix]  St. Benedict tells us, “Whenever we want to ask some favour of a powerful man, we do it humbly and respectfully for fear of presumption.  How much more important, then, to lay our petitions before the Lord God of all things with the utmost humility and sincere devotion?”[x]  What tends to be lost in our age is a sense of awe, and love without awe is a poor counterfeit.

There is in St. Teresa a fusion of awe and familiarity with her Lord.  She refers to her Lord as “His Majesty,” and at the same time refers to Him as “the Beloved.”  Too often in prayer we strive to reach that place of warm familiarity and intimacy without realizing that holy awe is an absolute necessity; and those who shy away from holy awe do not in truth recognize the God they seek to approach.  Teresa tells us that if we do not recognize the person we are addressing we are not praying, just moving our lips. 

That acknowledgment of awe runs through all of the Psalms and is a fundamental part of prayer.  It is not just a sense of awe in relationship with God in Trinity in Unity, or a sense of awe in God the Father alone.  We are particularly prone to sentimentalize our relationship with Jesus, but of Him the Psalmist declares;

Psalm 110   Dixit Dominus

1          The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, *

            until I make your enemies your footstool.”

2          The LORD will send the scepter of your power out of 
            Zion, * saying, “Rule over your enemies round about 
            you.

3          Princely state has been yours from the day of your 
            birth; * in the beauty of holiness have I begotten 
            you, like dew from the womb of the morning.”

4          The LORD has sworn and he will not recant: *

            “You are a priest for ever after the order of 
            Melchizedek.”

5          The Lord who is at your right hand

            will smite kings in the day of his wrath; *

            he will rule over the nations.

6          He will heap high the corpses; *

            he will smash heads over the wide earth.

7          He will drink from the brook beside the road; *

            therefore he will lift high his head.[xi]

A common problem with contemporary Christians is the tendency to enter through the gate and never go beyond the courtyard.  Teresa tells us that, “Many souls remain in the outer court of the castle, which is the place occupied by the guards; they are not interested in entering it.”[xii]  Part of the problem is that they have not been taught to enter the castle itself.  All of their attention has been focussed on the necessity of entering through the gate, rather than dwelling in the castle, and much effort is spent on attempting to relive the initial experience of conversion, rather than pursuing the more arduous business of living with Christ in the interior of the castle. 

Teresa tells us that many “reptiles” also enter through the gates with us.  By reptiles Teresa is referring to the thousand preoccupations of worldly people “for they are very much all the time filled with their preoccupations, for they are very much attached to them, and, where their treasure is, there is their heart also.”[xiii]  Prayer at this stage remains difficult and arduous because of the variety of distractions that come from our attachment to the world.  Entry into the first floor of the castle is no protection.  Teresa tells us that the reptiles come through the very doors of the castle with us, “Eventually they enter the first rooms on the lowest floor, but so many reptiles get in with them that they are unable to appreciate the beauty of the castle or to find any peace within it.”[xiv]

There is one room on the first floor of the castle that is most important, and that is the room of self-knowledge: Teresa says, “I do not know if I have explained this clearly; self-knowledge is so important that, even if you were raised right up to the heavens, I should like you never to relax your cultivation of it; so long as we are on earth, nothing matters more to us than humility.”[xv]  You will visit this room frequently and occasionally spend a great deal of time there.  “Yet one can have too much of a good thing, as the saying goes.”[xvi] 

It is in the room of self-knowledge that humility is acquired, yet if you gaze only at yourself you will lose perspective and perhaps even become prey to the Accuser who is always looking for an open window to enter.  You must leave the room of self-knowledge seeking the vision of God and his glory in order to even understand the meaning of your self-knowledge.  “So long as we are buried in the wretchedness of our earthly nature these streams [of misery] of ours will never disengage themselves from the slough of cowardice, pusillanimity and fear.  We shall always be glancing around and saying: “Are the people looking at me or not?” “If I take a certain path shall I come to any harm?” “Dare I begin such and such a task?” “Is it pride that is impelling me to do so?”[xvii]

Our context within the created order must also be understood, and understood with both balance and appreciation for the wonders that God has made, including ourselves, and with an understanding of the nature of the evil that we encounter in the world.  It is not enough to view ourselves in isolation, although that is essential; one must view one’s self in the context of humankind.  Benedictine balance calls us to moderation and balance, not to a focus on grim self-knowledge alone.  It is important to accept the grace of God already evident in the experience of each one of us.  St. Paul speaks a great truth when he says, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.”[xviii]  We have come this far by grace, through the gate, across the castle grounds, through the castle door itself and into the Room of Self-knowledge. 

That in itself is a great accomplishment.  But we must not rest there but hear also that our God proclaims that we are precious in his eyes, honoured, and that he loves us;[xix] and even more than that, through the effective work of redemption and grace we are already beautiful in his sight.  Self-knowledge demands that we not only see our need for penitence and transformation but that we also see the glory of that ongoing transformation already at work in our lives.

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[i] I Corinthians 6:19-20  

[ii] John 14:23 “Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

[iii] Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion, (New York: Harper and Row, 1941), p. 29

[iv] Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, E. Allison Peers, trans, and ed. (New York; Doubleday, 1989),  p. 28

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Evelyn Underhill, The House of the Soul, (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1930), p. 19

[vii] 1 John 1:7-9  

[viii] Teresa. p. 31

[ix] Ibid. p. 32

[x] The Rule of St. Benedict, CH. 20:1,2

[xi] The Book of Common Prayer 1979, p. 753-754

[xii] Teresa. p. 31

[xiii] Ibid. p. 32

[xiv] Ibid. p. 33

[xv] Ibid. p. 38

[xvi] Ibid.

[xvii] Ibid. p. 39

[xviii] I Corinthians 15:10

[xix] Isaiah 43:4