on st teresa and st joan of the cross and welcome over sure alarm prince who are listening him through team on why don't we begin with just a second of silence to go a bit towards that center
where we do encounter the spouse

for me it's a real joy to talk about john of the cross teresa joy and in honor and also with you were clearly interested in of them and the contemplative life otherwise you wouldn't be here they are two giants of the spiritual way
we are a little diagram on the board of with the cairo and them within the a fortune still re re spreading out what to suggest that even in their lifetime they attain to a profound union with god i think there's just a concern
census about that and we're a little below perhaps so they as great teachers are can help us attain to a deeper communion with god so we got a wonderful topics for these gatherings and i think for the rest of our
life really one could well spent a lifetime on teresa or jump across certainly on this theme of our contemplative prayer and it's precisely of our contemplative prayer about which they are so of insightful and so helpful and done they can get a sir
with the center of course both of them are doctors of the church both through these centuries have been able to help so many to journey deeper into communion with god we're talking about our contemplative life that to of exotic
raise it might suggest something esoteric and almost drastic but what we really want to talk about is just our relationship with god how do we live our lord's first commandment to love god with all our hearts all of our souls our minds over spirit said whole
and if we grow with his presumably as something that's developmental then presumably it also can transforms this communion with god and presumably there are better ways to journey into god and waves and aren't so helpful
well this is what a child across and trees can very much help us with sure set straight path right into divine presence
oh it could be argued that contemplative life isn't everything so our lord did add that second commandment likened to the first and that can send to interpersonal love and gets to do or liturgy and social justice issues etc we won't say that much in these
conferences about those topics and recent jaunt across to say that much about of bad whole area we grow always say a horizontal area not because we think they are unimportant or they did important but one can't address everything of the same time or but what they do address
this is clearly of of fundamental importance and just suppose we are able to enter more deeply into communion
did into union with god presumably from there we could love our neighbor to do better as ourselves presumably then questions or interpersonal relationship were the how of living to bring liturgy or social justice or whatever else we would be at work you do
and regarding so this topic isn't unrelated to the other or but we can't claim that were exhausted everything terms of talking about our contemplative life and how these two great masters can be the steeper in town communion with god
they are able to guide us not because of they've done lots of book learning and their doctorates on this topic and done can discourse in the air you did manner but if they themselves have made the journey and this is experiential for them and not only made
gifted at ten reflecting on their journey articulating it of being able to spell out stages of that journey things to avoid things to do with cetera are they're very gifted a nurse i think also they're very complimentary it's fascinating that one is a woman and wonders
a man and the deep friends
and in one way charted the cross was confessor and spiritual director for theresa but braxton were profoundly she was teacher and guide for him when it was she who brought him into the carbon like before him and sentra but you do at that a masculine feminine awning busoni my approach
so that i think there's a wonderful compliment karate to their western men to their teaching
up the wonderful good news that they both proclaimed by the first of all is that we are called to this deepest communion with god christianity isn't just about being respectable and doing proper things should keeping the ten commandments into but in spout because
humming demonise it's about becoming god nothing less and well how we're interested in so many things where they should be of some interest to us well their central message is go for it it's for all of us and go for it seriously and go for it in
the most solid and to write direct way avoiding the young and pads off into the young brush to be quick sand etc
they provide up to central images that i find very helpful and also very complimentary of of course for century sept certainly for her classic a central images that of the interior castle sometimes she described it as a goal
and castle with all these two will sometimes is crystal
castle but that's what our interiority that's what our heart that's what our spiritual life and can be conceived as and she says don't take this literally obviously there's not a drawbridge a scenario pyramids etc but this is a way to articulate this d mystery whoever am i if i do star
rt journey inside with i find not only through this glorious luminous castle bush with dodgers dawkins dark things around
and sometimes sees serpents and snakes and vipers etc even get into the castle in the first rooms but her bedroom or good news is the farther we go into more luminous who gets because in the same a central chamber there's the spouse or willingness to to fill us with
this super abundance of love and transforming union so that are pretty up message agenda the cross has a slight variation of that the he says imagine your spiritual life imagine your interior life as a sacred mountain
with different levels in town but at the summit of the mountain again yes the spouse awaiting us so if we can only get up that mountain and and
so it's about a journey that both of them propose you might explore for yourself which of these images works best for maybe sometimes the wine and sometimes the other but i think if nothing else in this weekend really claim one or both of these images and and let it for them or issue
we nourish your journey inspire you are
because they're both profoundly out typical will not find it down both images all the way through certainly christian mystic literature and not just christian
so they're very deep they can be very helpful for us and again up if when punters that they're such good news i think if we look at our basic self understanding that the modern age suggests it's a pretty dark one
if we go inside princess if you read done ts eliot's early poetry before he becomes a christian his classic is wasteland and that's about the world and society at art in your time it's also about the human heart is simply a wasteland
and his sprays to introduce the whole use that phrase from conradt the horror the horror
and that's what we find in our world that's what we find also in our inner life so i think much of modern life is just fleeing from our own interior yourself it just so horrendous in them another run image from allen ginsberg who recently died
died his son coney island of the mind or hello
but to justice chaos of stupid idiotic kind of fella
amusement park within
ah doesn't that really wants to cover up again the dreadful horror of it all if you take the basic radiant presupposition if you really get into the depths you run into the libido and the it all this renders the dark stuff and you try to control it with the superego
when they go in syllabus here can explain more about that but i kid but it's not a very happy it's a fascinating world to explore but you don't expect at a certain point to find the divine bridegroom and you don't expect to be different i still not enjoy
and might love but this is what these two are claiming
so what to one i can even in their lifetime they attain that and then they had of reach down and what a draw us up through their teaching and now through their prayers to allow that to happen
that's basically what these days or about that in an ongoing way and i think some of you and been studying perhaps for years of this wisdom so in suck just about as important a task that as we could possibly undertake with perhaps
so while certainly to have the best guides that christianity has to offer
you should we do a little self self introduction and a little sharing of introduction i'll start and then we'll turn off our tape is just have to be tremendously down but just so we're not total strangers to each other many of us already know each other but perhaps with some so
very briefly i encountered these two back in college and fifty eight most of you here already even born and item there were very important for me and they helped bring me to of the catholic church i was just excited by this is profound contemplative
the depth of but aside from that they brought me into new commander me because i've found that but i wanted to do with my life was to pursue this contemplative path and up so are efficient here had quite a a carmelite shape to it because our father joseph deamer and so
now when about to wreck looses he was are not as faster and he very much used teresa and joe the cross up for which i'm extremely grateful and then they served me in the many years since and up on i was for about six years up at berkeley at our house they're teaching at the graduate theological you
new and in one of the courses history christian spirituality was great joy to teach these two out then i came here and eighty seven and die they're not the only teachers of my life and for some areas i think they don't have that much to say again for oh liturgy or into union needs
your crystal dynamics or social justice again to go back to that but for this
let's say this deepest
yearning on challenge for us and task and vocation i think i'm very very soul and so few years a few words of me